With today’s The Beatles: Rock Band launch, I can’t help but wonder if all the cards are already on the table for what could be a very interesting Christmas’ “console war.”
Sony’s slim hardware redesign was a non-starter for me, until they blinked first and threw in a matching slimmer price point. Microsoft followed suit almost immediately, discontinuing the Pro SKU and making the Elite model their $300 go-to. Both good decisions. While the Wii’s still got them both on price*, it’s a much slimmer gap now that’s more than bridged by the feature sets.
A lot of major third party releases have been pushed back into early 2010, and the ones that are still on the calendar are mostly multiplatform – The Beatles: Rock Band chief among them. Microsoft will get another Halo title in ODST this holiday, as Playstation fans finally get their hands on Gran Turismo 5. So we’ll have (at least) one more year where these two boxes duke it out on a fairly even playing field.
Xbox still has a more cohesive online experience, but the Playstation 3′s installed base is finally at the point where you can jump into a well-populated game at any time of day. While I’m sure the price adjustment was a tough pill to swallow for Sony brass, they’re now offering the best value-for-dollar in gaming hardware (PS3 buyers get a Blu-Ray player while new Xbox 360 owners still need to cough up another $100 to make the thing wireless).
I’m looking forward to a well played, late generation holiday throwdown that will really put the consumers in the driver seat and rely heavily on Sony and Microsoft’s multichannel marketing effort, and maybe some cool pack-in deals. Game. On.
*NOTE: I know both the Xbox 360 and PS3 have limited-feature SKUs that fall below the Wii’s $250 price point, but let’s talk about the systems gamers actually want to buy here.
