By Jonzor - 11/21/12 at 10:51 AM CT
Who “won” the 7th Console Generation? I guess that depends on what you think “winning” is. Does making the most money “win”? How many points is having the most popular game worth? Is losing all of your online community’s personal information through a FREE online service better or worse than a paid-for online service that doesn’t give your info away and shut down for a month?
Your opinion of which console “won” probably boils down to a shockingly small number of variables. Maybe you like RTS games and MMORPGs more than anything else. No one’s going to convince you that anything other than the PC won. Maybe you like shaking spray paint cans that your grandmother and little sister can also enjoy. Well, the Wii is the only console the three of you will ever need.
A lot of people will make this more complicated than it needs to be... muddy the water to try and confuse you. Ultimately be unable to remove their biases from the discussion. So the first thing we need to do is set a couple rules to take YOU out of the decision:
1. Just because you feel your favorite genre is underrepresented, it doesn’t mean the console “loses”.
2. Just because you don’t like the genres that sell best on that console, it doesn’t mean the console “loses”.
3. Just because you don’t like the company, it doesn’t mean the console “loses”.
4. Making money matters. This is an important one.
5. These are VIDEO GAME CONSOLES, so the vote of the die-hard matters more. Angry Birds has been downloaded 500 million times, but no one’s gonna argue that the iPhone has the best games.
Basically, what it boils down to is this: the GAMING PUBLIC decides winners and losers. Your personal disappointment doesn’t.
Before we break down why the Xbox 360 wins this generation, we’ll need to address the elephants in the room: RROD and the Kinect.
Long story short, the Red Ring of Death was the result of Microsoft really wanting to be the first to market with the Xbox 360. The RROD now stands as the mascot of ALL early hardware issues with the system, and was estimated by some to cost the company a billion dollars. Granted, part of the reason for that enormous cost was that Microsoft did the right thing and extended the warranties of systems out to THREE YEARS to compensate for using early adopters of their console as beta testers.
So, let me ask: have you had issues with a non-Xbox console this cycle? More importantly though, is that Microsoft has shed the lousy PR through new hardware models and the fact that time heals all wounds. A year ago, if someone bought an Xbox 360 and you’d tried to work them into a tizzy about the dreaded RROD, I’m pretty sure you’d have seen that the world is actually over it. That’s the trick... Microsoft bled money until the users forgave them (the rest of you, who maybe weren’t even affected, will hate no matter what), and then made the money back. You can hold that grudge as long and as hard as you want... RROD isn’t keeping Microsoft, or Xbox 360 users up at night anymore, and that’s all that matters.
The Kinect is a much smaller elephant in the room. Everyone else’s motion-control either is awful and pointless, or is at best an interesting add-on in good games and, and at worst a shoe-horned-in death sentence for others. Kinect is at least an interesting piece of hardware (where the Move isn’t). Or, if you don’t want to bother with it, then good news! None of the “good” Xbox games need it. How many of you have had a good Wii game held up by dumb motion controls? The Wii’s biggest selling point ended up a mixed-blessing after seeing it put to use for one generation.
With that ugly business out of the way, let’s get to the bragging:
The Xbox 360’s controller is just better than the competition. It’s comfortable, the analog sticks are positioned as if Microsoft thinks people will USE them, and the buttons are all comfortably reachable. There’s a reason the Wii U is copying it. Small potatoes, but I do really like that controller.
How about game sales? The top 10 (in copies sold) of the 360 and the PS3 look identical, save for a Halo here and a Gran Turismo there. The difference? Xbox 360 versions of each non-exclusive title sold better than the PS3 version. Other major titles like Madden and Skyrim tend to sell better, and the Xbox 360 has also picked up previously-exclusive franchises like Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil. These additions could help the Xbox 360 make headway into the ONE thing keeping this beating of the PS3 from turning into a mauling: Japan.
So what about the Wii’s top 10? Nintendo’s reputation for terrible 3rd party sales is nowhere more evident than here. It’s hard to “win” when you’re doing it alone, and Nintendo is certainly doing it alone. Not to mention that if you’re looking for something with a little substance to it, Nintendo’s top 10 doesn’t have much appeal. Nintendo’s top 10 features games like Just Dance 2, Just Dance 3, and Wii Fit Plus. This is the TOP TEN LIST, people. I’m gonna say that again... Just Dance 2, Just Dance 3 and Wii Fit Plus. Held up against Skyrim and Halo, it’s just... embarrassing. Put another way: Just Dance, as a franchise, outsold The Legend of Zelda on the Wii by about ten million sales. Nintendo fans hang their hats on the Nintendo exclusives, but looking at the sales it seems like Wii owners don’t even believe their OWN arguments, otherwise they’d be BUYING these awesome exclusives Xbox owners are supposed to be missing out on.
But maybe sales aren’t everything. Maybe your thing is quality. Look at the top reviewed games over the last few years. In 2011, of the top 15 highest-rated (average top-15 rating: 91.3) PS3 games on MetaCritic, 11 were also available on the 360. On the PC (average top-15 rating: 89.4), 12 of the 15 highest-rated games are on the 360. The Wii’s library (average top-15 rating: 81.5 - yikes!) is an anomaly, with nearly no common games between them. Conversely, 11 of the 15 highest-rated 360 games (average top-15 rating: 90.6) are also playable on the PS3. I’m not seeing a lack of quality, here.
I’m sure you’ll read somewhere that the 360’s library is nothing but FPS games. But looking at the PS3’s top games... can we say the PS3 is any different? The PC does FPS better than anyone, and has for longer... no one is busting their chops for it. The Wii’s library is full of stick-waving mini game mash-ups, and you’re going to bag on the 360 because of FPS games?
But STILL you’ll hear pretentious snobbery about how the Xbox is all FPS action garbage. Is variety the Achilles heel of the 360? Verily, it is not! The RPG fans have been kept happy with Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Skyrim, Oblivion, Tales of Vesperia, Blue Dragon, Eternal Sonata, Bastion, and even had a chance to be annoyed by Final Fantasy XIII. Xbox 360 owners didn’t miss a whole lot.
Resident Evil 5 (and soon 6), Devil May Cry, Kingdoms of Amalur (also an RPG), Assassin’s Creed, Prototype, the LEGO games, and Batman Arkham Asylum/Arkham City kept the 3rd person action gamers happy.
Sports games? Ha! No problems there!
Xbox Live Arcade surely didn’t disappoint. Braid, Mark of the Ninja, Castle Crashers, Bastion (I know, I mentioned it twice), Geometry Wars, Mega Man, Alien Hominid, Pac-Man Championship Edition DX... there were a lot of good games there, too. And good luck finding something like Xbox Live Indie Games on the Wii or PS3, throwing a bone to would-be developers.
We can see here that all the genres that fuel the industry have no problems finding traction on the 360. And nearly all of the flagship titles for each major genre just so happened to appear on the Xbox 360.
You don’t like racist teenagers on Xbox Live? No one does. Whelp, I hate to break this to you, but those little rodents are everywhere. PC, PS3, Wii... well... maybe the Wii, maybe not. It’s hard to tell because the Wii’s online multiplayer is beyond crap. You will pay for Xbox Live, but if people are paying for it (oh, and they are) then I’m pretty sure that means Microsoft is winning. And let’s not bother with how PSN is just as good, and free.
And finally... what to do with Steam. Cheap... cheap... crazy cheap games. Great library of big and small just... unbelievably cheap games. Automatic updates. Free, semi-reliable multiplayer. PC gaming is moving into the realm of the reasonable, with PCs that can play games for 4-5 years with minor upgrades. The old days when PC gaming needed major overhauls every year or two are gone.
But we’re just not there yet. The world isn’t ready for video gaming to require you to download twelve gigs to play a game, because not everyone has that internet service. Most of our PCs are sitting in “offices” or “computer rooms” with MAYBE a decent chair. My traditional consoles are on a big screen TV with a big, fat couch to sit on with my feet up. I could hook up a PC to that TV, but what if your game doesn’t use a controller? What if I’m playing an RTS and controllers are terrible and awful? I’m not mouse-and-keyboarding it on a couch. What if playing the game with a mouse and keyboard would be stupid? No one is going to play Mario using a keyboard.
And there are still the problems arising from non-standardized hardware. I recently tried for an hour and a half to get a game of 4-player Borderlands 2 going on Steam, and it turned out one person involved had a router that... well... Borderlands just didn’t like. If it took a computer engineer that long to figure it out, half the gaming population would have been completely out of luck till the proper patch or drivers dropped. The one lingering hangover from the olden days of PC gaming is there are too many variables in PC gaming causing it to work perfectly for one person, and not at all for another.
Not to mention Steam’s competition from a few very important, very stubborn, and VERY well-funded publishers/developers. EA has launched Origin, taking future BioWare games, Command and Conquer games, and a bevy of FPS games potentially off the table. Blizzard has Battle.net, keeping World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo away from Steam. Steam is easily superior to either of these services alone, but to a die-hard PC gamer, these absences from Steam’s library will not be overlooked, and it’s also an enormous amount of revenue Steam won’t see. You’re free to not care if Steam doesn’t have StarCraft, but you can’t argue the dollar amounts in play. Console gaming is black and white. You can either play the game or not. Steam is not black and white. There’s always some HUGELY important game Steam doesn’t get a slice of.
Oh, and needing internet to play a game with yourself. Screw that nonsense. I don’t need internet to play Arkham City on an Xbox.
Steam has problems... for now.
What really matters here, is that everyone is doing what Microsoft wants them to. THAT’S why they’ve won. People are PAYING for multiplayer everyone else gets for free, because Microsoft tells them it’s better that way Their biggest missteps are forgotten (RROD) or negligible (Kinect). They’re nearly identical to the PS3 in terms of library (only their versions make more money), the 360’s parent company is doing just peachy, and they’re going to embarrass the PS3 and troubled Sony this holiday season. The Wii made a ton of money for JUST Nintendo, but Nintendo’s street cred with reliable sources of revenue (die-hard gamers) paid the price so they could get a one-time dip into the casual well that has NO hope of refilling. The Xbox 360 made no such sacrifices so they could also try to court the casuals.
When you look at it without your fanboy console or genre biases, and look at the only things that actually matter, there’s no question. The Xbox 360 has won.
Comments
Jonzor - wrote on 11/24/12 at 11:17 PM CT
You know... I talked above about what makes a console "win" a generation. Everyone has their own opinions, but I'm pretty sure advertising campaigns don't factor in, so I guess we'll just have to think of some other lame excuse to not like the Xbox.
Yeah, the year head-start helped. Or did it hurt? I can never tell because SOME haters seem to pick and choose when they want that year (and the RROD) to be proof that Microsoft messed up. Or it gave them an advantage that people can use as an excuse when talking about its performance. Who even knows in these craaaaazy times? No one made Nintendo and Sony launch later, so I guess we'll all just have to move on with our lives.
Consoles don't have to be politically correct. The Xbox 360 doesn't have to include Japan "just because". If they can win without Japan, more power too them because ultimately, this is a business. You're mad because the Xbox did so well WITHOUT Japan? Do you want the Xbox's victory to be more decisive, or what? Because that's all Japan's absence is amounting to.
As long as Microsoft's goal is just to match Sony stride-for-stride, it'll gain ground in the Land of the Rising Sun every cycle. And Japan's status as the head of the video game snake is at an end, as it's at best the 3rd largest market for ANY console. The Xbox 360 sold more units in Europe than the GameCube had TOTAL, so let's cool our jets on how many units you "need" to sell outside of America. It also sold 22 million in Europe where the international wonder that is the PS3 sold 26.8 million. If you assume America, Europe, and Japan are the "major" markets, then the PS3 then turned around and sold 8.5 million everywhere else, and the Xbox 360 sold just over 7 million. That's all ground that can be made up (and was, easily).
Being a part of *thunder clap* MMMMMIIIICCRRRRRRROOOOOSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFFTTT *thunder clap* is an inherent advantage the company had heading into the console wars. Some companies have certain advantages, some have others. The Xbox gets to have tons of reserve cash and a company that's willing to buy popularity. But guess what, Microsoft made that money for themselves, they can do as they please. Nintendo has Mario and Zelda, plus a portable system to try and earn money off of. Nintendo made all those, so they get to use them. But since Microsoft didn't burn their cash pile and Nintendo didn't execute the Star Fox squad on the front lawn before the Wii came out, then I guess we'll have to just base our decision off of how much fun we have and how good the games are instead of the decades old story of how we got here.
Just Dance first appears on the Xbox 360's all-time game-rankings on the 5th page, as "Just Dance 4". It scored a 77. On the Wii, it first appears as Just Dance 3, at the top of page 3. So essentially, Just Dance is 206th best game on the Wii and around the 490th best game on the Xbox 360. I dunno... seems like it kinda just helps hammer the point home MORE.
No one said it's an exclusive. Wouldn't matter either way. The comment is that it's a TENTPOLE game for the Wii, and just another game Xbox 360 (though I'd say BETTER, because you're not holding a controller the whole time). Nintendo may as well send Link and Zelda to the island of forgotten favorites with Samus and Captain Falcon, because the fluorescent dancers on Just Dance are a MUCH better performing mascot.
Eventually, you grow out of giving a crap what kids on message boards are fighting about. What DOES bother me is Nintendo spending an entire console generation peddling to anyone BUT "gamers". If graphics whore kids get people to make actual video games for them and waggle whore kids get... well, just set some website's game database filter to "Wii" and search for the word "sports"... then I'll take the system that gets people to make something that actually feels like a video game instead of a baby shower game.
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/23/12 at 05:12 PM CT
I really think the 360's year-long head start helped it gain mindshare in a world where the original Xbox was widely considered a joke. I remember seeing plenty of "famous" people on TV talking about how much they loved their Xboxen (Snoop Dogg comes to mind), and, lo and behold, suddenly kids were obsessed with the Xbox 360! I wonder how many free Xboxen MS gave away (or how much they paid celebrities) in order to get these kinds of endorsements.
You never touched on how the Xbox 360 barely sold at all in Japan, and seems to be largely a North American phenomenon. You also failed to mention the fact that the Xbox Division bled money for years, and would have crashed and burned if MS hadn't propped it up with their billions in Windows and Office sales.
How far down do you have to go on the Xbox list to find those awesome Just Dance games on Metacritic? It's not like those are Wii exclusives: Every platform has them. I think a lot of the infighting between gamers this-gen is caused by a polarization between graphics-whoring kids who think playing those top 360/PS3 games makes them all grown up and non-gamers who love karaoke and mini-games. People who like lots of different games in lots of different genres are becoming scarce and nobody caters to them anymore.
