One of the first articles on PRrag.com came back in June when I declared my doubt that the Nintendo Wii would result in a modern gaming revolution and completely change the way people play games overnight, as Nintendo loyalists claimed it would shortly after E3.
To say that I took fire for that article would have been to say Saddam’s trial had a few interruptions.
Nintendo fans came out of the woodwork to take a shot at me for the article. Every Nintendo fan in the world had something bad to say about the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360.
Now, Reuters reported 1 million sales of Xbox 360’s Gears of War, which has the best video trailer commercial ever seen in a video game.
And expensive or not expensive, the release day hype over the Playstation 3 was tremendous. It wasn’t exactly a model of citizenship, but the lines were out the door a week beforehand to be the first person to own one of the limited numbers of Playstation 3’s available at launch, despite word from Sony that there will be millions on the street by year’s end. And people can make the argument that those lines were only so people could sell the PS3 on Ebay for thousands of dollars–but that only means there are people out there willing to PAY thousands of dollars for it right now.
The Nintendo Wii is far better than its predecessor and will fare much better than Gamecube, but Reuters has also reported that continued demand for the proprietary titles (Mario, Zelda and Metroid) may not be set in stone.
And to quell and new readers who want to throw the word “fanboy” out there; I have never backed Sony up on a gaming system. I enjoyed four player Bond on my Nintendo 64 and Halo on my Xbox. I’ve never paid money for a Sony system and it took a ton to get me to go against the Wii.
Nintendo has a good product, but it’s not a revolution. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I don’t buy it.