verbose
"the race to lead the fight to be the top selling current-generation console"... wow, someone's winning the race to lead the fight to win the day to rule the roost of redundant redundancy.
The Sony PlayStation 3 was the world's most popular HD-capable games console in 2010, out-shipping Microsoft's Xbox 360 by 2.2m units. But figures released by market watcher Strategy Analytics still put both of those machines behind Nintendo's Wii in the race to lead the fight to be the top selling current-generation console …
Really? They pissed on the Wii whichsold more? Perhaps my English or Maths skills are failing me by 17m units by the Wii is more than 14m units for the PS3 and more than the 12m unit for the 360, and the Wii continues to piss on the other two.
Hasn't the Wii hit saturation level yet?
This article is worded and structured very oddly. It seems at pains to emphasise the gains made by Sony and Microsoft, while almost disguising the fact that Wii was still the best-selling console in 2010. "Nintendo market share slumped in 2010", indeed? From first place by a mile, to first place comfortably, more like.
I have a Wii and a PS3. I can't decide whether to get the Wii motion-plus addon and get Wii games which are less graphically exciting but all designed from the ground up for motion-controllers, or get a PS3 Move addon and risk finding only a few games support it, as an afterthought.
Killzone 3 is incredible with Move and Sharpshoter.
Deadspace Extraction, very good onrails
Then you have the move-only PSN titles like Tumble, and disk games like Start the Party, which literally blows any Wii casual title out the water.
I showed by brother Start The Party at Xmas, they bought a PS3 the next day. It's unfortunate that so many people wasted their money on Wii and think that's all casual gaming is about....
Wii was first to do motion control, the games are designed with it in mind. Games really involve the player and its fun. Ok the Wii was my partners choice, I'd have got a PS3 personally, but there you go. As for its graphical output, it can do 480p which I have it doing, on my HD TV.
Its been around now for ages, it seems, its success can not be questioned! :)
My thoughts entirely. So effectively what the article is saying is that the Wii is still pissing all over the other two in terms of sales (including in 2010), but because you can't play COD or whatever in 720p it doesn't matter. Whether HD or not, in terms of sales - the only fact that matters is that Sony and MS are still waaaay behind Nintendo.
To have made this article mean anything relevant, the author should have dropped "HD-capable" from the first sentence, or just not have mentioned Nintendo anywhere at all - as as it is, it just seems like a twisting of the facts to suit the authors bias.
Ownership is not directly related to bias. Like much of the wording in the article, your reply appears to be trying to get casual readers to infer a meaning which is not actually there. For example:
"The Sony PlayStation 3 was the world's most popular __HD-capable__ games console in 2010, out-shipping Microsoft's Xbox 360 by 2.2m units." HD-capabale HAD to be added to this statement to make it true, yet is a term likely to be skimmed over by the casual reader. The net result is unsuspecting readers entering the article with the impression that the Wii fell behind the other two consoles.
"Some 43.7m current-gen consoles shipped in 2010, SA said. Just over 17m of them were Wiis. __Unlike the Xbox and PS3, the Wii is only capable of standard-definition output.__ Sony shipped 14.42m PS3s. Microsoft shipped 12.24m Xbox 360s." The highlighted sentence has no place in this paragraph, because output capability is not related to shipment volumes. It serves only to support the bias introduced in the first paragraph. It would have made much more sense to include the highlighted sentence in the first paragraph, which would serve to clarify the meaning. The following is an example of a more clear opening paragraph:
"The Sony PlayStation 3 was the world's most popular HD-capable games console in 2010, out-shipping Microsoft's Xbox 360 by 2.2m units. However, the Nintendo Wii, which is only capable of standard-definition output, still outshipped both of the HD-capable consoles."
When read carefully and with effort, your article as written is factually correct. However, it is worded in such a way as to give a misleading impression to someone who does not spend time carefully weighing each sentence.
Because readers are selective, there IS an inherent bias in your industry -- not towards specific brands, but towards articles and headlines which show things happening (hence the dynamic terminology: "race to lead" what is now a 5-year old generation of consoles, for example) and since "Wii still outshipping competition" is a non-story, it would be only natural to rephrase the headline and article to highlight the changes. But that has to be balanced against providing a clear and readable article that is most likely to give all readers the correct impression. I think you missed the mark a little on that point.
Thanks for that - I was going to say more or less the same thing, but you've saved me the bother.
On a different note, I'm still really surprised that the PS3 is leading the Xbox 360 in sales and share. I have a lot of computer gaming friends and while almost everyone I know has an Xbox, almost no-one has a PS3. I'd say Xboxes outnumber PS3s 10:1 in all my circles of friends, which are quite varied. My Xbox also saw about 10 times more use than the PlayStation, until GT5 came out.
Is this an EU/US thing? Are there bajillions of PS3 sales in Asia or something? I'd be very interested to see those figures broken down by market - and presented properly.
Quite the opposite here , I have three friends who have xboxes, and every other friend / family (atleast 40) member has a PS3 or has had a Wii, an this is in the UK, a few years ago this may have been different as I know a few had a Wii or an Xbox, but the dynamic seems to have changed in the PS3's favour for Hard core games and the additional content bundled
I don't play many games that rely heavily on motion control any more, but my Wii still sees a lot of use. I have a Wii and a 360, which also sees heavy use.
There are plenty good games out for the Wii, but aside from the large Nintendo franchises, you have to look for them, and know what you're looking for.
Back to the article, I don't quite understand how the PS3 and XBox 360 are supposed to have passed water on the Wii. Yes, the margin of the Nintendo's lead is smaller than it was, but they still appear to be in the lead, and this is in the face of high profile extensions being released for the rival consoles.
I do get the impression the Wii is slowing down, I have heard it said many times that the Wii must be reaching saturation point, and the line up of games for this year does look a little bleak.
Still, you can't rule it out just yet either. It's definitely not finished yet.
Well done Nintendo.
for the whole family. It was a piece of genius from Nintendo, developing something that slipped into it's own niche of something that was simple to use, graphically interesting and fun. Everyone in the family was welcome to play. It made you participate, instead of staring a screen pressing buttons, you leapt about, swung your arms and that's inherently funny to watch.
PS3 & Xbox 360 both went after the same, core, gamer audience. They boast better technology for playing games etc. They do, however, lack the universal appeal of the Wii. Nintendo has had years to become the leading family entertainment platform, and both Move & Kinect have had months to have any impact on that lead. It's more to do with saturation than any other reason I feel.
I'm a PS3 owner, without a Wii or 360, and I'm happy. I just think you can't honestly compare PS3 & 360 to the Wii, different horses for different courses. Wii doesn't have the core gamer appeal that the other two have, and the other two don't have the family appeal that the Wii has. I suspect most homes will go for the Wii over the other two, but if there's a gamer in the house, then he or she will have a 360 or PS3 (most likely as well as the Wii)
That's my tupennies worth anyway
In the UK I find the PS3 X360 ownership is quite even, but you do make friends when online gaming, so I end up with online friends of the same console.
What is interesting is that most X360 owners I know are buying multiplats - mainly COD series and the like.
PS3 it is a mix of exclusives and multiplats. Main ones are Uncharted series, LBP, Killzone series, GT5, and multiplats of Red Dead Redemption and COD series.
Among the children, if you could only have one children aimed game what would it be?
Ok We have a PS3 PS2 a Wii, I will admit to not using Wii beyond as scales as the games do not appeal to me at all*, but the Super Mario Galaxy games are liked by them.
Anyway I gave them a small choice.
SMG2 or LBP2?
2 went LBP2 no question. 1 went LBP2 after some thought, as that child said - you can make whatever level you want.
* Never been a Mario fan or thought much of Sonic either. Early days it was a really good Vic 20 space game, Doom, Wolf3d, Xenon2. Only early console game I had actually liked and went for was Sega Rally.
Basically I prefered PC type games apart from driving games until the modern action adventure / TPS / FPS landed on consoles.