Progress Thus Far
By LightYagami245 9 Comments
I must say that the overall progress of this generation of consoles has been pretty good. The DS and Wii have been selling at a very high rate(which seems to be steadily increasing every day), and the 360 and PS3 are bringing in innovative things with their online features. At the second anniversary of the release of the Playstation 3 and Wii, how has the progress been since their launch? It varies, depending on the console and what one would define as progress.
Starting hard with the Playstation 3, I must say its progress has been phomominal since it was released as a $600 console. I think every gamer knows that the price was the main reason why its sales were not very good at the start. While cheap for a Blu-ray player, gamers felt that Sony wanted to make it more of a media device than a gaming console. With games being priced at $60 a pop, gamers had to evaluate every game that they are remotely interested in for their console.
At the start of the launch, the PS3 did not have too many games worth its price. Now, one may accuse me of being biased, but I assure you that I view all 3 consoles in the same light. The games that it did have were mainly
A. Multiplatformed
B. Were delayed and scheduled for a later release
C. Sucked
Not many of its launched games were in category C, but a couple of them were, such as the dreaded Lair.
Lair had a good initial concept and looked great at previews, but when gamers got to play it, well let's say the reviews showed the quality of the game. Some of the games that were in category A had a few issues such stating as frame rate(Madden) with the developer just stating it without an attempt of fixing it. Now fast-forward to right now and how are the sales of it? Much better than 2 years ago. With Sony dropping the price of a model to $399, gamers on the fence before will buy it for the major cut and with the release of amazing games.
With many non-Sony fans teasing the PS3 owners of little to no first party exclusives at first, now, they have bit back their tongues with no rebuttal. Starting off the first party dance with Resistance: Fall of Man, PS3 owners were pleased to have a quality FPS(and game in general) to have as their own. Resistance dramatically increased the online activity for the console, and increased sales for the console. We all know that did not stop there. When Heavenly Sword was released, gamers scrambled to pre-order this, seeing it as a waiting game for God of War 3. While the story was very short, it did increase the PS3's sales and started to make gaming journalist realize that the PS3 is just getting started.
Since that release, the PS3 has not been backing down, especially with the released of Little big Planet. So how far has the PS3 advanced? By 10 miles than its initial release, and with the good exclusives still in the works, this console is not backing down anytime soon.
A question one would ask oneself is: What is progress in gaming? Is progress tracked by how many units a developer sells, or by the quality of the units? This has everything to do with the Wii. Since its release, the Wii has been selling like hotcakes or tickets to a screening of Twilight(why I added this analogy, I do not know). The Wii has one problem however, and that is quality games.
While a Wii owner myself, I keep reading my Game Informer, looking for upcoming games to play for it. The number I get at the end of the day is zero. The games(save a few) are horrable to a hardcore gamer. While one has Super Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, Brawl, and Mario Kart Wii, that's it. You are not getting a good(or even decent) game after game with this console, but games for children(if Disney's Sing It is for you, that's ok if it is your thing, but it should not be a main priority game that has commercials running at all hours on TV).
Now the Wii does have some good points about it. The Virtual Console allows gamers who missed out on great games of the past can now experience them in their full glory(such as Super Mario RPG and Orcarina of Time). The Miis is a funny idea which has caught the eye of Microsoft, making them pretty popular. The little features like the wheather and news channel make for a good update before one goes outside. The internet feature is the selling point, which is only found of the Wii.
Overall how has both consoles progressed so far? Great for the PS3, and the Wii's progress varies on the gamer, but I guess since it brought people together and create a few new gamers, I would say good too. I just hope all 3 consoles keep on going to feed our gaming hunger for years to come. Now, it is a great time to be a gamer(even though it already has been for years)!
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