Luke’s Corner

One of the biggest questions since the next generation video game consoles broke loose amongst the public is, which is the best console? Of course, we are all entitled to our own opinions and not being the current owner of any nex-gen console I have no side to take in this debate. However, I feel that this should be released in the air. For there have been two consoles that have been having a battle of wits for the last two years…they are the Microsoft Xbox 360, which was released in November of 2005, and its heavy competitor, the Nintendo Wii which followed the 360’s release nearly a year later.

 I am sorry to report that I will not be mentioning or including the Sony Playstation 3 into this competition because, even though the Playstation 3 has kick-ass graphics and plays the sadly seldom used Blu-Ray disks, it has no competition with the 360 and the Wii. The Playstation 3 was a whopping economic failure for the Sony corporation loosing them approximately $300 for every one that was manufactured, and still weighing in at a hefty $500-$700 retail price! Yikes!

Let us begin with price. Both the Wii and the Xbox come in at a fair price that is approximately half to a third of the price of the Playstation 3. The Wii, however has the Xbox here, having a thirty dollar lower retail then the Core Model Xbox, (279.99). The Core model of the 360, however, does not come with something very helpful to every gamer, memory. Without a memory stick, which costs somewhere between thirty to one hundred dollars depending on how much you want, you can’t save your games. The Xbox Premium model already comes with the memory installed but skyrockets the Wii’s retail at a steeper $379.99 compared to the Wii’s seldom $249.99, and this usually comes with 30 GB of memory for your 360, a whopping sum for most heavy players.

But is price really everything? To most gamers who were forced from getting the much awaited Playstation 3, price is a huge factor. The Wii defiantly racks in points for being the less expensive and also for being the most widely sold game console internationally, according to both TIMES magazine and the SEQUIM GAZETTE. As a matter of fact, the Wii actually sold more consoles than the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 combined. But to many people it’s not the quantity, its the quality. Xbox 360 has graphics that the cheaper Nintendo Wii just can’t owe up to. In fact, many Nintendo fans have complained about the lack of evolution that the Wii’s graphics has seen since its predecessor the Nintendo GameCube.

The Wii, while having the Xbox on sales and consumer-friendly retail prices also has the Xbox on remote sensitivity. Players on the Wii actually have controls that you move around to simulate the exact same move on the character that you are playing on the screen. This attribute is said to make people unused to playing video games have an easier time learning how to play. But others, dislike the Wii’s revolutionary controls, stating that their difficult to learn and get used to. The Xbox’s controls, however, are nearly exactly the same as the Original Xbox, witch stacked the shelves in 2001.

Both the Wii and the 360 have online playing that allows players to play massive online games with one another. And both of these consoles are compatible with their predecessors the Nintendo GameCube and the original Xbox. But once again, the Wii’s got the Xbox at playing even older games. With something called Wii Points, Wii owners are able to purchase their favorite classic games from the original Nintendo systems and the Nintendo 64. The a convenience of saving these games straight to your Wii, however, come at a price, as most convenience does. It costs approximately $10 worth of Wii points to buy a game that you could probably pick up from anywhere from $.50 to $3. To me that’s kind of a rip off.

Now, throughout the whole of this debate I have been favoring the Wii and its great, revolutionary methods that have never stepped in the world of gaming before. But now its time to bring out the Wii’s biggest fault. The Wii has an extremely low abundance of games favorable of older audiences. Whenever I talk to my friends at school, primarily my friend Niki Liu, they only game they usually play is Super Smash Brothers Brawl. There are also lots of fans of Zelda, but that about finishes the list! 

Now the Xbox 360 one the other hand has a wide variety of games ranging from Halo 3, a segment of one of the highest selling video game sagas in history, and loaded with First Person Shooters, like Black 2 and BlackSite: Area 51, that keep the games flying off the shelves. The only probably with these games that keep the Xbox public happy, is that their all violent bloody shooters. Non-violent games can be found on the Xbox consoles, but they are a forever abundance in the Wii’s young children collection of games. Nintendo’s most violent games are Metriod Prime and Call of Duty 3, but under those two, the most violent games are Mario and StarFox, where conveniently everyone is immortal. This non-violent universe of the Nintendo, however, is much healthier for younger audiences, but is not as appealing to the older. The Xbox also has the convienence of playing both DVD’s and CD’s on its console, the Nintendo Wii can not.

That about covers the debate covering these heavy competitors from Nintendo and Microsoft. I’m sure that we can see further competition from these two opponents in the proceeding generations coming to us on the horizon. The Wii has broken the barrier of virtual reality in video games and that defiantly deserves a plus. But its lack of interesting games is a major minus in the minds of nearly all videogamers worldwide. Maybe we’re just a really messed up species that the majority of us find more enjoyment in shooting people, blowing up buildings, stealing cars, and hacking limbs off of enemies then a carefree music-filled room of dodging lava pits and squashing mushrooms. But it is defiantly clear that each console has its pros and cons, and which is the better is strictly in the eye of the beholder.