Nintendo has a history of making outdated consoles in terms of techonolgy.

Nintendo 64 - It used cartridges even thought the entire music, movie and gaming industry was moving forward in favor of optical media. That decision alone cost them very heavily when a ton of their developers defected over to Sony like Square Soft who said they couldn't make the same game on a cartdriges because of size and you can't switch them out without restting the system. Also these cartdridges were very expensive to produce.

Gamecube - Nintendo finally got an optical disc but it was a minidisc even though the entire industry had adopted the DVD format. DVD Movies could not be played on the Cube. Online gaming was never part of the original design and very few developers ever supported it when they later released additional adapters.

http://zdmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/Podcasts/071307.mp3

Listen around 2/3 of the way and you hear them talk about Killzone 2.

1) Gears of War like cover system but in FULL first person view.

2) Massive enviroment damage you can shoot out individual tiles and stuff.

3) Post processing elements and colors still primative and looks much brighter when off.

I am very excited about this game now!!!

Here are some PS3 sales numbers:

3.5 million PS3 sold worldwide as of end June 2007

1.5 million PS3 in North America

5.5 million SHIPPED worldwide

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ps3)

Basic Math: 2 million PS3 still to be sold. (sitting on store shelves or in warehouses)

approximately 1.5 million in NA and 500K in other territories left to be sold

60 GB has been DISCONTINUED meaning no longer being produced in factories and replaced by 80 GB SKU production.

Conclusion: Sony is looking to sell anywhere from 1.5 to 2 million PS3 sold in by the end of this month or August when they introduce the 80GB SKU. That is a massive number in the middle of summer which is a slow time of the year for sales. Even if Sony sells only 1.5 million units in North America by the end of August then a 3 million user base in NA is a quite impressive considering Microsoft has sold about 5 million 360's in NA and this is their home turf and major sellling point.

Result: Microsoft sales have declined since January parallel to PS3's decline but Sony can quickly make up the gap with this new clearance sale. Microsoft won't sell many units until end of September when Halo 3 or arrive unless they plan to announce a price drop in August.

Bottom line: Sony is not that far behind as most people will have believe.

I can't say about you but my beef with Nintendo is that they keep making the same game over and over again. Microsoft and Sony look pale in comparison for milking a franchise to death. Halo will have 3 games in 6 years not bad Metal Gear will be like 4 in 10 years. even Final Fantasy and all of it's dozen entry are nothing next to Mario and the 100+ spin offs they have made in the last 15 years so. They have Mario as a filler for every genre. You wants sports then we got Mario tennis, soccer, baseball, football, racketball, his ball, your ball, my ball...arrghhh you name it and chances are Nintendo made it. But it doesn't stop there Mario racing, Mario RPG, Mario fighting, Mario this, Mario that on and on forever.

Please I am sick of the same character in every signle game so it's time for a simple change. I am not a kid anymore and stuff like "Okey dokey!", "Woohoo!", "Let's a-go!" don't retain my attention anymore. It's been 10 years now since I've moved on from Nintendo and I plan on never looking back. The Master Chiefs, Solid Snakes, Gordan Freemans, Tommy Vercettis and Marcus Phoenixs of the world have become better friends to me now. Sorry but Mario and I are no longer hommies. Although I wouldn't mind starting a diolgue with Link again if he was to someday escape from Nintendo's jail and make a mature appearance somewhere else.

I own both systems and would hate to see one of these two drop out of the race and be left will huge piece of paperweight on my shelf so I am going to suggest some strategies for each to really make a difference this generation.

Microsoft Xbox 360

Now eveyone will say well the 360 is leading the market and dominating PS3 but remember it came out one full year ahead and so many titles under it's belt and still struggling in the sales department as they have only sold 1.6 million in 6 months. Those are very bad numbers for a market leading console in it's second year. So clearly they have some issues to resolve and here are some suggestions.

1. Hardware Failure - Extending the warranty simply won't cut it unless Microsoft becomes up front and honest about it. They need to make it clear what exactly went wrong and the components or parts at fault for the defects. Also they need tell us in clear terms what they have changed in the manufacturing or plan to do and how soon will they have a fixed and resolved model out in stores for retail. See right now the perception is that 360 is a defective product and Microsoft will pay to replace but where is the information about how soon can we see this defect being fixed. Nobody is gonna want to purchase a lemon until they know for a fact the issues have been resolved and all problems have been fixed. This is the reason why a reliable carmaker like Toyota is outselling it's competetion even though the likes of Kia, Hyundai etc...are handing out 10 years 100,000 mile warranty. Nobody wants a warranty on something they think will fail in the first place.

2. Price Cut - Sony made their move and now Microsoft needs to answer back but $100 price cut will hurt Microsoft and put them further into the RED. I think they can still afford such hit especially with the ressources they have at their disposal. Best thing they can do is just discontinue the Core system once and for all because it really has no value without standard HDD and wireless controller. Even if you drop that thing to $199 I just don't think it's a good idea. Some people think it will give Nintendo some serious competetion but the long term effect of no standardized model with HDD will hurt Microsoft. Just axe that thing and drop the price on the $399 to $299 and Elite down to $399.

3. Exclusives - Stop trying to buyout out every studio out there cause you bound to overpay some of these greedy moneygrabbers for making mediocre titles. You already have a ton of good games coming out this fall like Halo 3, Bioshock, GTA IV, Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey. Trying to buy everything in sight will turn away some good developers who think their product will not sell in the middle of the massive lineup you have for the holidays. Gamers can only afford so much and some hardcores are looking at upwards of $500 investmest this Christmas for all the titles I mentioned above. That is some serious money and not alot of people have that kind of cash. You need variety best example is Sony has some good action/adventure type games like Heavenly Sword and Uncharted and platformer like Rachet and Clank. But 360 has nothing to show in those categories because it's lineup is top heavy on FPS and RPGs. Where is your Banjo game from Rare or Alan Wake?

Now Sony Playstation 3

1. Software - For god sake where are the freaking games you promised? Killzone looks great but still 1.5 to 2 years away from release. MGS4 is going to be sometime early 2008. Final Fantasy is a no show at E3 so I guess they are still in development meaning next year. GT5 can own anything from hereon after the stuff you showed at E3 but it might not come out until 2010 if you keep pushing for teaser stuff like GT HD and now Prologue. This isn't the Harry Potter's franchise with 10 books to go through before the real action starts. Just make one game and put it out any time within the next year. Heavenly Sword, Uncharted and Rachet look great but none of that stuff will sell your system like hotcakes. Those are dessert items for guilty pleasures but where is the main course? You messed up by not locking up GTA back in 2001. Should have just thrown everything at Take Two and bought them outright. Halo is great and dandy to kickoff a system or make huge cash in one day with a sequel but the real thick stuff is in GTA the real pimp daddy of gaming. Who would have thought they'd sell 10 million copies a piece for like 3 games that are essential one giant chapter? Nobody has ever printed so much dough from expansion packs of a game. This one single game could have pushed you ahead of everyone else. No wonder Microsoft paid 50 mil large for freaking episode stuff like new missions and some new outfits maybe. Damn that is a whole lot of money for DLC when it's not even a full expansion pack like you got with Vice City and San Andreas. That is how big the GTA franchise has become it will sell like crack to street junkies this holiday season.

2. Price Cut - $499 is good start but what's up with the whole 60 GB model discontinue stuff? Just make a single SKU and slash the price by another $100 and you will finally be in business. 399 will sell your stuff regardless what MS does from thereon. Nobody expects you to match 360 dollar to dollar any time soon but at 400 your system plus Blue-Ray winning the format becomes a whole attractive to the general public. Trust me a ton of people want your machine more than the other guy's but the price is just to high for kids or even adults to pay for it at 500-600. There is a reason the 360 sales have cooled off in the last 6 months. Because people are saving up money and waiting for the price tag to come down before the massive sales rush begins. Look at how your sluggish sales just jumped so high after that announced semi-liquidation last week. Amazon has you sold out and major retailer outlet's are reporting the same. Please don't screw this up by going back to 599 and doing a bait and switch. You know your system is better product with far better techonolgy and reliability than the competetion so take that as your trump card and push your system to the masses and give them a reason to buy in huge numbers. At the end of the day Ferrari is a Ferrari, enough said just drop the price already.

3. Online - Xbox Live is the king of online gaming but you can change all that with your semi rip off Second Life called Home. No need to get embarassed because let's face it nobody really remember anymore what SL was based on in the first place. As long as Home can create a good enviroment for gamers to socialize and play from within then this while be hugely popular. Think of it like myspace 3D not the Sims PS3 version. CONTENT is what will drive this thing and if you can provide a ton of that especially insider stuff like virtual events and gatherings then it will make a lot of people jealous about your service which must be FREE. Giving developers there own little booths or spaces is a great idea like EA Sports arena with mini games. That is a good start but if you can get developers to have a full time presence within Home then that would real make your online stuff an exclusive in it's own way. Make so that industry news is first heard in Home and content like video stream find their way over very quickly. It's one thing to watch a video after downloading stuff from Xbox live but it would be another level of greatness to experience on the fly stuff and walk around tour different exibits. User genrerated content will make you a cult phenom if done right like youtube. Also make Home that standard loading window and start the XMB from within Home so when your PS3 starts it take yous directly to Home and everything moves from there. Oh yeah and make some money with massive tie in and hidden ads but please nothing weird like Viagra or something plastered on billboards no matter how much cash they throw at you. Also have some mods patroling the place so we don't have riots and silly stuff like what is happening in SL with floating ****

Anyways these are some of the thing I think both companies can do to make a push and sell more systems. Again I love both systems and will continue to support each so that I can have the best of both worlds.

Enjoy!!!

Halo 3 - Nice graphics upgrade same gameplay from beta that I played a month ago. Nothing new singleplayer mode is half decent nothing that will blow my head away. Expect some fun filled weekends and late nights with this game but not the same leve of craziness and appeal it once had.

Assasin's Creed - Looks ok for Prince of Persia clone plus GTA sanbox gameplay. Sword fighting pretty much canned animations but nicely put by Ms Raymond even sh*tty stuff sounds much more interesting coming from her mouth. Maybe it's the sex appeal of a semi attractive female developer talking smack. Makes a huge difference in a world dominated by geeks and nerds to see a girl stand her ground and hype stuff to a whole new degree. On side note someone needs to replace Peter Moore or Jack Tretton with Jade and you will be shocked by the amount of hype she can generate at E3 presentation next year. If I am going to be bored to death by someone throwing all sorts of mumbo jumbo sales numbers on a slide show then the least you can do is throw some eye candy while I die in my seat from boredom.

Killzone 2 - Good graphics, decent particle effects nothing that makes your head spin like they hyped it to be. Not as good as the trailer though but still impressive but 2 minutes of gameplay will not make me jump out and buy this stuff. I will wait for a better build to surface before I even think about this game again.

Crysis - Wow this stuff is the real deal and the graphics are amazing top-notch. Everything so realistic and detailed that could spend hours just exploring the island to see how everything looks in different light and angles. Too bad I don't have $2000 left in the bank to upgrade my PC so I'll take a raincheck for atleast 2 more years until I can afford a graphics card that can handle this stuff. I just recently upgraded my PC to fully optmize Half Life 2 and Doom 3 so I ain't building another one any time soon.

GTA IV - Liberty City with upgraded graphics. Nillo looks like crap compared to other guys from next gen games. Sorry Rage engine isn't all that great. Also where is the next step in gameplay ie GTA ONLINE? I don't want another larger map with more things crammed into tight space to make it look like so much is going on in the city. Until I see online component this another graphics upgrade only type game same as Halo 3. Nothing much different from the half dozen GTA games released on PS2.

Uncharted: Drake's Foture - Good idea bringing back adventure genre but gun fight and shooting never really works well in 3rd person view. Enviroments are very good and so much stuff on the screen in crisp clean look not as good as Crysis but still impressive especially from someone like Naughty Dog known for making cartoonish characters. Still good enough for me to play a few times.

Heavenly Sword - Nice God of War clone with good graphics and very nice combat system. However I smell over hyping by devs when they said later levels in the game has 1000 NPCs with indivudual AI on screen. That just killed any vibe this game had going with me. No way in hell they get that many guys on screen with AI to fight. Yes I could get a million DRONES and kill them in huge blood bath but no way have that many intelligent enemies on screen not until maybe PS4 or even 5.

MGS4 - Wow more CGI trailers from the same stuff Hideo showed us last year. It took them ONE FULL year to make another trailer? By this rate there is no way this game will launch in early 2008.

Honorble mentions: BioShock (decent concept), Mass Effect (Space RPG wow like no one ever thought of that before?)

Games I was allready going to buy before E3 2007: Unreal 3 (PC) HL Orange Box (PC) COD4 (PC).

Conclusion: E3 was stale and nothing exciting like what it used to be I still remember when Mario 64 or MGS2 was shown and how I got excited for those games. The shock and awe factor is no longer in this thing because devs are too sissy to show full ingame stuff to a wide audience. All you see is short controlled demos and then the excuse list from developers like they had no time or the game is unfinished or its pre-pre-alpha-pre-beta-pre-delta WTF does that crap mean anyways?

I am going to put the 360 and PS3 in storage for summer cause they gonna collect dust anyways. In the mean time I'm going to go back my old school stuff and first love Counterstrike which somehow manages to still retain my attention longer than any of these glossy dressed up games they call next gen.

Im out peace!!!

You guys didn't seem to get what this guy was saying. He wasn't disputing the fact that the scene was CGI. He was simply saying he preferred the art style and realistic colour choices ect. in that trailer as opposed to the actual game.Packt

Thank you. Exactly I what meant to say. I know it's CGI and everything but when you talk about ART DIRECTION, I think Bungie showed that style than changed it back to the Halo 1 style. I know people are complaining and whining so much about going back to the Halo roots but still why make a carbon copy? Yes the graphics are AWESOME but where is the progession of maturity over time.

For example: Killzone ART STYLE matches that CGI. The same gritty, smoke filled, grainy and dark visual style. Again this is not about graphics but we are talking ART design SPECIFICALLY.

I just thought the Halo 3 style would have a much more realistic approach. Vibrant colors espcially purple and lime green is nice but I thought next gen hardware was going to bring the REALISM effect. This kind of semi cartoonish style was sutiable for last gen hardware in order to make up for technological shortcomings.

I think that was a much better art style and color choice. I was wrong to think that Halo 3 would look that impressive. Not trying to hate but it makes you wonder why they showed that CGI stuff when they were going to take a different approach in terms of design.

Again I'm just talking about art style and now graphics. I would have liked a much more toned down style.

Also didn't Bungie say that Master Chief would be very roughed up? His armor would show massive wear and tear and now they are back to the shiny, neat clean polished look.

I thought fighting all those battles would really take it's toll on Chief and he would be mucher roughed up and dreary by now.

Let's cealr somethings here for people who don't read the news.

1) Sony is not losing $250 ANYMORE.

http://news.spong.com/article/13113?cb=184

It was actually making a profit for the last 3-4 months. With the %100 price drop Sony would be at NET COST TO COST.

2) Most analyst say $499 is still too high and PS3 need to drop down a bit to become affordable to the masses.

Again I've said this many time over, Sony was always looking for the "sweet spot" $299-399 which is where most consoles launch however the PS3 technology is so complex and hard to manufacture that is drove up cost way high. Sony clearly wants to get to the that price point and is trying to streamline production to be able to do so very quickly.

3) If Sony can reduce production cost by $100 in 7-8 months (Nov-July) then I think they can really cut some more in the next 5-6 month to have another price cut.

4) Look people Sony never wanted an expensive machine because they of all people know very clearly the market is favorable towards that mid level price 299-399. The only reason Microsoft is not up there with Sony at 499-599 is because they chose cheaper less realiable production methods and subsequently are paying the huge price now terms of warranty extensions.

Think about it Sony (1.2 billion) and Microsoft (1.05) will take similar losses now because of the warranties. However Sony comes out of it with an overall better piece of hardware with far greater technology and reliability. Everyone doubted Sony would survive this generation with all the negative press these pass few month but now we realize that one company took the easy and cheaper way and the other took criticism for building a cutting edge system and making it very durable. The design choices made by Sony have been very unpopular among the public but it looks like they were right about planning a system that would last 10 years and making tough decisions in order to accomplish such a life cycle. Kudos to Ken Kutaragi and his vision for the PS3!!!