Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft officials have begun trading blows, just a week after they gave the public a glimpse of their next-generation offerings. Using the Japanese media as a platform, high-ranking executives of the three warring factions, revealed their unmitigated scorn of the opposition. The odd thing is that very few people will be surprised by what was said as everyone involved stuck, pretty much, to the script that was used during the previous-generation conflict.
Sony's Ken Kutaragi was dismissive of Microsoft's next-generation effort and refused to even compare 360 and its parent company's ambitions to his vision for PS3.
When asked to comment on Microsoft's success at displacing PS2 from the top of the sales chart for a short while recently in the U.S., Mr. Kutaragi was venomous. He claimed that the incident was a hiccup and compared MS to a novice martial artist taking on an expert. We would like to formally put in a request to see Bill Giggles Gates take on Ken The Boastful Kutaragi in a quick fight and see who does a 360.
Mr. Kutaragi was also eager to stress that the Playstation 3 was the console with the most potential and definitely the one to watch in 2006. Sony's big cheese will have to decide however, exactly how he will want gamers to use the new Playstation console as his latest description of his vision for the future seemed to wander off into digital image analysis and other high-definition endeavors.
Microsoft was quick to unleash its crack teams of speech writers and anti-venom units and came up with Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach's comment, We will become the market leader with our next-generation console. Mr. Bach did however add insult to injury by claiming that the Nintendo and Sony presentations were unremarkable and showcased nothing beyond XBox 360's capabilities. He must have been watching something else as Sony's demonstration clearly went a step further than anything MS had showcased. As a result you can either believe Sony was being economical with the PS3 truth or that the PS3 will blow XBox 360 out of the water, ducks and all, probably using eyetoy and in flawless physics.
Mr. Bach also described PS3s support of 7 players and double HDTV output as excessive while he claimed that adopting Blu-Ray was a risk. Kutaragi did however, explain the choice of Blu-Ray as an attempt to establish the format and suggested that the meteoric rise of DVD popularity was, in part, a result of the PS2.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, not wanting to miss the fun, also decided to comment. He raised his voice and clearly said No Comment when asked if the Revolution will come in Q4, 2006. He then decided to throw some information our way as he went on with his usual gameplay versus raw power rhetoric, supporting his views by using a financial model which suggests that game development costs will rise to such an extent that innovation might become collateral damage of the next-gen war.
We have to admit as the next-generation news keeps coming in, Mr. Iwata's ideas seem to be growing in appeal, much as the mustache-bearing, humpbacked, team leader of the womens power-lifting team might do after a few beers. Mr. Iwata did not miss the opportunity of taking a stab at this fellow next-gen combatants by claiming, We're not about selling new kinds of TVs or taking control of the living room...
XBox 360 is expected to launch in November 2005 in the U.S. with the company helping to make it recently having claimed that production of the units will start in China in September 2005. Microsoft's console is expected to cost around USD 300 at launch although no one is willing to confirm that at this point.
Sony's PS3 is expected to launch in spring 2006 with the most recent estimate of its price being USD 350-400.
Ninttendo's Revolution is expected to be the last next-generation console to launch (latest estimate Q4,2006) and should be the cheapest offering.
