Game Quest : The Next Generation of Consoles

The Wall Street Journal posted a good flash up showing a good comparison between the new home video game consoles. Covering the Xbox 360, the Playstation 3 and the Revolution, this article goes in depth to speak about market shares and base unit installations.

With the launch of Microsoft's Xbox 360 in 2005, Sony the current market leader, and Nintendo will both follow in 2006 there is sure to be fierce competition. All consoles promise amazing graphics, high fidelity audio, wireless networking support and a focus on multiplayer games. This year alone gamers are expected to spend approximately $12.8 billion on hardware and $19.3 billion on software according to Wedbush Morgan Securities.

Current Installed Base
Microsoft Xbox - 24 million
Nintendo Gamecube - 21.5 million
Sony PS2 - 83.2 million

Microsoft Xbox 360
Pointing out that Microsoft's initial push to release their product was a important jump on the competition. Microsoft Expects to sell around three million units within the first 90 days of launch. However they have less games then were hoped for. In addition where was Halo for Xbox360? This game would obviously put more Xbox 360's in the hands of gamers, looking at original Halo sales. Had it not been for lack of consoles for sale however the disparity in price was no help either. Seeing Xbox 360's being sold from the $299 base price up to $1500 or more, including rather sleezy business tactics by Best Buy.

Sony Playstation 3
Master of the Market, Sony has consumed the video game market for the last two generations of video game consoles. Selling 150+ million Playstation consoles and holding relationships with many top video game console developers. Sonys new system boasts a DVD Drive that supports Blu-ray format, providing 54GB (11 1/2 times as much storage as a typical DVD-R) However this time could be tougher for Sony seeing 'Microsoft's aggressive push and their deep pockets'.

Nintendo Revolution
Responding to the Nintendo's new sleek design, they said that despite that the console 'lacks a hard drive or built in DVD player, it is expected to be priced lower then its rivals.' With the addition of Nintendo's virtual console, Revolution owners might be playing Mario Brothers and Chrono Trigger on their new consoles legally! While bringing so much history that is based on years of solid games, the Revolution does throw one interesting curve, the controller. While their will obviously be other controller options 'some analysts worry the unusual device may confuse and scare of some gamers', other controller possibilities (such as an original Nintendo controller) were announced during a press conference.