Pardon the wall of text. I get the urge to go all analytical sometimes. Anyway...... I used to be supremely confident about the Wii. But since E3, I've been having more and more doubts. I mean, I'm fairly certain that it will build a niche for itself, but I'm not that sure about whether or not there even is a casual market to target. Nintendo recently compared their marketing drive for the Wii to "marketing cosmetics to men." I'm wondering, can Nintendo even get past the social stigma associated with gaming? Especially since gaming is considered by many in the Western world to be more of a guilty pleasure than a recreational activity (i.e. it's ok to do it in your spare time, just don't expected to be thought of as "cool" if you start talking about it--or, God forbid, praising its virtues--in social situations). Japan is different; the Wii will probably come out #1 in Japan. But in the West, it's not the DS that has been leading sales for the past two years, but rather the PSP (at least, until the release of the DS Lite). Regarding the Xbox 360, to me, the 360 is looking more and more like the PS2 did during its early years, mainly because it caters to the happy middle. And, very importantly, the 360 is virtually synonymous with the term "online gaming" thanks to the public praise heaped on Xbox Live. Perhaps it's not as strong an association as the one the PS2 had with DVD playback, but I think "online functionality" is going to be a more valuable association than "BluRay," at least at this early stage in the format war. Japan notwithstanding, I think the 360 could really take off in the next year and follow a path very similar to the one the PS2 took, albeit somewhat scaled down. The PS3, I think, is just going in the completely wrong direction in their marketing. They're targeting an upscale consumer market, telling us that the PS3 is a high-end electronic device. Unfortunately, while the label "high-end electronic device" is largely positive, it has a connotation of exclusivity that could keep lower-scale consumers at arm's length by inciting a knee-jerk reaction of "No way, I can't afford that" without even being told the price. The PlayStation brand's strong enough to perhaps overcome this, so at any other time I would say Sony might still have this generation in the bag, but no one can deny a wave of negative news regarding the PS3 recently, and it's put a pretty huge damper on excitement for Sony. I mean, it's TGS now, and although Sony fanboys are all out in force in System Wars, the Sony message boards (both here and elsewhere) are still displaying none of the excitement that preceded their E306 press conference. That tells me that the brand name has lost some of its sparkle, and not just because of bad PS3 news, but bad Sony news in general: the whole rootkit DRM fiasco last year (my office laughed quite a bit at that), the Sony batteries igniting laptops, the poor initial reviews for BluRay, etc. Sony also lost its association with portable audio to the iPod while Microsoft, with its PlaysForSure branding, is #2 behind Apple (although this is admittedly a fairly minor factor).
XBOX360 - I didn't own a XBOX, since most of its games I wanted to play were multi-plat, mostly on PC. But XBOX360 is quite different, game wise, it interests me alot more, and makes it a must buy later on. Games like Dead Rising and Lost planet, as well as many other exclusives look preety awesome.
Wii - Well, I'm still "meh" on it. It might be awesome, or gameplay might get boring and gimmicky swining around the remote for all the games. I have no opinion either way right now. Nintendo did get some better support this time around, but I don't like how they traded gameplay for graphics, its possible to get amazing gameplay and graphics on the other 2 consoles, but yes gameplay is more important and all, but meh.
PS3 - Well, I own and love tons of PS2 games. I will admit Sony has gotten alot of bad rep over the days. The price is preety big, but I still support them. I will buy a PS3 some time next year, since there are already loads of games I've wanted on it. MGS4, DMC4, now Ninja Gaiden Sigma, just to list a few. (Yes Ninja Gaiden was the one XBOX game that I was never able to play).
Brief, but oh well. I want a PS3 and a 360, iffy about the Wii.
Marketing wise, I don't care, sales wise, I don't care. As long as I enjoy the console, and it has a steady stream of original games, nothing else matters. (except like prices and stuff :P)
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