If Sony doesn't learn quickly, Nintendo may well rule

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(Free-Press-Release.com) October 17, 2006 -- Remember the Sega Game Gear?

And the rich snot-nosed shit in Grade 3 who spent recess staring at its 8-bit graphics colour screen, stereo soundtrack blaring from the headphones as we loyal peons stuck proudly to our monochromatic Gameboys?

Game Gear should have kicked the crap out of Nintendo's Gameboy. It came in colour. It had better graphics and a sexier design.

And yet the market � as dictated by millions of video-game addled North American school kids in the mid-`90s � thumbed its nose at Sonic the Hedgehog's bright blue racing ways. We liked pretending to be fat Italian plumbers. We liked saving Princess Peach and we liked doing it on a screen that was two inches tall and two shades of green.

Why?

Two reasons: The Sega tech was ahead of itself. The colour screen killed six batteries in five hours in an era when rechargeables were pre-Lithium-Ion.

Oh, and the Sega guys were pricks.

Their marketing campaigns were smug and superior. Anybody who picked Nintendo over Sega's handheld was either dumb or colourblind.

We didn't like that.

So we stuck with Gameboy.

Now, Nintendo's kicking around some of the most innovative handheld gaming hardware with its DS Lite. Sega is still making Sonic. It's a lesson that gaming fans are saying Sony is about to learn the hard way.

If the rules for handhelds hold true for video game consoles, Sony is about to take a beating.

In the next month, Sony's PS3 and Nintendo's Wii � both deemed next-gen video game consoles � la Microsoft's Xbox 360 � are expected to be released.

And already some fans are talking about ditching the most popular video game console because Sony's pissed them off.

PS3 is going to be expensive: between $549 and $659.

The console will get a big boost in the graphics and processor departments. But the hardware required to play those games, like new high definition televisions, will cost at least $1,000 on top of the price of the console. And video game makers are complaining about how expensive the improved graphics will be to produce.

Some producers have said that it will be several years before they can fully exploit the PS3's computing power.

Until then, there will be little difference between it and the Xbox.

It will also get a blu-ray disk drive (before the blu ray vs. HD format war is has been decided). While it's natural for Sony to be plugging its own format, it could also leave consumers with an expensive hunk of uselessness if blu-ray bombs.

Little innovation has gone into the design of the console or the upcoming games themselves �� they're mostly relying on the same first person shooters and car games.

And Sony's making statements like: "The next generation doesn't start until we say it does," which is either high-order bravado or hubris waiting to happen.

The company also didn't win any friends when, several months ago, it was found to have loaded digital rights management software on its CDs that exposed users' computers to hackers and malware producers.

Meanwhile buzz is near frantic in online message boards for the low-end (and low-priced) Nintendo Wii, which will be expected to cost around $280.

After almost abstaining from the previous-gen console wars, Nintendo hasn't much upgraded its processor or graphics. But it's completely redesigned its controller.

Rather than relying on button-mashing, the controller can be used as a virtual sword or gun. When you swoosh it around katana-style, similar swooshes appear in the game.

The classics, Zelda and Mario, will be making a comeback. But on top of the aforementioned katana-happy Red Steel, Nintendo is also slated to release games like Trauma Centre, which asks the player to save digital lives in a virtual emergency room.

It won't be photorealistic, but it'll be fun. And it's getting gamers interested in taking up the hobby where Atari had left them off.

While it's still too soon to tell which console will win the Wii vs. PS3 smack down, it wouldn't hurt Sony to take a lesson from Sega's rulebook: Start listening to your fans, stop dictating to them.

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