srsly

arsTechnica has a really decent article on the three next-gen consoles coming out, focusing a lot on Nintendo’s Revolution. the article covers all three consoles rather well, but mainly points out that the bottom line is that sony and microsoft aren’t really bringing anything new to the table. the only thing those two are bringing is something that has been trying to be formed for the last few years, and that is an entertainment console. all your digital media on your tv will be funneled through their entertainment box. which is all well and good, but i already have a solution for streaming music to my entertainment center. and i’ll probably have one for video pretty soon too. when i want a box to play games on i want just that, nothing more. mostly because it gets in the way of the gaming part. and as far as gaming goes, microsoft and sony aren’t bringing anything but more polygons.
nintendo on the other hand is going off in a wildly different direction. it could be horrible, it could be great. point is they’re trying to make us do something different. instead of relying on the last decade of gaming and churning out more of the same crap with more polygons, they’re giving us a new opportunity to interact with our games. i appreciate this, because the last couple years of console gaming have been rather stagnant. i have a funny feeling that the Revolution won’t do well as far as raw sales go. but i think in the end it will be victorious for bringing a much needed change to the console gaming world. i’m almost definately buying one. chances are i’ll probably get a ps3 as well. there are some things i like about the last 10 years of gaming, and there isn’t anything inherently wrong about making those games look better. i just don’t think that we play games to have them look like reality. i kind of thougth the point was to have fun in a world that was distinctly not reality.
the results remain to be seen as most of the technical details of the Revolution are still under wraps, but it is apparent that the graphical horsepower will be less than the other two. i don’t see this as a bad thing, because it’s relative to current technology. and current GPU technology is nothing short of astounding, so it’s not like the Revolution games are going to look terrible. showdown starts early 2006 though. i know i can’t wait.