James Mielke's latest blog doesn't pull any punches. He manages to offend just about everybody with this one. He sure is representing alot of gamers resentment and feelings towards Sony, MS, and the Nintendo of the past. It's a bleeding heart rant, but it encapsulates a lot of what the discussion has been of late at GAF, and reveals a few things. Like a reference to the ongoing frustration devs are having with XBLA at MS. It's long, but I bolded some highlights. Overall its a good read if you have a few minutes. If you call him out, maybe he'll show up and threaten to kick your ass or something LOL
Link: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=7455690&publicUserId=4549175
I will have 2 Wiis before I have 1 PS3 AKA How Nintendo got their groove back.
(note: I left out the first paragraph which is a trollish diatribe about all his Sony gear breaking down on him. Everything breaks James)
So to the giant Sony corporation and your $600 'must-have' high-definition all-in-wonder machine, I say "No thanks." At least not in the 'launch window.' Seriously. While I would love to play Ridge Racer 7 to my heart's content, I no longer trust you to deliver me a system that won't be rendered obsolete with the second wave of hardware adjustments. You know what I'm talking about. The original PlayStation 2s did not have the docking bay that you'd need to install the HDD unit. Then when you did ship units that supported the HDD, you made them obsolete with the slim PS2s, which meant that no one could or should develop with that hardware in mind any more. Of course I need not remind us all (but I will anyway) about all of those original PS1s which we had to turn on their side, or place upside down in order for the laser to read the discs.
So the bottom line is that for all your corporate cockiness over the years, for all of your tangible sense of entitlement which was spawned by almost 10 years of uninterrupted success at the top of the video game market, I eagerly anticipate the upcoming 'next-gen' battle. I don't have any particular love for Microsoft, and I'm equally as mad at Nintendo for making it so hard to champion them over the years (from bad decisions and a promotion-resistant anti-PR mentality), but I'm dying to see how this round shapes up, because there's absolutely nothing special about the PlayStation 3. While the same can be said about the Xbox 360, at least Microsoft's played to their strengths and done what they can to build a vibrant online community; gamers bound through functionality and a unified online presence. Sony has never had this and everything about the PS3 and its every feature screams "me too."
I don't care to be told by a corporate monolith what I need as much as the next person, and that's all Kaz Hirai, Phil Harrison, Jack Tretton, Ken Kutaragi and the rest of the suits have been telling us at every god damn 8am Sony press conference for the last billion years. This year, apparently, I need Blu-Ray, and high-definition, and the 5.1. and the so on and so on. Thanks, but I don't, really. And I don't think the majority (I'd say at least 90% of the people reading this) of the world does either. If high-definition was so important, then every $600 PlayStation 3 should come with a 17" widescreen HDTV monitor free. I know Sony is losing Benjamins with every PS3 sold, but hey, they're the ones who crammed a Blu-Ray drive into every unit, and eight processors, and CELL. And this is going to last 10 years apparently. The PS3 is so future-proof you won't need another gaming system for a decade. OK, it's semi-plausible, because the PS2 has been going strong for six years now, but the fine print says that while you may not need another game platform for 10 years, so long as you have a PS3, you'll probably need to buy at least three PS3s over that same time span. Why? Because they'll break down (badly), they'll be redesigned to be smaller (the current PS3 is bigger than the original Xbox), and then they'll be redesigned to incorporate features that no one's thinking about now.
And while the Blu-Ray format is nice (who ever really watches the bonus content on DVDs 90% of the time, anyway?), do we really need sharper images? I dare say we do not. It was one thing, coming out of the magnetic tape hell that was VHS, with its ever-deteriorating quality and hyper-low resolutions, to segue to the beauty of DVD. But to go from the perma-archival quality of DVD, which still looks really ****ing sharp on the right set-up, to go to Blu-Ray's more better sharpness? The need isn't really there, yannow? If the average person really needed high-definition anything then why the hell is YouTube so popular? Everything on YouTube looks like crap, and it's huge. And let's take a look at the current line-up of Blu-Ray fare: The Punisher (oh boy), RV (better than people say, but uh, did we need this in high-def?), Lethal Weapon (sorry, but it's only going to be as good as the source material, and this film came out before Christ was born), Hitch (lolz), 50 First Dates (yeah, my girlfriend wants this on Blu-Ray sooooo bad **Editor's note: This is sarcasm**), Rumor Has It (ditto), The Benchwarmers (lolz Part II), Basic Instinct 2 (Sharon, your bewbz never looked so good), etc. Like I said, LOL.
So will I buy a PS3? Eventually. Will I volunteer to pay $600 for the honor of being Early Adopter Focus Group Guinea Pig #342,821? HELL NO. I'll watch and wait and see the feedback from the early adopters, and wait as various recalls and fixes are made to the hardware (remember the D-pad issue with the PSP? Sony couldn't figure that out before they shipped however many units?) before dipping in. Besides, the most important thing, besides reliability and corporate 'tude, is that the games just aren't there. Even with Ridge Racer 7, every game slated for PS3 launch screams "launch title." I feel sorry for the short-sighted gamers that put their hopes in Heavenly Sword, for instance. It's a pretty game, but at least from what I played at E3, it seems exceptionally shallow. It's a game that's designed to make the player feel as cool as possible with the least amount of effort. A single button press makes Nariko explode in a flurry of moves, while an easily entertained gamer stands by and watches. Then come the quick-time events. Nigga, please. If the next-gen = Dragon's Lair, you know what? The next-gen can kiss deez nutz. With the exception of Ridge Racer 7, which seems to be designed for extreme replay value, even using the PS3's online capabilities, I guarantee that none of us will be playing the launch games a month later. We'll be trading them in for the next wave of so-so software. Next-gen? We needed to dip back into our collective memory banks and yoink a first-generation PlayStation 1 title (Warhawk) to show us where gaming is going next? I don't think so. Count me out. If we're going to go back, we might as well go way back.
Which leads me to the Nintendo Wii. OK, I'm over the shock of the name "Wii." I can deal with it. As Nintendo has shown us time and time again, it's that no matter how stupid the idea may sound at the time, their methods are eventually revealed from behind their veil of madness. The DS, which once looked so lame and like a halfway point between the Game Boy Advance and whatever would be the next true Game Boy is now their bread and butter. DS sales in Japan make Sony's PSP look like the XBox 360, and I wonder where all the people are now who were predicting the fall of Nintendo. I love my DS. I love my PSP much less. There are plenty of games I'll play on PSP, but I get half of them for free. There are plenty of games I'll buy for DS. The DS doesn't try to out-cool anyone. It just hosts a shitload of great games, games that you keep, games that will be great 10 years from now, when Sony predicts it'll be time for the PlayStation 4.
With all the focus on the high-definition crap that I don't need (S-video and component are still fine for me, thanks), the Nintendo Wii is a system out of time, out of sync, out of contention, and that's what makes it so appealing. I promise you this: I WILL BUY TWO NINTENDO WIIs BEFORE I BUY A PLAYSTATION 3. The only reason I even want a PS3 is for Virtua Fighter 5, and that won't even hit until 2007. After all the build-up and pretense surrounding the PS3 and 360s technological accomplishments, I have to say it's quite a relief to know that when I think about the Wii, I'm only thinking about fun. Sure, a lot of the launch titles will be gimmicky hootenanny to show off the remote/nunchuk functionality, and other titles will be straight-up tech demos (see: Elebits), developers -- Nintendo included -- will eventually come around and begin making games that really make the control possibilities sing. I know a few lazy-ass gamers who hate having to lift things, like their arms, so maybe the Wii isn't for them. Oh well. But I for one can imagine walking my virtual dog whenever Nintendo makes Nintendogs for the Wii. Will that be fun? Maybe. But I'll only be able to find out on the Wii. Yeah, the PS3 has remote-sensor technology too. Big whoop. Now Sony's doing what Sega tried to do with the Saturn when they first got wind of the PlayStation's 3D capabilities back in the early '90s: Cram shit in that the other guys have. And look how that turned out.
Why am I looking forward to the Wii? Obviously the games. If games on the Wii can only look twice as good as Resident Evil 4, I think I'll survive. Seriously, art direction accomplishes more than all the bump-maps and bloom lighting in the world. I'd rather look at something with the visual fidelity and art style of Okami than at Oblivion's bump-mapped lizard people any day of the week, and I'm pretty sure the Wii can manage an Okami-style graphics engine. Then there's the Remote and Nunchuk controllers themselves. They've got a three-axis motion sensor. Is it any wonder that Sony is calling their new Dual-Shock the 'Sixaxis'? Besides being a palindrome, Sony's going to try to claim that they have 'twice as many axis' as Nintendo's wireless controllers, and that's just a joke. The Wii doesn't lack for technology either, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the WiiConnect24 service will provide. Plus, it can wirelessly connect with the Nintendo DS, and you know there's going to be a lot of interactive development there.
What I'm really looking forward to is the Virtual Console function, which will let all of us relive and re-enjoy all of the games we want from the NES, SNES, N64 and even Genesis and Turbo-GRAFX16 days (Devil's Crush? Hell yeah!). It'll be super great if these N64 games, for example, receive any sort of visual boost (like PS1 games do in PS2s), because that would make playing Sin and Punishment a whole lot cooler than it already is. But even if they don't (because dev teams would have to resample all the textures from N64 games, most likely), the Wii's Virtual Console will most likely make Microsoft and Xbox Live redundant to anyone who has both a Wii and a 360. People outside of the industry don't realize this, but Microsoft's XBLA division is a pain in the ass to deal with. I've heard from multiple publishers how jerked around they are by the XBLA team, which focuses on minute things, refuses to certify things that are proven to be fine, while getting caught up in procedural nonsense. Wonder why Lumines Live isn't available yet when it should have been out in August? I'll give you one guess.
So hip hip hurrah for the Wii, and it's $249.99 price point, which was clearly designed not only for profit (by Nintendo) and affordability (by consumers) -- a winning formula that has helped Nintendo weather the lean years -- but it's also a price that consumers will take seriously. Reggie Fils-Aime once told me that perhaps the GameCube was too inexpensive, leading people to view it as a toy, compared to the price of the competition's hardware. There is, after all, this prevailing mentality that if something is cheap, then it must also be cheap in quality, and that if something is expensive, then it must be quite a piece of machinery. Even the Xbox 360, at $399.99, while much cheaper than the PS3's looming price point, is still out of the range of many middle to lower-income families. What Sony needs to quickly freakin' realize is that video game systems are a luxury, not a necessity, and while they'll no doubt scream "Success!" when every one of their limited allocation of North American systems sells out to the higher-income families (or hardcore early adopters) that can afford it, Nintendo's going to be right behind them with 4 million systems that people will be able to afford, and multi-tiered functionality that people will be able to enjoy (Virtual Console, WiiConnect24). Even now, I have no idea what the hell Sony is planning in terms of online strategy, but I can promise you I won't be downloading an old-ass PS1 Riiiiiiidge Raccceerrrrr (Kaz, you lose) onto my PSP when I can play the one that was designed for it. PS1 games aren't old enough to really have much nostalgic value yet, unless Square decides to port Final Fantasy VII to PSP. And since no one wants to play Pandemonium on PSP, Sony's me-too stratagem fails in this instance too.
To be fair, Nintendo has always designed things with Nintendo games in mind, the industry be damned. Look at the N64 controller. Goodbye fighting games. But with the Wii, and since the DS, I really feel as if Nintendo has figured out how to make that work for them. It didn't always pan out how they wanted it to, but this time I think that Nintendo's finally got their groove back. The GameCube, incidentally, is a system much like the Dreamcast, in how it's just as good a machine now as the PlayStation 2 is, for example, if not moreso. It never got its fair shake, in a competitive market where people focused on things that, in my opinion, will not stand the test of time. But go back and play F-Zero GX, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Skies of Arcadia, Wind Waker, Phantasy Star Online, and so many more, and you'll find a system that has a much higher quality-to-quantity ratio than either the PS2 or Xbox. Way back when, in EGM, I picked the GameCube to be the best system out of them all. It obviously wasn't the most successful, but I stand by my decision. And, for the record, I'll be getting the GameCube version of Twilight Princess. The Wii controls, last time I checked, weren't quite there yet.
So, good luck to you, Nintendo, as you wage what might be the ultimate war against two companies that would have me view my photos, listen to my music, and watch everything in eye-searing high-definition and 5.1 surround sound on or via their bloated consoles. Let those two fight it out, while you do your own thing. You boldly withstood the onslaught of the PSP against your 'inferior' DS, but who's having the last laugh now? Let Sony and Microsoft try to out-marketspeak each other. I guarantee that there will be a changing of the guard at Sony in the year 2007, and anticipate Microsoft's white flag in Japan to come soon. All the while, you may never be number one again on paper, but you will be number one in my heart, because while we may have forgotten what truly makes a game a game, you have never forgotten the gamer. I'll be there on launch day to buy a Wii. Believe it.
Link: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=7455690&publicUserId=4549175
I will have 2 Wiis before I have 1 PS3 AKA How Nintendo got their groove back.
(note: I left out the first paragraph which is a trollish diatribe about all his Sony gear breaking down on him. Everything breaks James)
So to the giant Sony corporation and your $600 'must-have' high-definition all-in-wonder machine, I say "No thanks." At least not in the 'launch window.' Seriously. While I would love to play Ridge Racer 7 to my heart's content, I no longer trust you to deliver me a system that won't be rendered obsolete with the second wave of hardware adjustments. You know what I'm talking about. The original PlayStation 2s did not have the docking bay that you'd need to install the HDD unit. Then when you did ship units that supported the HDD, you made them obsolete with the slim PS2s, which meant that no one could or should develop with that hardware in mind any more. Of course I need not remind us all (but I will anyway) about all of those original PS1s which we had to turn on their side, or place upside down in order for the laser to read the discs.
So the bottom line is that for all your corporate cockiness over the years, for all of your tangible sense of entitlement which was spawned by almost 10 years of uninterrupted success at the top of the video game market, I eagerly anticipate the upcoming 'next-gen' battle. I don't have any particular love for Microsoft, and I'm equally as mad at Nintendo for making it so hard to champion them over the years (from bad decisions and a promotion-resistant anti-PR mentality), but I'm dying to see how this round shapes up, because there's absolutely nothing special about the PlayStation 3. While the same can be said about the Xbox 360, at least Microsoft's played to their strengths and done what they can to build a vibrant online community; gamers bound through functionality and a unified online presence. Sony has never had this and everything about the PS3 and its every feature screams "me too."
I don't care to be told by a corporate monolith what I need as much as the next person, and that's all Kaz Hirai, Phil Harrison, Jack Tretton, Ken Kutaragi and the rest of the suits have been telling us at every god damn 8am Sony press conference for the last billion years. This year, apparently, I need Blu-Ray, and high-definition, and the 5.1. and the so on and so on. Thanks, but I don't, really. And I don't think the majority (I'd say at least 90% of the people reading this) of the world does either. If high-definition was so important, then every $600 PlayStation 3 should come with a 17" widescreen HDTV monitor free. I know Sony is losing Benjamins with every PS3 sold, but hey, they're the ones who crammed a Blu-Ray drive into every unit, and eight processors, and CELL. And this is going to last 10 years apparently. The PS3 is so future-proof you won't need another gaming system for a decade. OK, it's semi-plausible, because the PS2 has been going strong for six years now, but the fine print says that while you may not need another game platform for 10 years, so long as you have a PS3, you'll probably need to buy at least three PS3s over that same time span. Why? Because they'll break down (badly), they'll be redesigned to be smaller (the current PS3 is bigger than the original Xbox), and then they'll be redesigned to incorporate features that no one's thinking about now.
And while the Blu-Ray format is nice (who ever really watches the bonus content on DVDs 90% of the time, anyway?), do we really need sharper images? I dare say we do not. It was one thing, coming out of the magnetic tape hell that was VHS, with its ever-deteriorating quality and hyper-low resolutions, to segue to the beauty of DVD. But to go from the perma-archival quality of DVD, which still looks really ****ing sharp on the right set-up, to go to Blu-Ray's more better sharpness? The need isn't really there, yannow? If the average person really needed high-definition anything then why the hell is YouTube so popular? Everything on YouTube looks like crap, and it's huge. And let's take a look at the current line-up of Blu-Ray fare: The Punisher (oh boy), RV (better than people say, but uh, did we need this in high-def?), Lethal Weapon (sorry, but it's only going to be as good as the source material, and this film came out before Christ was born), Hitch (lolz), 50 First Dates (yeah, my girlfriend wants this on Blu-Ray sooooo bad **Editor's note: This is sarcasm**), Rumor Has It (ditto), The Benchwarmers (lolz Part II), Basic Instinct 2 (Sharon, your bewbz never looked so good), etc. Like I said, LOL.
So will I buy a PS3? Eventually. Will I volunteer to pay $600 for the honor of being Early Adopter Focus Group Guinea Pig #342,821? HELL NO. I'll watch and wait and see the feedback from the early adopters, and wait as various recalls and fixes are made to the hardware (remember the D-pad issue with the PSP? Sony couldn't figure that out before they shipped however many units?) before dipping in. Besides, the most important thing, besides reliability and corporate 'tude, is that the games just aren't there. Even with Ridge Racer 7, every game slated for PS3 launch screams "launch title." I feel sorry for the short-sighted gamers that put their hopes in Heavenly Sword, for instance. It's a pretty game, but at least from what I played at E3, it seems exceptionally shallow. It's a game that's designed to make the player feel as cool as possible with the least amount of effort. A single button press makes Nariko explode in a flurry of moves, while an easily entertained gamer stands by and watches. Then come the quick-time events. Nigga, please. If the next-gen = Dragon's Lair, you know what? The next-gen can kiss deez nutz. With the exception of Ridge Racer 7, which seems to be designed for extreme replay value, even using the PS3's online capabilities, I guarantee that none of us will be playing the launch games a month later. We'll be trading them in for the next wave of so-so software. Next-gen? We needed to dip back into our collective memory banks and yoink a first-generation PlayStation 1 title (Warhawk) to show us where gaming is going next? I don't think so. Count me out. If we're going to go back, we might as well go way back.
Which leads me to the Nintendo Wii. OK, I'm over the shock of the name "Wii." I can deal with it. As Nintendo has shown us time and time again, it's that no matter how stupid the idea may sound at the time, their methods are eventually revealed from behind their veil of madness. The DS, which once looked so lame and like a halfway point between the Game Boy Advance and whatever would be the next true Game Boy is now their bread and butter. DS sales in Japan make Sony's PSP look like the XBox 360, and I wonder where all the people are now who were predicting the fall of Nintendo. I love my DS. I love my PSP much less. There are plenty of games I'll play on PSP, but I get half of them for free. There are plenty of games I'll buy for DS. The DS doesn't try to out-cool anyone. It just hosts a shitload of great games, games that you keep, games that will be great 10 years from now, when Sony predicts it'll be time for the PlayStation 4.
With all the focus on the high-definition crap that I don't need (S-video and component are still fine for me, thanks), the Nintendo Wii is a system out of time, out of sync, out of contention, and that's what makes it so appealing. I promise you this: I WILL BUY TWO NINTENDO WIIs BEFORE I BUY A PLAYSTATION 3. The only reason I even want a PS3 is for Virtua Fighter 5, and that won't even hit until 2007. After all the build-up and pretense surrounding the PS3 and 360s technological accomplishments, I have to say it's quite a relief to know that when I think about the Wii, I'm only thinking about fun. Sure, a lot of the launch titles will be gimmicky hootenanny to show off the remote/nunchuk functionality, and other titles will be straight-up tech demos (see: Elebits), developers -- Nintendo included -- will eventually come around and begin making games that really make the control possibilities sing. I know a few lazy-ass gamers who hate having to lift things, like their arms, so maybe the Wii isn't for them. Oh well. But I for one can imagine walking my virtual dog whenever Nintendo makes Nintendogs for the Wii. Will that be fun? Maybe. But I'll only be able to find out on the Wii. Yeah, the PS3 has remote-sensor technology too. Big whoop. Now Sony's doing what Sega tried to do with the Saturn when they first got wind of the PlayStation's 3D capabilities back in the early '90s: Cram shit in that the other guys have. And look how that turned out.
Why am I looking forward to the Wii? Obviously the games. If games on the Wii can only look twice as good as Resident Evil 4, I think I'll survive. Seriously, art direction accomplishes more than all the bump-maps and bloom lighting in the world. I'd rather look at something with the visual fidelity and art style of Okami than at Oblivion's bump-mapped lizard people any day of the week, and I'm pretty sure the Wii can manage an Okami-style graphics engine. Then there's the Remote and Nunchuk controllers themselves. They've got a three-axis motion sensor. Is it any wonder that Sony is calling their new Dual-Shock the 'Sixaxis'? Besides being a palindrome, Sony's going to try to claim that they have 'twice as many axis' as Nintendo's wireless controllers, and that's just a joke. The Wii doesn't lack for technology either, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the WiiConnect24 service will provide. Plus, it can wirelessly connect with the Nintendo DS, and you know there's going to be a lot of interactive development there.
What I'm really looking forward to is the Virtual Console function, which will let all of us relive and re-enjoy all of the games we want from the NES, SNES, N64 and even Genesis and Turbo-GRAFX16 days (Devil's Crush? Hell yeah!). It'll be super great if these N64 games, for example, receive any sort of visual boost (like PS1 games do in PS2s), because that would make playing Sin and Punishment a whole lot cooler than it already is. But even if they don't (because dev teams would have to resample all the textures from N64 games, most likely), the Wii's Virtual Console will most likely make Microsoft and Xbox Live redundant to anyone who has both a Wii and a 360. People outside of the industry don't realize this, but Microsoft's XBLA division is a pain in the ass to deal with. I've heard from multiple publishers how jerked around they are by the XBLA team, which focuses on minute things, refuses to certify things that are proven to be fine, while getting caught up in procedural nonsense. Wonder why Lumines Live isn't available yet when it should have been out in August? I'll give you one guess.
So hip hip hurrah for the Wii, and it's $249.99 price point, which was clearly designed not only for profit (by Nintendo) and affordability (by consumers) -- a winning formula that has helped Nintendo weather the lean years -- but it's also a price that consumers will take seriously. Reggie Fils-Aime once told me that perhaps the GameCube was too inexpensive, leading people to view it as a toy, compared to the price of the competition's hardware. There is, after all, this prevailing mentality that if something is cheap, then it must also be cheap in quality, and that if something is expensive, then it must be quite a piece of machinery. Even the Xbox 360, at $399.99, while much cheaper than the PS3's looming price point, is still out of the range of many middle to lower-income families. What Sony needs to quickly freakin' realize is that video game systems are a luxury, not a necessity, and while they'll no doubt scream "Success!" when every one of their limited allocation of North American systems sells out to the higher-income families (or hardcore early adopters) that can afford it, Nintendo's going to be right behind them with 4 million systems that people will be able to afford, and multi-tiered functionality that people will be able to enjoy (Virtual Console, WiiConnect24). Even now, I have no idea what the hell Sony is planning in terms of online strategy, but I can promise you I won't be downloading an old-ass PS1 Riiiiiiidge Raccceerrrrr (Kaz, you lose) onto my PSP when I can play the one that was designed for it. PS1 games aren't old enough to really have much nostalgic value yet, unless Square decides to port Final Fantasy VII to PSP. And since no one wants to play Pandemonium on PSP, Sony's me-too stratagem fails in this instance too.
To be fair, Nintendo has always designed things with Nintendo games in mind, the industry be damned. Look at the N64 controller. Goodbye fighting games. But with the Wii, and since the DS, I really feel as if Nintendo has figured out how to make that work for them. It didn't always pan out how they wanted it to, but this time I think that Nintendo's finally got their groove back. The GameCube, incidentally, is a system much like the Dreamcast, in how it's just as good a machine now as the PlayStation 2 is, for example, if not moreso. It never got its fair shake, in a competitive market where people focused on things that, in my opinion, will not stand the test of time. But go back and play F-Zero GX, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Skies of Arcadia, Wind Waker, Phantasy Star Online, and so many more, and you'll find a system that has a much higher quality-to-quantity ratio than either the PS2 or Xbox. Way back when, in EGM, I picked the GameCube to be the best system out of them all. It obviously wasn't the most successful, but I stand by my decision. And, for the record, I'll be getting the GameCube version of Twilight Princess. The Wii controls, last time I checked, weren't quite there yet.
So, good luck to you, Nintendo, as you wage what might be the ultimate war against two companies that would have me view my photos, listen to my music, and watch everything in eye-searing high-definition and 5.1 surround sound on or via their bloated consoles. Let those two fight it out, while you do your own thing. You boldly withstood the onslaught of the PSP against your 'inferior' DS, but who's having the last laugh now? Let Sony and Microsoft try to out-marketspeak each other. I guarantee that there will be a changing of the guard at Sony in the year 2007, and anticipate Microsoft's white flag in Japan to come soon. All the while, you may never be number one again on paper, but you will be number one in my heart, because while we may have forgotten what truly makes a game a game, you have never forgotten the gamer. I'll be there on launch day to buy a Wii. Believe it.
