Last week was dominated by the news about next generation consoles. Sony and Microsoft have engaged in a veritable PR war where bullets were replaced by statements.
Xbox 360 made the first step, revealing the specs of the new console from Microsoft, but the moment of glory was short because PlayStation 3 humiliated it with superior computing power and with Blu-Ray support.
Xbox 360's makers changed the strategy (acknowledging Sony's hardware superiority) and started to emphasize the large number of games specifically developed for Xbox.
In all this madness, Nintendo didn't have much to say, and the company only detailed some hardware specifications clearly inferior to the ones of the competition. Nintendo reminded everybody that after all we are talking about gaming consoles and not NASA supercomputers.
Who won? Nobody! And that's because until the first console is launched on the market (Xbox 360 is the winner in this launching race) five more months will have to pass. PlayStation 3 is due for launch in 2006, leaving a lot of analysts wondering if it's good or bad to be the first or the second. Nintendo, the last to launch its console, vaguely mentioned something about 2006.
Although this war shed a lot of statements, neither of them mentioned anything about a price. Regardless of the price paid for the console, enthusiasts will have to spend some thousands of dollars on a HD TV, because both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have decided to retire current TV sets.
Each console will have exclusive games: Xbox 360 will be backed by Halo and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Playstation 3 by Gran Turismo and Metal Gear, and Nintendo by Mario and Zelda.
The first battle of this war is over, but I doubt there is one gamer that knows for sure what console to buy.