Now I know there has been an ongoing debate about what we should be seeing from the Nintendo Wii, Sony PS3, and the Microsoft Xbox 360. Not so much a debate but a discussion about the current state of affairs that have come to reality and the series of games that have come along with.
And what we’ve been discussing behind the scenes is what new and exciting things do we expect from each console, and which of these systems are actually delivering these different things.
We weigh in on things like sales responses and our own personal sentiments toward this crop of console’s this generation. A lot of that has ended with what I’ve interpreted as disappointment withthis generation as an entirety. The problem with this generation isthat we’re not seeing what we want to see from the games and thesystems their on. With each console comes a glaring weakness orglaring omission that just separates it from that complete satisfactorymark as far as what we expected from that individual console.
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 has seen a massive game lineup. An extremely impressive game lineup. Microsoft’s first party titles have grown and taken their stride and now a the publisher is video game making machine. They have Peter Molyneux developing their RPG’s with ‘Fable’, and they have Bungie creating amazing first-person shooters ontheir console exclusively. They have a casual exclusivity deal with Epic games and their Gears of War franchise which heralded the console into this new generation.
Gears of War was the game that impressed gamers and press and made everyone believe that they have finally entered a new generation of gaming. The sports franchises span across all major game consoles at home including both the PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox360… as well as Nintendo’s Wii. The problem with Microsoft is that they have a very confusing Console. The console is HD, but it’s not a great fit with this generation so to speak. It uses what is going to be which is rapidly becoming a soon to be retired format with DVD’s. The console is also painfully stricken with common hardware failures. These consoles seem to break easier than a glass jar. This experience has strained Microsoft’s relations with the purchasing population to a far worse degree than they could have imagined. The RRoD is a well documented well-known fact that kills Xbox’s on site. The multiple SKUs or multiple variations of the Xbox 360 console that are available on market are also very confusing. The fact that some consoles have a hard drive and some do not separate some of the gaming population from actually buying the content that’s available on their digital marketplace. There’s an increasing amount of download only games that are available on Xbox marketplace that actually wouldn’t fit on one of Microsoft’s memory cards that it’s starting to be a bit of an insult.
A setback for the Xbox 360 right now that has to be mentioned which is their new NXE interface. The new interface has been receiving mixed reactions by users. Some users love the new graphical overhaul and replacement of the previous interface, which was the Xbox blade system.
Some users seem to detest the clutter that seems to be married to this new overall. With an overwhelming amount of information in your face and just trying to navigate through simple things like purchasing a particular download for your particular title can be an appreciable experience or a very confusing experience depending on the user. When enabled to the Xbox live network not only do you have the new NXE interface but you also have a bombardment of displays of contests and items for sale within the Xbox live network. These advertisements are within your view navigating to your own game that you’ve already purchased. It seems that there’s no going around on the new advertising model on Xbox live.
Another barrier for Xbox is Xbox live.
Barrier? Xbox live? Well Microsoft’s Xbox live is very impressive and very well put together, although a little confusing to navigate, very impressive nonetheless. The problem with Microsoft’s Xbox live is that in order to fully enjoy all of the features available the owner has to pay an annual subscription. This is a big decision coupled along with a game console that has never been seen before in gaming history. No other gaming console in recent memory before the Xbox has charged users for playing video games online with their friends. In fact no other gaming console does this now. The Xbox 360 is the only gaming system on the market that charges an annual subscription or monthly fee in order to play their games online. The justification for such a move is that they maintain a damn good service that’s worth the value.
This is a fairly arguable point all over the web.
