[James R. Stoup from Apples matters reports] "The hype is over, the products are on sale and the verdicts are in. The Zune sucks, the Wii rocks and the Playstation 3 is causing mass hysteria. I, for one, can’t wait until next year when we all can stand in line trying to knife one another over who gets to buy an iPhone.
But taking a slightly more indepth look at things I must pose this question. Was I the only one surprised at the amount of attention the Zune has gotten? Because, virtually without exception, it has garnered poor reviews. The hardware has been opened, the software has been crashed and the experience as a whole has been summed up as mediocre. Contrast this to the Wii. Every report I have read has declared the Wii a winner. But it isn’t getting nearly as much attention as Microsoft’s failed MP3 player. Why?
I keep hearing the oft repeated pearl of wisdom that the Zune is a version 1.0 device and that Microsoft doesn’t actually produce a meaningful product until its third release. Which would put this new Zune 3.0 somewhere between 2-3 years into the future. Am I the only one who is skeptical of this nonsense? Are these pundits really thinking that Microsoft will continually lose money for at least 2 years before coming up with a competitor to today’s iPod? Isn’t it a bit more likely that the Zune will just die a slow and quiet death just like Plays-For-Sure? Am I missing something here?
But getting back to Nintendo and their amazing new console I would like to ruminate for a moment. For those of you who haven’t actually played with a Wii, let me tell you, they are cool. Really cool. Like, you will probably be buying one in the next year, kind-of cool. So doesn’t this officially signal the decline of the standard two joystick controller? You can already see that Sony is trying to jump on board with its novice attempt at including motion sensing technology in its controllers. But what about Microsoft? The Xbox 360 has only been out for a year and its going to be a long time (as far as the video game industry is concerned) before the Xbox 720 (or whatever its to be called) comes out.
This means that Microsoft can either pull a Sony and attempt some cheap bolt-on motion sensor knock-off so it can join the “me-too” crowd. Or it has to wait until the next console comes out and start afresh there. Neither option is really all that attractive. Because on one hand you have Microsoft adding yet another piece to the Xbox system (remember, it already has a snap-on harddrive and a plug-in HD-DVD player so by all means, bolt some more crap onto it) but that will take time to develop, it will be buggy initially and will still seem cheap in comparision to Nintendo. While on the other hand waiting till the next Xbox comes out means that the current system will continue to loose money and marketshare.
Meanwhile Sony is in a better position, but not by much. They have all of Microsoft’s problems, just to a lesser degree. They too need to examine how they are going to move forward with new input devices. And they too need to get consumers on their new High Def format (which in this case is Blu-Ray) but at least the Playstation has the benefit of having an integrated Blu-Ray player and superior graphics as compared to the other consoles. However, while the difference between the Wii’s graphics and the Xbox or PS3 is quite noticable, the difference between the Xbox and PS3 isn’t nearly as dramatic. It should make things interesting to say the least.
As for myself, I will definately get a Wii after the Christmas rush. And whenever Halo 3 comes out I will then go buy an Xbox 360. As for Sony? Sorry, this consumer doesn’t have a compeling enough reason to go out and buy a PS3. Better luck on the PS4.
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