If you are to believe the proselytizing around the Nets, Sony hasn’t really come out as a strong contender in theis generation’s console wars. Someone pointed out that Sony has had shoddy showings in the past at events such as E3 but when they needed to bring it, it was sufficiently broughten. Still, based on sheer textual giddiness you can say that Nintendo has captured the Webosphere’s imagination although it’s hard to fault Microsoft for not generating a slew of buzz since, aside from Halo 3, it’s not like they have a gangload of first party titles people were really hoping to hear about.

I’m just saying I don’t know that you could compete with details and playable demos of new Zelda, Metroid and Mario games.

Of specific note is Ubisoft director Clint Hocking’s Sony-directed diss where he accuses Sony of playing the “me too” game and irritating developers with their focus on the technology drive.

To an extent I see what he’s saying and a lot of people, especially Nintendo, are bagging on the press for ever-better graphics but the problem with that grousing is that graphics do need to get better at some point. You can talk all you want about gameplay and while it is the most important part to a game’s overall enjoyment, no one who plays games at a level at all above casual can resist marvelling at a really great-looking game. Resident Evil 4 got loads of acclaim because of it’s much-needed improvements to the control scheme but without the slick visuals no one would have even considered offering up the coveted Game of the Year awards if it had looked like, say, Indigo Prophecy (oh, how I love to rag on that game).

Which is not to say I dislike Nintendo’s strategy of doing more reasonable tech upgrades and trying to balance the horsepower advances with the price point (something Sony obviously doesn’t care about), but to blast Sony for pushing their whiz-bang specs and harping on HD is a little silly when they’ve been getting gripes for the last year and a half for falling behind the XBox in terms of system potential. It’s almost like they can’t win with some people. Which is probably the case.

I mentioned yesterday that I wasn’t sold on the directional sensitivity thing for games and I’m still not. In fact I was less enthused about The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess when I heard it was Wii-only (which turned out to be false and supposedly it will be a GameCube/Wii crossover title) and as much as I like Metroid Prime, I’m a bit disappointed to see that you have to do the Wiimote thing to make it work. I guess I was still kinda hoping for a few of these games to stick with the old school. Obviously I haven’t tried any of these so I’m basing my reaction on pure conjecture but I was more excited to hear that Resident Evil 5 was going to be available for the XBox 360 than I was to hear that there was about to be a Wii-itized RE.

At this point I’m thinking that as soon as a couple of killer games hit the 360 library (and they’re already pretty close since PGR3, Call of Duty 2, Perfect Dark Zero, Halo 3 and StarCraft Ghost all seem or look like the sort of thing I’d be into) I’ll wait for the first price dip to pick one up. After that I’ll have to try a few of these Wii titles and see how they stand up to the test drive to decide if I want to risk another console purchase that may be for first-party titles alone. The PS3 is going to be one of those things that I buy only if the number of must-play games for it reaches a critical mass and it’s price point has gotten much more reasonable.

Actually writing that paragraph above kind of surprised me since up until this very moment I was thinking that this generation I might stick with more of a one or two console decision rather than trying to juggle all three of the major players but I sort of assumed I would run with the PS3 as my primary choice.

It sort of comes down to my experience in the last/most recent gen where I ended up with all three systems. On one hand I probably got the most overall enjoyment out of the GameCube, that was due to the quality of games I played for that system. But it is probably worthwhile to note that while I either liked or pretty much loved about 95% of the games I played on the GC, I only actually played about a dozen titles on the system. 11 out of 12 doesn’t sound quite as impressive as the percentile equivalent. I enjoyed the XBox probably the second most, but I played a lot more clunkers on that system. Then again, I played a lot more games. I probably dropped 35-40 games into the black behemoth and liked maybe as many as 20. Of course a lot of the fun came from XBox Live which I still believe is a huge selling point for the XBox and allowed even some mediocre games (Mechassault, Full Spectrum Warrior) to have sufficient enjoyment due mostly to the online play. The PS2 got probably as much attention as the ‘Box if not more (35-50 games played) which may have been because I had it longer, but I enjoyed a lot fewer of the games. I don’t know if that was just a matter of quantity or what, but I did note that some of the games I had really high hopes for didn’t pan out (Final Fantasy X, Metal Gear Solid 2/3, Silent Hill 2) from my perspective so maybe there is something to be said for the Sony hype machine?

Still, if I had to live without one of the previous gen systems it would probably have been the XBox despite the fact that it pretty much took over my gaming attention in the last couple of years there. If I had only gotten one system I think I would have been the happiest with the PS2 (which is why I bought that one first). It only follows then that my inclination was to figure the PS3 as my best bet. But somehow it dropped to last on my list and I think that has something to do with the fact that it’s hard to compare what Nintendo is doing this time ’round with the others, leaving MS and Sony to pretty much duke it out for the median gamers’ attention. Overall I may not be a huge fan of either company, but while I aspire to have as much choice as possible I feel somewhat compelled to reward the XBox franchise for their overall better execution last time and what I feel is the better strategy going forward.