My two cents on the Nintendo Revolution / Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3 debate, posted at Engadget:
I’m not a gamer. At least not hard-core. When I sit down for 30-45 minutes at a time I expect to be entertained. I expect to have FUN! Right now I’m having fun playing Astro Boy for the GBA. A 2-D system. No polygons, no advanced cell processing bullcrap, just fun.
That’s why I’m buying a Revolution. I’m sick and tired of wading through fake ROM sites and pr0n to play Star Fox 64, too cheap and lazy to find the game and a used N64 at the store. Nintendo’s offering me a system with (presumably) an iTunes-like interface for buying old games, downloading them to my console, and being able to play them. Between that and my PS One (yes, ONE), I should be set for a good long while.
Xbox 360? Wake me when someone hacks it so I can play my QuickTime videos or use my Mac. Oh, and when they get a game I can be excited about besides Halo #. Sorry, guys, but I’m an Apple fanboy, and if Microsoft is going to sell the system based on it being a multimedia hub, it’s gotta work with my Mac in order to sell it to me.
PS3? Maybe so. If the Revolution wasn’t backwards compatable, then I might simply because I’ve got games for it. But now that they’ve got DDR on the GameCube (never mind that it has Mario in it), I’m not as inclined.
Then, of course, there’s price. Nintendo seems eager to undercut the other two consoles, probably by not being as “powerful” as the others. And at the power we’re talking about, the differences between chips (35x, 3x, 150000x more powerful) won’t be apparent until the end of the cycle. By then they’ll be talking about the next generation. And even the least powerful console will still get geeeeeorgous games (God of War, anyone?). Nintendo could squeeze basic polygons out of the SNES (Star Fox), I’m sure they could do a lot with the Revolution.
Oh… this is about rumored specs? Um… well, Nintendo is like Apple, so don’t believe anything until Steve Jobs– I mean Miyamoto-San officially announce something. Um… yeah.
