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Thread: Wii \ PS3 \ 360 Opinions.

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    Wii \ PS3 \ 360 Opinions.

    Right, here's a little something I knocked up for anyone who knows they want one of the new consoles but isn't sure which one (From that point of view I've tried to be honest and unbiased, but of course it’s still just my opinion). Lots of you won’t agree, but I've had an honest crack at it anyway.

    Anyone with any comments to add please do, and feel free to discuss the finer points of why I'm wrong amongst yourselves, but lets try to keep the level above that of places like GameFAQs, where they just scream fanboy at anyone who doesn't agree with them.

    Oh, and Al - be interested to hear what you've got to say mate. Just remember to engage your brain before your fingers - I think you've got something to add to these forums, and you obviously have an interest... just don't start screaming and ranting before you've digested what I've said.



    Wii - £180 (inc Wii Sports).

    Nintendo come to the table with a very different hand than either Sony or Microsoft; the Wii being everything their offerings are not - small, cheap, (relatively) underpowered, but innovative in its design and approach to an established multibillion-dollar industry. Nintendo are betting they can make a success of the Wii without taking on the competition in an all-guns-blazing, high definition, bump mapped war of raw processing power.

    They will rely on a low purchase price for the console, a decent slice of the younger \ casual gamer market, and their established fan base, who will come back again and again for the first party goodness that is the Big Ns trademark, and the most refined and crafted gaming experience out there.

    I still think the biggest selling point for the Wii is the same thing it always has been; the well established, flag ship series, that reads like a lot of gamers 'best games ever' list. Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Smash Bros - all either here already or on the way (Super Mario Galaxy in January, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption to follow in February, Smash Bros in March), and the excitement just knowing these games are going to be available, and very likely to be as good as we've come to take for granted, is a massive plus.

    The Wiimote is a nice twist; a bonus if it’s implemented well, and a good way to make Wii Sports more than a cheap pack-in with graphics from a different era. People are going to buy a Wii to play Zelda, they are buying Zelda because it’s Zelda, not because you can swing Links sword with a movement of your hand; the game underneath still has to be fun, and this can go either way.

    Super Monkey Ball is (apparently) much improved due to the Wiimote, but Red Steel is a below average FPS which, after factoring in the Wiimote and all it offers, is still a below average FPS.

    On the down side, the Wii can be more closely compared to the GameCube and Xbox, in terms of its ability to put pretty things on your screen, than the other next gen systems; it’s not in the same league as the Xbox360 and PS3.

    Nintendo are banking on this not being an issue, but you have to think that watching Gear of War in full flow, on a nice, big HD screen, is going to make any Wiimote controlled mini game look outdated, and there is only so much novelty involved in bowling your own ball, or hitting a home run.

    Once that wears off, you might find yourself wanting something that’s going to get your heart pumping, and not just because you're knackered because you've been flailing around like a muppet for 20 minutes.

    In short, put the Wiimote to the back of your mind (Nintendo don't want you to do this, btw ) and make your decision not on this gimmick that could come good, but on what Nintendo have been doing for decades - making great games that are fun to play, beautifully made, and often epic in their approach.

    Zelda at its best is still a cut above what the competition can offer for sheer enjoyment. I think the Wii is a fairly safe bet if you already know where you stand with Nintendo - you already know you are going to lap up all the old classics, that are going to play the same, but look better while they do it.

    If money is the primary concern, flashy HD visuals aren’t a necessity, or you really have to play the big first party titles, the Wii is your machine.


    PS3 - £425.

    At the other end of the price \ performance scale comes the Playstation 3, screaming 'high end bit of kit this' at everyone who will listen. Its slick black casing is so shiny, Sony recommends you do not look directly at it without retreating to the minimum safe distance of 60.52 yards.

    It has ports for Memory Stick, SD, and compact flash. It has 4 USB slots. It’s got WiFi, it’s got a 60Gb (easily upgradeable) hard drive, it plays Blu-Ray discs out of the box, and it’s got touch sensitive buttons. Oh yes.

    It’s got the CPU and GPU to easily stand up to Microsoft’s 360 (although it’s probably no more or less powerful in real world situations), and pretty much everything else. So it’s a big, shiny box full of the latest tech, that you will have to pay a premium for if you want one under your HD telly when Sony finally lets us buy one, in March 2007.

    On the gimmick front, Sony falls short of Nintendo’s Wiimote, but has added a tilt feature to its SIXAXIS controller, which aside from this is very similar to the DualShock 2, minus the rumble feature.

    As mentioned, it plays Blu-Ray discs with no add-ons needed, which could be a great bargain (stand alone Blu-Ray players will cost more than a PS3 for a good while to come), but with a bitter format war currently being fought between Sony and its supporters, and the rival HD-DVD format, backed by Toshiba and its supporters (including of course Microsoft) in a few years you could have a very expensive Betamax on your hands. You are not on safe ground with the PS3, it’s a lot of money, and the guarantees are not there; there is a certain amount of risk.

    Now the games; Sony’s launch line-up certainly has nothing in the league of Twilight Princess available, and a bit of reading soon reveals that there is really only 1 stand out title available at present, in the shape of Insomniac’s Resistance: Fall of Man. A fine game overshadowed by Gears of War on the 360, but from what I’ve seen and read still a great looking game, that plays well and more than holds its own from a multiplayer point of view.

    Away from that, there’s not much on offer yet; there’s all the games doing the next gen rounds at the moment, Call of Duty 3, Need for Speed Carbon, etc, which will look and play the same on both the PS3 and 360, or at least as close as makes no difference.

    Really, it’s another gamble; the PS3 doesn’t have a back catalogue to draw on, the 360 has had a very useful head start, and whilst not packed with system selling games, there’s more to play on the 360 at present that’s of a certain quality, and Sony has not addressed this with a strong software line-up.

    So, the hardware is a gamble, its expensive, its Blu-Ray format is currently at war (with the only thing so far agreed on is that Blu-Ray defiantly has the better name), and there’s no Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy to shift units. The fact is though, that contrary to popular belief, Sony know how to do this console stuff. The original Playstation crushed all before it, relegating the SNES and the Megadrive to the classified ads in the local paper, and quickly seeing off the SEGA Saturn, and from a hardware point of view SEGA itself (give or take a few years and a few self-inflicted SEGA cock-ups).

    There are more PS2s in the world than there are people, and more PS2 games than ants. Sony have done it before, and to write them off because this time they are demanding a premium price for a premium bit of kit would be foolish. The PS3 is a powerhouse, it’s of key importance to Sony as a whole, and the Metal Gears, Final Fantasies and Grand Theft Autos will be coming, and that’s enough for most, with MotorStorm, Killzone (don’t expect the game to look like the famous E3 footage though), Armour Core, Resident Evil 5 and more rounding out the ‘these will be great, we promise’ group of titles. Shame you can’t play any of them yet.

    If money is no object, you want the latest bit of kit, and the more adult, action packed gaming experience that Sony provide is your thing (and you’ve got a HDTV), then the PS3 is an expensive but impressive machine that *should* be all you want it to be. Give it time though.


    Xbox 360 - £280.

    Finally the Microsoft offering, already on the market for a year, the excitement and fanfare of its launch long now forgotten, most of us will already know what the 360 is all about, but this goes head-to-head with the PS3, with both systems clamouring for the same market.

    For just shy of 300 notes you get a system of comparable power to the PS3, minus the flashy looks, the 60Gb of storage space and the Blu-Ray impressiveness. You do get a pretty decent 20Gb of storage space though, and as of tomorrow (December 1st) there will be a HD-DVD drive available. A lot has been said of the PS3 pricing, but a 360 with the new drive will set you back £410; so yes, you can get a 360 for less, but to address the advantage the PS3 is afforded by its ‘all in the box’ approach, you have to shell out almost the same amount of your hard earned cash.

    The year head start on the competition will both help and hinder the 360; in a straight fight with the PS3 on looks and image, it finishes a distant 2nd. It has none of the PS3s slick looks, and Microsoft don’t seem to be pushing it as an ultra-bleeding-edge bit of kit, which is exactly the sort of marketing nonsense that the people who buy these things want. Blu-Ray\HD-DVD out of the box is a neater solution than a £130 add-on release a year down the line. Make no mistake, people who buy iPods will buy the PS3.

    Wired pads are available for the 360, which should be resigned to history, and the wireless pads have no gimmicks to speak of, unless you count the rather nice looking ring of light that circles the middle button when the machine is powered on. The 360 control pads are, in keeping with the machine, a nice, safe, solid bet; no gimmicks, but very comfortable, and more than up to the job.

    The advantage of that years head starts to show though with a long list of great games you can actually play right now. The 360 could be in danger of already seeming outdated with all the hype about the Wiimote, and the PS3 flexing its muscles, but inside the ‘Microsoft chic’ casing is a machine that is pound for pound an exact match for the bizarrely shiny Sony machine. I’m sure gamers of limited intelligence will argue about it until the cows come home, but they are capable of producing roughly the same end product if the people making the games have the talent to get them to do what they can do.

    Call of Duty 3 and Need For Speed Carbon for instance, both apparently look better, and in the case of CoD3 run better on the 360. I’m sure that each system will score many meaningless little victories over the other as cross-platform games are released, and the system capable of handling it 0.7% better than its rival will take a bow, while the people who own the winning system will feel unjustifiably smug. It doesn’t matter.

    On the gaming front () you’ve got plenty to choose from, the current system seller being Gears of War from Microsoft, which for the moment, in all singing, all dancing HD mode may well be the best looking game ever on a console. For how long is anybodies guess, but if you want to really show off what a next-gen game can look like, and\or slap down a cocky PS3 owner come March, then this is your game.

    Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: Vegas, F.E.A.R and Prey are already on shop shelves waiting for your money, and are all superb. Looking forward, there is of course the holy grail of Halo 3, once rumoured to be a spoiler to the PS3 launch, but now due in March (so still a spoiler for the UK PS3 launch I suppose) and Grand Theft Auto 4, no longer a Playstation exclusive.

    If you want a next-gen HD system, and you don’t care about watching your movies on that ancient ‘DVD’ format, you can save a few quid on the PS3s price by picking up a 360, and you can save even more if you are prepared to use wired pads, have no hard drive, and generally have people laugh at you.

    Away from that, and doing the 360 justice by comparing the Premium 360 package complete with its add-on drive, the 360 can do what the PS3 can do, and it’s a straight choice really; loads of money for Halo and HD-DVD, or loads of money for Metal Gear and Blu-Ray. Make your choice, pay your money. If you want to make a point of it, then yes, the PS3 looks better and is marketed in a way that will get the trendy kids buying one, but there’s more games worth playing on the 360 at the moment, and as many big hitters in the works as Sony have to offer.

    Less exciting but less of a risk than the PS3? Time will tell.
    Last edited by Stewart; 30-11-2006 at 08:38 AM.

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    LWA
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    That's an excellent summary Stewart and I'm sure all can appreciate you went to great lengths to try and provide an unbiased comparison (to which I believe you achieved).

    For me personally, the Wii is the console for me. My reasoning being that I already have a PC for my serious gaming (Dawn of War, World of Warcraft etc) and the Wii is going to be great for a bit of light entertainment.

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    Comfortably Numb directhex's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Big Leon View Post
    That's an excellent summary Stewart and I'm sure all can appreciate you went to great lengths to try and provide an unbiased comparison (to which I believe you achieved).
    i know this Stewart fella. if you read out his post, record it, then play it backwards at half speed, you can clearly hear "zelda is the only way, you should all buy a wii"

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    Cool, I can tear up my pre-ordered PS3 receipt rather than getting the console and smashing it? (p.s. I'm not elffing/trolling or whatever it's called since that seems to be the implication of every one of my posts)

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    Very interesting read and some very valid points you have made.

    I have already decided to go down the 360 route. Reason for..... the sheer amount of titles to choose from. Your absolutely right, titles released now on both PS3 and 360 will look pretty much identical. The PS3 "might" be more future proof than the 360, but if todays games are going to have similar performance, then i'm going to buy the cheaper console. The only reason i can see myself buying a PS3 is for Gran Turismo and Formula One, but then again, that's a lot of money to spend on a console for just 2 games.

    I do have to say, after walking into Currys Digital yesterday, the 360 does have a lot of peripherals which is very appealing.

    Another point i would like to make is the 360's online feature, is very well established with god knows how many million subscribers. On the other hand Sony's online feature...... err where is it? All i've seen so far is the Sony store and a web browers for the PS3. (oh and the 360 doesn't have a browers....yet) Sony over promised with the PS2's ability to go online and although i have a ps2 which is hook up i get the feeling that i'm very distant compared with xbox live. "Live" seems to give you that feeling that you are more integrated when it comes to online playability.

    Anyway, that's just my feelings.

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    Great post, some good points you brought up there. This should hopefully help people decide which console they want to buy *coughWiicough*

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    Interesting. I already have my 360 and a pc and have been considering a wii, but have gone off of it as I can see the wiimote being a bit of a novelty. I will see how it goes and perhaps play on my friend's, or wait until the gamecube like price plummet happens. I am not sure what to do about the PS3, as the wife will want to play FF, so I will wait again. If my new job really pays very well, then perhaps I may just splurge out on all 3!
    Not around too often!

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    LWA
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    Quote Originally Posted by directhex View Post
    i know this Stewart fella. if you read out his post, record it, then play it backwards at half speed, you can clearly hear "zelda is the only way, you should all buy a wii"
    Dammit, just tried this and you know what, he's right Although right at the end it mentions "Do not listen to Directhex, he tells lies" !

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    I agree with most of that. Obviously being your opinion I'm bound to think some is awry (human nature )

    I think the look of the 360 is pretty slick. OK it's not the high-gloss finish of the PS3, but it looks pretty nice beside your Sky+ box and not out of place in your living room.

    The PS3 controller is great but it's great cause the Playstation controllers have always been great. I agree that whilst the 360 is nothing totally new at least they took a slightly clunky design and improved upon it making it slicker to use.

    I value your opinions on the Wii. Having only played it for 10mins on a mates (who was in the US on launch day), it's an excellent little piece of kit. OK the graphics aren't slick like the 360: but playing a few of the launch titles he had makes you realise that gaming isn't all about that.

    Another thing I'm not sure you touched upon is the fact that he plays the Wii with his girlfriend who hates gaming. Just like the DS (my missus has never played any game so long as she plays Mario), the Wii is bringing new people into gaming and they're having great fun doing it.

    Your views on the PS3 are interesting as the GPU for me isn't quite up to that of the 360: and we all know what games need on the GPU side to run well. However I'll be interested come launch day when a few fanboys I know spend their hard earned on the PS3 to see whether it can live up to the 360...in fact by all rights surpass it. Sony will sell the PS3, but I think that they might find that the 360 makes a bigger dent in their wallets than they are reckoning.
    Last edited by kempez; 30-11-2006 at 10:39 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by hexah
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    Quote Originally Posted by kempez View Post
    The PS3 controller is great but it's great cause the Playstation controllers have always been great. I agree that whilst the 360 is nothing totally new at least they took a slightly clunky design and improved upon it making it slicker to use.
    the dual shock always has been & always will be an awful design

    i rate it somewhere near the Jaguar's joypad for comfort

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    Quote Originally Posted by directhex View Post
    the dual shock always has been & always will be an awful design

    i rate it somewhere near the Jaguar's joypad for comfort
    Hmm. Well I always got along with it. The D-pad is the thing I liked most about it, especially for playing Football Sims. The individual directional buttons make it easier to control. I did always find myself using that rather than the sticks tho: if I had the choice
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    No more Mr Nice Guy. Nick's Avatar
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    Cracking article there Stewart, though I do reckon you're a teensy bit biased... but I like a decent bit of opinion! Can't stand all this bland "make you're own mind up stuff"...

    I'm moving this to the news section and sticking it on the front page.
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    the downside of the sony controllers (for me, a racing game fan) has always been the shoulder buttons - why they cant have long-travel ones like the dreamcast and xbox i'll never know..
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    LOL! Stew, are you getting backhanders from Microsoft?

    Now go stand in the corner and repeat 100 times..."I will not be biased...I will not be biased..."


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    No pleasing some. I thought I'd get some stick for bringing out the old 'Nintendo make the best games, always have done, always will do' stuff (which is true by the way, but likely to be viewed as biased), but not for the 360 bit. I thought that was pretty fair.

    Mate, for me its a toss up between the PS3 and the Wii, I've had my 360, and since sold it, to a nice man on these very forums. Of all 3 consoles, the one I know isn't going to be under my TV come march is the 360. Depending on the cash situation and if I can hold out till then, it will be a PS3 \ Wii.

    Ideally both - PS3 as my main machine, cherry pick the best Nintendo stuff.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nick View Post
    Cracking article there Stewart, though I do reckon you're a teensy bit biased...
    Also in favour of the 360? I really can't see it.

    I'm moving this to the news section and sticking it on the front page.
    Top man.

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