# Its not £425. Its £280. Which, thanks to Sonys blundering PlayStation 3 scheme, suddenly looks amazingly cheap for a kick-arse gaming system. Thanks, Sony! Youve handed it to Microsoft on a plate this Christmas! You can almost hear the clinking of champagne glasses in Microsofts HQ from here. (OXM12, p. 22)
# Can you imagine playing Halo 3 on Nintendos stupid wavy wand thing? Is there anyone left who still favours Sonys ridiculously wobbly analogue sticks for playing driving games? (OXM12, p. 22)
# Meanwhile, poor old Sony and Nintendo are hurriedly cobbling together all their-half-finished ideas for a pre-Christmas launch. Bows and arrows against the lightning. (OXM12, p. 22)
# XBOX 360 has a normal name. Can you picture a 17-year-old pikey parking up his Vauxhall Corsa illegally on the kerb outside GAME, then strolling in asking the shop assistant if he can ´Have a Wii´? Thats just not going to happen. XBOX 360 sounds like a MANS console. You can tell people you own one without having to explain what it is. (OXM12, p. 23)
# The chances of Gears of War appearing on a Nintendo or Sony console are about the same as sexy female aliens launching an invasion of Earth, declaring you king of planet KissyKiss and giving you a freedom pass with no expiry date. (OXM12, p. 23)
# The chances of Bungie making a version (Halo 3) for a Nintendo or Sony console are about the same as the chances of Cheryl Tweedy appearing out of thin air, handing you a cheque for a million pounds and telling you its alright for you to touch her wherever you like, and if you do it well shell give you another million pounds. (OXM12, p. 23)
# PLAYSTATION 3. This will launch with Singstar, which is a game for girls. But girls dont spend £425 on videogame consoles, do they? So the only people buying PS3 will be men who buy anything thats new. Itll sell out, but only because the machines too hard for Sony to make more than 50 at one. CHANCES OF SUCCESS: 3/10 (OXM12, p. 23)
# NINTENDO Wii. Kids will ask for this for Christmas, as will everyone who gets excited about Nintendo. Nintendo will reward this loyalty by releasing one good game a year for the next four years while all the other companies will release poor versions of their XBOX and PlayStation 2 games. CHANCES OF SUCCESS: 4/10 (OXM12, p. 23)
# Unofficially, this is clearly recognition of the fact that PS3 is unlikely to launch here in significant quantities until well into 2007, thanks to Sonys problems manufacturing the complex and expensive ´super´ computer.
the poor Sony fans are facing the prospect of laying down £500 to play, er, Warhawk and whatever kind of game Resistance: Fall of Man turns out to be. (OXM12, p. 27)
# So many of the crucial next-generation games are now coming to both PS3 and XB360 there seems little point in owning Sonys lumbering machine. Unless, of course, you like the idea of spending nearly 500 quid to play Singstar and Formula One. (OXM12, lk 27)
# Game Convention Leipzig: Youll also be able to laugh at how few games PSP has too. (OXM11, p. 44)
# In keeping the HD-DVD drive optional, Microsoft is demonstrating that XBOX 360 is a games machine primarily and not some hodge-podge movie-playing thing like PlayStation 3. (OXM11, p. 46)
# XBOX Live is for us special people, not for you PS3 lot. (OXM10, p. 107)