Home » , , , , , » Sony Wins Console Wars

Sony Wins Console Wars

Written By mista sense on Tuesday, March 13, 2007 | 5:35 AM


...But not with PS3.

The past few months, we've been in the fog of war, concussed by conflicting media and message board nerd-wars. During the Christmastime rush back in December, the console wars reached a fever pitch. Fling-able nunchuck versus controversial sixaxis. Games your Grandma would love to play at a price she can afford, versus a console no one can afford with games no one wants to play. Blu-Ray: Big deal, or big mistake? Would you buy a console just for a Zelda title? Skip some car payments over freakin' Ridge Racer?

Turns out that the best console for Christmas might be the one you already had.

According to NPD sales figs, while XBox 360 outsold Wii and the struggling PS3 handily in December, Sony's elder child, the PS2, outdid all three.

This isn't surprising, even for the hardware-defunct. Simply rewind back in memory to the last console wars, the sun setting over PSone and the days when the newest games for the PS2 didn't look too much better than those released on PSone only a month or two earlier. It seems that just when developers got the knack of maximizing the often headache-inducing platform, Sony rolled out a spankin' new revamp to confound them all over again.

The PS2's also developed an impressive library over its long life-- unfortunately, the gaming industry and surrounding media just isn't conducive to exposing niche titles. Hopefully that'll change someday. It seems no sooner were we 40 hours in to the latest headline title, buried in high-level graphics and industry buzz, then it was yesterday's news, back-shelf, Greatest Hits. Fanatics needed to rush through the marquee titles just to stay ahead; there was hardly even time to really savor the experience. Checking out less-publicized games? Wasn't really gonna happen. I am one of what I imagine is a large segment of the gamer crowd who, as the PS2 reaches the end of its era, hasn't even played all of the games I was interested in. I'm not pulling the sheet over the ol' girl yet.

Today, God of War II hits shelves-- it's arguably the most anticipated game yet of 2007, despite the cacaphony of buzz around the next-gen stuff. As expected, the hyperbolic GameSpot review promises "one of the best action-adventure games of both the previous and current console generation." That remains to be seen, but perhaps the console giants will take a message from it-- at the end of the day, fans care most about good games, and no amount of flashy technology and impressive E3 trailers will sell consoles without 'em.

Blog Archive

Popular Posts

Ad

a4ad5535b0e54cd2cfc87d25d937e2e18982e9df

Ad