Nintendo’s Remembering the Gamer

In a very long and acidic rant, James Mielke over at  1up.com, proudly declares that he’d have bought two Wiis before he buys one PS3. Now before all of you fanboys go ballistic, he does raise several interesting points – some of which are positive points for each console.

Yes, he admits that the PS3 and the Xbox 360 are more powerful than the Wii. Both are bigger, meaner, and stocked with enough High Definition Display features to fry a photo-sensitive alien’s brain.

Microsoft – on one side of the big console war – has done its best to play to its strengths. The company developed a huge and solid online community, and it have found ways to not only make its online services functional, but it has also made its content and gameplay relevant.

Sony, for its part has focused on the future. Its “huge box” is filled with things you think you don’t really need right now, but five years down the line you can’t live without. Its box has eight processors, Blu-ray, built-in online capabilities, 5.1 surround sound, high-definition, the kitchen sink, etc. All that, and Sony has all the games you want and have been waiting for. What made the PS2 dominant wasn’t the console’s power but its very broad library of titles. Anticipation for the next-gen version of those titles (Ridge Racer in Particular) is what’s making him still hold true to the Sony Magic Box.

Will he buy a PS3 on launch though? He proudly says no. Why? Well, here’s where the flame-bait-must-rant-about part comes in. He says that he’s learned that Sony has this nasty habit of milking money from you because they tend to make their own stuff obsolete. He’ll wait and see.

Read the rest of the article after the jump.

In a very long and acidic rant, James Mielke over at  1up.com, proudly declares that he’d have bought two Wiis before he buys one PS3. Now before all of you fanboys go ballistic, he does raise several interesting points – some of which are positive points for each console.

Yes, he admits that the PS3 and the Xbox 360 are more powerful than the Wii. Both are bigger, meaner, and stocked with enough High Definition Display features to fry a photo-sensitive alien’s brain.

Microsoft – on one side of the big console war – has done its best to play to its strengths. The company developed a huge and solid online community, and it have found ways to not only make its online services functional, but it has also made its content and gameplay relevant.

Sony, for its part has focused on the future. Its “huge box” is filled with things you think you don’t really need right now, but five years down the line you can’t live without. Its box has eight processors, Blu-ray, built-in online capabilities, 5.1 surround sound, high-definition, the kitchen sink, etc. All that, and Sony has all the games you want and have been waiting for. What made the PS2 dominant wasn’t the console’s power but its very broad library of titles. Anticipation for the next-gen version of those titles (Ridge Racer in Particular) is what’s making him still hold true to the Sony Magic Box.

Will he buy a PS3 on launch though? He proudly says no. Why? Well, here’s where the flame-bait-must-rant-about part comes in. He says that he’s learned that Sony has this nasty habit of milking money from you because they tend to make their own stuff obsolete. He’ll wait and see.

If you think about it, he’s sort of right. In the six years of the PS2’s existence, there were so many upgrades to it, that you had to spend – otherwise you’d be left out. Thinner units that instantly made obsolete the late HDD units that was released. Remember those?

Of course even Nintendo wasn’t safe from criticism. He did call Nintendo very much self-defeating because during the PS2’s prime, Nintendo stuck to its anti-self promotion mentality.

What will make him buy two Wiis is not only the price, but the fact that this time, with all the other consoles thinking about processing power and media center capabilities, Nintendo is remembering what built this whole community. It’s not the pretty graphics, or the 1080p on the screen. It’s the fun of it all. Nintendo is getting its groove back because at long last, the House that Mario Built is remembering the gamer.

We’d all want little itty-bitty parts of each console. We want the games on the PS3. We could care less about the High Def, or the surround sound. We want Tekken 5, we want the next Final Fantasy, We want Virtua Fighter, we want to play as Dante and make the Devil Cry. We want to rack up our gamerscore on the 360 and download game demos on demand. We want to shout into our headsets as we trash talk overseas friends while we score a touchdown. We want to go wild and swing around that cute little Wii Mote. We want to play my games differently.

This next generation is going to be great, and finally even if they might not be number one on paper, at least this time Nintendo is going to the war armed.