Graduating to the Xbox360

Recently Gamasutra ran an article in which Aaron Greenberg, director of product management for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, makes the bold claim that wii owners are going to eventually "graduate", to Microsoft's system of choice: Xbox 360 weather it be arcade, pro or elite. My own personal view on this is that the hardware isn't relevant. I wouldn't consider chucking my 360 for a wii just like I wouldn't have considered chucking my xbox for a gamecube in the last console war. So do graphical might and huge price tags carry the day ? No.

While I am firmly rooted in the Xbox camp for this round of the console war, I and many others who own either 360's or PS3's carry around Nintendo's portable gaming system, the Nintendo DS. Why ? Well its because of software and innovative controls. There is a vast library of DS and backward compatible Game Boy Advanced games for us to splurge on, weather its pre-owned bargain bin favorites at game stop (or gamecrazy), or the endless number of new and sometimes over the top (civilization:revolution DS) releases coming out each month.

One could assume I'd be rooting for the Wii or even the PS3 looking at the console war long term. While I'll certainly be buying a PS3 to enjoy blue-ray goodness and a select few games (as well as a massive PS2 library), the wii is an entirely different matter.

While I jump for joy at the idea of a game like wii fit that gets us off our collective asses to do something beneficial for ourselves. I'm not pleased with the idea of rescuing princess peach AGAIN, or playing wiisports when I don't like sports to begin with and anyone thinking playing sports on a console makes them good at said sports in real life is as about as socially inept as they come. Need we tread down the humiliating path of Dance Dance Revolution yet again ?

Software is king, hardware is an important starting point that can easily become a non-starter assuming we don't have high quality games to play on the damn box's that we drop several hundred dollars for every new console war. The Xbox 360 according to Microsoft should have over 1000 titles by the end of 2008 and they are the only ones to make a big push for indie developed games through XNA. Almost everything that is coming out of any importance on the PlayStation 3 is also coming out on the 360. Lastly, while the people at Nintendo are attempting to make it easier to develop indie games through wiiware, more often then not there is a consensus that most of the games for the wii are garbage unless they are developed by Nintendo. The software conclusion is that Nintendo lacks third party games, Sony's PlayStation 3 lacks exclusivity like the PSP lacks direction and the Xbox 360 could be doing much more then it has been in terms of prices and making life easier for XNA developers.

Market share is another issue we hear on a daily basis, this is a little harder to look at since these numbers have a psychological impact. If most of jimmy's friends are playing with console B instead of console C, then he'll be tempted to jump ship (coward that he is), and buy console B and sell down the river is former console C. The rumored price drops for all of the 360 SKU's not withstanding, I think the Wii will be a strong contender in terms of sales and market share for years to come but ultimately turning out to be hollow in terms of reputation amongst anyone who buys more then one or two games a year (or gets mommy and daddy to do it). I'm looking to spend 500-1000 dollars on video games in 2008 and I'm nearly at the half way mark and its all software. No additional controllers or headsets (though they are the weakest link in the 360's hardware chain...besides the box itself of course).

So Mr.Greenberg and dear readers, while Microsoft would like to think it will see the same sales numbers as Nintendo, it simply isn't anything more then arrogant dilutions of grandeur over in Redmond Washington. The being said, Microsoft has had over 3 positive quarters of profitability on the Xbox 360 and a massive library of games that are competitive with games found on PC. In a world where PC gamers are becoming disaffected with hardware price tags, its worth noting that the 360 could well be the answer to this gameing segments pix elated needs. That is worth more then any graduation ceremony...even if the after party was ridiculously awesome.