Mercury News: PS3? Wait and see

by Zack Stern on Nov 13th 2006 9:05PM

Dean Takahashi compares the three-console showdown beginning this week. His overview is mostly recap for us: the Wii is for new -- and unproven -- family gameplay, and the Xbox 360 is for hardcore gamers. The PS3? It's for techies who need the glossiest gadgets.

He doesn't find much reason to pick a PS3 over the 360, other than being the cool kid on your block. But he also mentions that his opinion could be swayed if unique games come out for the new system.

Do killer apps drive console sales? We can't think of a standout that would justify buying the hardware for any of the three consoles -- maybe Gears of War. Maybe that's why we have mixed feelings about the two launches. But we expect next year's game releases to warm us up to the new hardware.

Source

Tags: Dean Takahashi, DeanTakahashi, killer app, KillerApp, launch06, PS3, Wii, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (58)

"Varian, it appears that any hope for a Gears of War PC port is long gone. In 2005 the game was considered a "PC 360 exclusive," but no site on the internet to the best of my knowledge has reported anything on the PC version since 2005. Will you get a port in the future? Looks about 50/50 right now, maybe 60/40 leaning towards a no."

Did you not read my post? I said I GOT WORD FROM EPIC that it is in testing now for the PC. The information came from Epic, not any Internet site.

My guess is that official word of Gears of War for PC will not be out until after the holidays so Microsoft can lie to everyone in saying that the game is 'exclusive' to the Xbox 360 (by not saying how long).

So if Gears of War is coming to PC, is it fair to call it a Xbox 360 killer app? (I'd say yes. Halo went to PC and it was a Xbox killer app.) Then you'll also have to reconsider Zelda as well.

@ 34. THP8 is hardly a killer app, its tony hawk 3 on steroids. Not to say its a bad thing but you can get it on two of the 3 consoles and will hardly sell more of one, thats like saying Fifa is a killer app...

@ 47: "PS- What games in past generations were considered killer apps?"

Because I'm a Nintendo Fanboy, I'll stick with what I know. :P

If you want to go as far back as the NES days, I'd have to say Super Mario Bros was the killer app. (I may be wrong; I was born in 1991! :P)

For the N64, there was Golden Eye and of course my personal favorite game of all time, OoT (the reason I first started playing video games).

For GC, there was Wind Waker (not as good as OoT because of the stupid boat >_>), and RE4.

For the original GameBoy, there was Tetris (duh).

My memory of the GBColor is sketchy, so I'll skip it. :P

For the GBA and DS, I find it hard to declare a killer app. My favorite games for the GBA are Advanced Wars and Golden Sun, and my favorite on the DS are Brain Age, Mario Kart DS, Tetris DS, and Nintendogs.

I'd have to say that both Pokemon was a killer app for each iteration of GB (I still consider it to be one of the best RPG's of all time =]). Also, several other 'Mario' games could be classified as killer apps for different consoles (Mario Kart, Mario Party, ect.).

Anyone care to contribute from Sony or Microsoft? :)

my 360 betrayed me. but Gears of War smokes anything on PS3 so far. Epic is just a great game maker.

Meh, I have reason to buy PS3, outsiders of the Sony series may not except for Blu-ray. I'm getting a Wii regardless, its Xbox I can't find reason for buying, but then thats just for me, I'm not speaking for anyone else.

Zelda... how old are you?

Googled

"Personalized Results 1 - 10 of about 177,000,000 for Playstation 3"

Back to the article, this is quite possibly the worst attempt at unbiased journalism I have ever seen. Its trash, and what the hell is a mainstream hardcore gamer? The 2 terms dont go together, its not possible to be mainstream and hardcore at the same time.