Carnac

Since I am at the Digital Life show and games seem to be taking over, I have been thinking. As the big three keep duking it out, many folks have been exclaiming who the winner and losers will be. Although I may not be an industry insider, these are my thoughts:

This race is Microsoft's to lose. The 360 has a head start of a year and the killer ap has been XBOX Live so far. There have not been any have to have games, but I believe they have the best chance because of the XNA. The XNA created an outlet for people with little to no budgets to make games. All they need is one counter-strike and they have given the tools to everyone out there.

The dark horse is the Wii. Nintendo surprised everyone with this little thing at E3 and many people are still on the fence. Is it a novelty? Why does it have so little power? None of those things matter if the games are good and they continue to use their IP well. Also, their online play with the different channels could prove to be very interesting. For a company telling everyone that they don't want your living room, their online offering is much more than games.

The PS3 has the longest shot even though they dominated the last generation with the PS2. Sony no longer has the press, the gaming community or the developers firmly on their side. They have decided to be more cocky than Nintendo was in the late 90's. The PS3 seems more to be a tech demonstration than a game machine. The system is also directly linked to the format DVD format wars. Blue Ray is one of the reasons why PS3 is much more expensive and no one knows if Blue Ray will be dominant over HD-DVD (I personally think that the war will be moot in a few years as internet connections continue to speed up and the movies will all be downloaded.) Don't forget that Beta-Max was Sony's and they will continue to fight HD Dvd no matter what. Sony also has monitary issues and besides movies, video games are the only thing propping up that company. If PS3 flops, Sony may not bounce back.

Ryan