We've had time now to at least let the initial shots be fired in the current generation console wars. The Wii U has been out for well over a year now, and the PS4 and XBox One have been out for a few months now. While we still have a long way to go to find out how everything turns out, I've had a chance to play around on all three (although I only own one, I've been able to find people with each one, and have played demos). On top of that, I won't be able to own each of the three, I have other interests, and money really only allows me to buy one more (already have a Wii U), and even that probably won't be until price cuts, so I have done more than my share of research so that I get the right system based on what I'm looking for. I'm going to go over each one to try to make this an easier choice for you.
Nintendo Wii U
Strength - By far the strongest group of first party franchises. Rather you're looking for Pokemon, Pikmin, Metroid, Starfox, F-Zero, Zelda, or Mario. That's not even all of them, and not all of them have any games announced for the Wii U, but there is a reasonable enough chance for each of them to have a game on the Wii U. As far as what's been released, there's been Pikmin and Mario games already released, and while it's not a traditional one, there is a Zelda game that has been announced. The two Mario games that have been released are phenomenal games, and let's not forget that there has been a Zelda remake already released as well, and it's about as perfect as a remake can be. The Nintendo online store also has plenty of great games as well, including a huge number of exclusives from past consoles that cannot be bought and played on the Wii U. With a history like Nintendo's, that's a huge thing.
Weakness - Power, all the way. The Wii U is by far the weakest of the 3 systems. It's power is barely above that of the XBox 360 and Playstation 3....and yes, I am indeed talking about last generation's consoles. While this is the first time we've been able to see many of the characters in HD, I've never considered the jump from good SD graphics to HD graphics to be that huge myself. The bottom line is that the system is weak and will probably not get the third party support Nintendo needs because of that. Developers will be too limited as far as AAA games go.
X-Factor - The controller. The Wii controller is well known for what it is. It's huge with a big screen right in the middle. This is one of the most polarizing aspects of the system. Either people love it or they hate it. On the plus side, the extra screen brings much more versatility. On the negative side, it's huge and eats up it's battery power very fast. The size really was never an issue to me though, and despite the size it's very light. The battery life has been an issue, but it's not like I'm running around when I'm playing, so it's not terrible for me to have to plug it in. One more advantage is that on many games you can use it to play games while keeping the television on.
Extra Strength - By far the cheapest of the 3 consoles.
Playstation 4
Strength - As far as actual gaming goes, this is the strongest system. Third party games have been starting with the PS4 so far this generation, and have been given the best resolution on the PS4. There isn't too much further to take this, but the bottom line is that it's the strongest system for gaming.
Weakness - The PS4 has had the slowest start as far as games go. Their lineup still fails to have a single game that I really would look forward to buying. There are a few games on the way, but some of those are far off, especially the one I'm most looking forward to (Uncharted).
X-Factor - The controller again! Nintendo is off on its own island, but I'll give a spoiler and admit that it will also be the X-Factor for the XBox One. People often love one of the controllers. The best thing that Sony did here was stick with what worked, but made some subtle changes.
Extra Strength - I'll go with two here. One of them is that, among the two powerful systems, PS4 has a much cheaper price, and the better collection of exclusive franchises.
XBox One
Strength - It's the better overall media machine. The PS4 has the stronger gaming capabilities, and if you want a machine just for gaming and playing Blu Ray movies, then it will be stronger, but the XBox One has so many more things it can do throughout all forms of media, and it has easier ways to get to it.
Weakness - Among the two systems, as I've said, it's weaker for actual gaming. Not just in power, but as far as exclusive franchises go as well. Even some of the exclusives can be played on the PC instead, so there really are not many, if any games that you'll miss out on if you go with the other two over it.
X-Factor - Again, the controller, as I said it would be. Personally this is something I find to be a weakness for the XBox One, but many people love it. It's all a matter of personal preference.
Extra Strength - Voice activation feature is very cool and saves you the energy of that extra annoying reach of the arm, or jump up to push a button somewhere. Sure, it doesn't get rid of anything too inconvenient, but it is pretty cool.
No comments:
Post a Comment