Apparently the war is in full force and Microsoft’s Don Mattrick is ready to poke the flag in the ground and call it a sure fire victory (in so many words). He said he’s “willing to declare here today that Xbox 360 will sell more consoles worldwide this generation than PS3” (eurogamer)
They’re either not seeing the Wii as a competitor or are trying to avoid that evil word considering the growth of the tiny little console in the market. After telling the audience the Xbox 360 has already outpaced the PlayStation 3 and Wii he failed to mention the one-year head start the 360 had over its competitors.
There are, of course, bonuses to talking figures when you were first out of the gate. The interesting facts, which won’t present themselves for years now, will be the end unit sales figures for Wii, 360 and PlayStation 3 when all boxes are end-of-life’d. We’re sure to hear each side declare victory when they’ve decided when the war actually ends. In Microsoft’s eyes, the console war will probably end when they release the next-generation box, barring the fact that they should wait at least one year before claiming the title.
You can’t argue with the facts, Xbox 360 is doing very well in the United States (if we ignore Japan). The Nintendo Wii has sold 8.8 million units to the Xbox 360‘s 10.3 million units. How many units did the Xbox 360 have sold around the same time Nintendo boasts 8.8 million? Probably a bit less.
Press can be a great thing when you have numbers to play with and figures to skew. Oddly enough, if some of us are any indication, we’ve purchased multiple Xbox 360’s because of dead systems. Sure, we’re stupid for actually doing it, but those figures will work into the total units sold for the Xbox 360 hardware sales. Imagine, their failing systems may have actually boosted sales figures a bit; probably not statistically significant but funny non-the-less.
We can’t wait to see what type of numbers Sony and Nintendo are going to fling out. If we ask each competitor, we’re sure they’ll say we’re going to win the console war. Nintendo may just ask, “what console war? We just make game hardware” and you can’t fault them there!
Since the release of
Hey guys,
I missed last week’s comments so let me just add that I did indeed remove the PS4 camera plastic covers and it works well with other games/apps such as Playroom. Just Dance 2014 looks like it has not been tested/optimized at all as far as tracking is concerned on the PS4. Shame on me for getting it without researching it enough.
@PS4/XBone attach rates
I mentioned it last time but I will say it again. I try to buy as many physical copies of games as possible, especially when it comes to big titles. I did not buy a single digital PS4 game, not including the PSPlus free downloads. On the other hand, I only have two or three boxed Vita games but I would say this is mostly caused by the fact that the majority of games on that platform don’t come in boxes and are only available digitally.
I suppose that the publishers want to convince the public that going all-digital is the way to go and showing stats like that is one way to do it. Still, I don’t think this will work just yet. As far as I know, the Internet availability is not that good in the USA and a lot of users have data caps, which is a showstopper when it comes to games which require 10GB+ of download (including the obligatory day-1 patch). Also, as I previously mentioned, no one can take away your physical copy (except for a thief, obviously) but it is possible that the servers you donwloaded the game from will not work at a certain point in the future. Bah, it’s even certain that this will be the case. As much as people now go back to PS1, XBox or PS2 and play the older games, because they are still in boxes, if people in the future want to do the same with PS4 and XBone then must not rely on digital distribution methods.
@E3
Even though I’m not eligible for the giveaway (what if I give you a US address? 😉 ), let me jest say a few words about what I read and watched about E3. I went through all the briefings, including parts of the Nintendo digital event. I really liked the emphasis Microsoft put on games, including indie titles, and you could tell they learned a lesson from last year’s performance, staying away from the entertainment qualities of the new console. I’m not going to play any of the exclusive games they showed, as I’m not getting an XBone, but Sunset Overdrive looked fun and I wouldn’t mind giving it a go.
I was extremely excited about the Grim Fandango announcement. I love those old adventure games and I played most of the SCUMM titles but I somehow missed Grim Fandango. When I tried going back to it a few years ago, I had to jump through those hoops you mentioned with running old games on Win7 and then there was no sound so I decided to give up. Having the game on the Vita is amazing and it’s a great follow-up to the recent release of Broken Sword 5. And if they are really working on a sequel to GF that’s even more exciting.
I’m obviously looking forward to Uncharted 4 although we still don’t know much about the title. I really liked the first three titles in the series and I don’t believe Naughty Dog will screw the pooch on this one (get it? get it?) despite the internal turmoil.
I didn’t pay much attention to the hardware presented during E3 and I also mostly don’t care about things like Powers or the Halo TV series so I’m not going to comment on those.
I use this to play Grim Fandango on Windows 7. It works perfectly.
http://www.residualvm.org/
Hey Guys thanks for reporting on E3!
I have to admit that Littlebig Planet 3 and Uncharted 4 are pulls for me to get that system.
@PC Master race: I always have to laugh when I hear this, I myself don’t feel snobbish about it. I know I’ve said it before I just don’t feel the consoles have done much to bring me back to them. This E3 may change that with some games for the PS4. However I find I can’t imagine playing a First Person perspective game with a game pad, the movements are always too slow and clunky and aiming is a pain. Where as I enjoy using a Gamepad for platformers and such. I also love the ability to mod various games, which you can’t do with a console.
QotW: As I mentioned above Sony is releasing some games that my family and I are interested in playing. So Sony has piqued our interest again with this showing. Also the kickstarted game Pillars of Eternity showed there as well, so not all companies are staying the course as Paul said.
I also live in the US so I guess I qualify for the swag bag, my wife loves the Sims.
I forgot to respond to the part about the Beyond Earth Tech Web. I wanted to add that all the previous Civ games we’ve had a fairly straight forward Tech tree, all civs will research the same techs and it’s just a race to get those techs. The Web is designed to make it so that not all the techs will be researched by any given civ, that they will focus on one section for their faction.
What bothered me about Civ 4 and a little about Civ 5 is that there’s often a tech bottleneck in which you have no choice on what to research.
Exactly Jonah, and hopefully Beyond Earth’s Tech Web is balanced to give us a choice and decision and not just a railroad to the end tech.