With the release of the Wii U, the 7th generation of console officially approaches its end as we say farewell to the old Wii and get ready for the next generation of console that are all but confirmed to be arriving next year.
So I decided to give you guys my thoughts on the gaming’s big three: Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo during the 7th generation consoles, what they did right, why they did badly and what are my predictions for the future of each respective company.
Please note that I will NOT include handhelds, this is just a look at the consoles of this generation as those were the big guns of gaming in the last few years.
With that intro out of the way let’s start with the company that kicked off the 7th gen with the Xbox 360, Microsoft.
MICROSOFT (XBOX 360/KINECT)
THE GOOD
Microsoft’s choice to release an entire year ahead of their competition was indeed a smart choice, as it allowed them to secure several high profile third party games such as the critically acclaimed Call of Duty 2, the first time a main CoD title appeared on the console and the excellent return of Quake 4.
Those along with games such as Perfect Dark Zero, Condemned: Criminal Origins and NFS Most Wanted all secured Microsoft a fairly strong launch and allowed them to hit the ground running right from the start.
But the 360 could not have kept its momentum going were it not for two tittles that were highly anticipated, the first was Halo 3 for obvious reasons, Halo was still in its golden years and it owned the gaming world, the cliffhanger for Halo 2 did leave fans disappointed but it would later only add to the hype of the third entry in the series.
The second game was Gears of War, a game created by the same development studio that brought us the fantastic Unreal Tournament games, Epic Games, featuring the Unreal Engine 3 and a gritty, dark sci-fi setting, Gears 1 came out in 2006 and boy was it worth the wait.
It featured an amazing graphics engine the likes of which we had not seen up until that point, but what made the game truly innovative was its cover system, a fairly simple mechanic that is a requirement for nearly every TPS game today, but the true show was about to begin with Halo 3 in 2007.
Halo 3 was revealed back in late 2006 with a short CGI trailer that set the gaming world a ablaze, hype for the game was insane and it was fueled by the inclusion of the beta in the unrelated IP Crackdown, an open world style game that was a great title in its own right.
This beta let this new IP sell huge numbers and it allowed Bungie to get fan feedback for the multiplayer portion of Halo 3, while still keeping the campaign and storyline a closely guarded secret, it all paid off as Halo 3 was officially released on September 25th 2007.
The game received massive critical and fan acclaim as well as selling over 8 million copies in its first three months, it was the most played game on Xbox Live and it cemented the Xbox as a must own machine.
And this would continue for the next few years with the releases of tittles such as Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Halo Wars and so on, Microsoft secured itself a fantastic library of first party games that only made the 360 that much more desirable, and Microsoft were smart to spread their exclusive content around so that ever year there was something new and exciting for their console.
Also Microsoft made a good move by attracting the indie developers with XBLA, this allowed them to release smaller games over the summer release period and in a way ease the pain of the disappearing exclusives for the console
THE BAD
In 2009 is when the decline of Microsoft began, with the announcement of the Kinect (Project Natal as it was then known). Let me make this perfectly clear, and pardon my french, Kinect is the biggest pile o shiet that’s been created in the gaming world since the Sega 32X. It sucks and fails on every level possible.
Now if this bastard actually worked I wouldn’t care if it was motion controls, but this thing has been responsible for some of the worst games in the past two years! Games like Rise of Nightmares, Star Wars Kinect, Steel Battalion and DBZ Kinect have been some of the most panned and despised games of all time!
And what’s worse the Kinect was essentially a fuck you to the core gamers, you see 2010 was the last year Microsoft put any effort into their exclusives, sure Halo: Reach delivered on all its hype, but Fable 3 was horrible, an insult to the entire RPG genre.
Since then Microsoft has officially abandoned us to become Nintendo, since the Xbox 360 hit its hardware limit back in 2009, the only reason this worthless waste of money exists is to extend the life span of the 360, but this machine wasn’t built for 10 year life span, it was already falling behind in 2009!!!!
Also the way they’ve treated Rare, you know the guys who made Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and Banjoo Kazooie, well those guys are now stuck making Kinect avatars for Xbox live!!!! Why the hell did you even buy those guys if you were just gonna waste their talent on mediocre crap.
And they’ve completely lost the indie developers for XBLA, what happened to the Splosion Man or the Shadow Complex level games? Where was the big summer of arcade?
PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
Microsoft is screwed if they keep going with the Kinect route, first of all, and ill elaborate on this with my Nintendo section, the casual market is gone. The people who used to buy a Wii in the droves have all moved on to mobile devices like Android and IPhone.
Those guys are gone and they aren’t coming back. Also stop bribing companies like Activison and Bethesda for exclusive DLC to replace the fact that you don’t have anymore exclusives left.
But next year when the Xbox 720 or the NextBox comes out, Microsoft will try to kiss our asses so we buy they’re new console, I refuse to pay for a 720 after them telling us to GTFO with the Kinect, and so help me god if the 720 has a built in Kinect….. I ain’t touching it with a 30 foot pole with a cure for AIDS.
The Xbox 720 has to be revealed AND released next year; I simply don’t think it can keep going on like this by just milking Halo, Gears and Kinect.
FINAL SCORE: D+
NINTENDO (Wii/)
THE GOOD
Back in 2006 there was no IPhone or smart phones at all for little Bobby and Suzy to bug their parents about buying, Nintendo knew this well and they decided we would not make an HD console and focus on the core gamers; instead we will make a weaker but also cheaper console aimed for the families and kids.
And it paid off as the Wii has to date sold over 98 million copies! The family oriented console was only 250 dollars at launch with its competing consoles like the 360 at 400 or the PS3 at 500 dollars each, so buying a Wii in comparison to these two for your family was a no brainer.
The party games such as Wii sports further made it appealing to the younger demographics as the entire family could now play tennis or boxing or swimming in their home with their kids, it was an experience that everyone from the age of 5 to 80 could enjoy.
However Nintendo didn’t alienate its old fans, instead they kept what made their old series great and used the Wii’s motion controls to add to the experience, this resulted in some of the best games of not only the 7th generation, but all time!
Games such as Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, LOZ Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy 1,2 and Donkey Kong Country Returns all made the Wii a beast in its own right and proved that Nintendo was still loyal to their fans despite the limited hardware power of the Wii.
Too bad no one else was loyal enough to the Wii to give it a chance…
THE BAD
The main problem with the Wii from the start was the limited hardware, and the effect of this will haunt Nintendo for a while I think, now while the weaker hardware did allow them to mass produce the console without losing money and sell it at a much cheaper price, it severely limited third party publishers in their ability to make games for it.
Sure some publishers like Ubisoft tried to hit it out of the park with the abysmal Red Steel 1 and failed miserably, other publishers just lost interest over time, there were more powerful console to develop for and much easier since almost no one, besides Nintendo themselves, were able to make a functioning game for the Wii.
Motion controls are a bitch to develop for and pretty quickly a lot of developers simply abandoned the Wii while others remained and simply threw out shovel ware on it, because of this the Wii yearly release line ups were barren, especially in 2008 and 2009 where literally nothing came out.
PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
Nintendo is not going to have it easy in the next generation, first of all the casual audience is gone so they face the same problem as Microsoft; however they are in the worst possible position right now.
You see where Sony and Microsoft have kept up with modern gaming conventions such as you know voice acting, multiplayer, DLC, online services such as XBL and PSN, Nintendo has no experience in any of that.
The biggest problem with Skyward Sword was that it was an old game, and not in a good way, it felt severely limited and outdated compared to other fantasy RPG games such as Skyrim or Dragon Age in terms of both storytelling and gameplay.
Now Nintendo did make a good first move with saying we are back to core gamers, but why in the hell did you release the Wii U?!
You’re facing the same problem as before, except its worse now, third party developers are sick of this generations hardware limitations and are already delaying games just so they don’t have to suffer from this anymore.
The Wii U from what I’ve seen doesn’t look anymore powerful than a Xbox 360 or PS3 and that’s tech from over 7 years ago, now since it doesn’t have motion controls it might be more appealing to developer for, especially since games are really expensive these days.
But then I can guarantee you that no third party publisher will make full use of this new gaming pad, sure we do see some cool stuff in ZombiU now, but two or three years down the line? No way.
FINAL VERDICT: C+
SONY (PS3/MOVE)
THE BAD
Now Sony was the reverse of its two competitors, while Nintendo and Microsoft started out strong and gradually degenerated to shit, Sony gradually improved over time.
The PS3s first problem was the price of 500 dollars, as I said before the 360 was 400 and the Wii was 250, this could have been salvaged if the console had a good launch line up, it didn’t….
Sure for every Resistance Fall of Man or Marvel Ultimate Alliance, there was a Call of Duty 3 and, gulp, a Sonic the Hedgehog, resulting in a pretty mediocre launch with only a couple of genuinely good and worthwhile games to pick up.
And then there was Haze, dubbed the Halo killer, Hate was hyped up the ass before its release as the next big Sony franchise, it was universally panned by critics and gamers and is to this day Sony’s biggest failure, except the PSP.
Then the big hacking of PSN in 2011 that took the entire network down for a whole month and caused a lot of controversy, admittedly much of it was justified as credit card information was stolen and faith in the company is still damaged.
Now in the good section I will explain how it got better over time, but now Il skip to the long forgotten year of 2010, AKA the release of the PS Move.
The Move was in my opinion a waste of time, do I think it’s a completely worthless piece o shiet like the Kinect? No because there were good games used for it and it wasn’t forced down our throats like the Kinect and since it died off quickly, it’s not a huge issue but again I must ask what the point was?
THE GOOD
Now lets move on to the good, Sony learned from their mistakes at launch and since 2007 set out to correct their mistakes with the release of games such as the fantastic Heavenly Sword and the legendary Uncharted: Drakes Fortune.
2008 saw the release of Resistance 2 that received good reviews and sales, but also gave Sony its real multiplayer game that could compete with the likes of Halo or Gears.
The crown jewel however was MGS 4: Guns of the Patriots, one of the finest video games ever created, MGS 4 true began Sony’s return to form in the console space as it sold over 9 million units in its first year.
Ever since then Sony has focused on delivering a lot of exclusives every year and for the most part they’ve delivered, tittles such as the entire Uncharted series, MGS 4, Killzone 2, God of War 3 and Infamous have all given Sony plenty of commercial and critical successes.
And they haven’t been afraid to release new IPs like Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and the Last of Us, show that Sony isn’t afraid to try new things and wants to expand beyond countless Uncharted or Killzone sequels.
Also, thank you for finally giving us a new Sly Copper game, its been a long and painful wait but its great to see that not all of the old Sony icons has faded away.
PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
Thanks to the hardware power of the PS3 and the number of new games still set to come out on it, it probably can survive another year or two before finally hitting its limit and finally biting the dust.
I don’t think we necessarily need the PS4 out for next year, I think we should get some official information on it, or even see a prototype of it for a 2014 or 2015 release date.
Now if Sony could get Crash Bandicoot back, and Jak & Daxter, that would be a dream come true as those respective series have been dormant for too long, hell if Sly could do it why cant Crash or Jak?
FINAL VERDICT: B+
There you are my friends, my thoughts on the big three these past few years, what do you guys think? I know many of you will try to hand me for my opinion, but hey opinions are like ass holes, we all have them and they all stink.
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