Wii takes first round from PS3, eleven rounds to go

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 02 January 2007 03:54

Opinion and Analysis

Hats off to Nintendo. The Wii is an amazing demonstration of what an innovative company can do with limited processing power, while providing a product for the budget conscious games consumer.

However, discounting the cheap Blu-ray player factor - and it will be a factor for non-gamers going forward - comments of a hard core gamer over on the Cinema Blend site in response to a very pro-Wii article are instructive: "i have all 3 systems. after i beat zelda, I havent touched the smallest console......To me after 5 weeks with a ps3, i would have to say that the ps3 is far from finished. It has been released in a premature stage. I also believe this was sony's scheme. MAKE THE PS3 EXTREMELY POWERFUL but not from launch.. As time goes by we will see what the coders can really do."

The poster also had some interesting thoughts on Xbox 360 which, despite a full 12 months with the new generation consoles market to itself, has been unable to build an unbridgeable lead: "360 has plenty of games which is a plus.... but theyre mostly remakes of xbox games with new lighting and bigger textures."

The parallels between the Nintendo and Sony new generation consoles war and a title fight seem appropriate. Sony, the reigning champ for the past 10 years in the home consoles space, has put forward a lumbering heavyweight in the PS3. Nintendo, challenging to regain its long lost mantle, has put forward a sprightly middleweight with an innovative new armoury of blows in the Wii.

Naturally, in the early rounds the middleweight is going to duck and weave and outjab and inflict some damage on the heavyweight. However, there is still a doubt as to whether the middleweight has enough firepower to go the distance with the heavyweight. That said, the heavyweight has yet to land a telling blow. Come March, if the heavyweight is still struggling, and the middleweight has some more tricks up its sleeve, we may see an upset.