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But as a Christmas present I WAS planning on getting a Nintendo DS. Already there are some games I'd like, Pac-Pix, Mario 64 DS, Wario Ware, Touch! Kirby and Yoshi's Touch and Go. But the Christmas line up looks immense. Nintendogs appears a good laugh, Snowboard Kids is back and I am truly looking forward to Goeman. Don't get me started on Mario and Luigi 2 (Dances) and Metroid Prime. It is also online and I have wi-fi (yay).
I have no intention on getting a PSP (even if I do love Medievil) but Microsoft's new system looks the nuts!
A few good games at E3 could easily sway me.
So what do you think?
> Whitestripes DX wrote:
> Because some people are arrogant [edit]wits.
>
> Like people who can't come up with a decent insult?
/bored
Get a new gimmick if you're sticking around.
They're becoming more like PCs in that they now incorporate features that were previously seen on the PC. In this way they are becoming more like PCs, in the ways that I mentioned in my very first post.
"Consoles are changing from being purely gaming devices, where you just stick in a game and play it, to a multimedia device like the PC."
Whilst this is true, you make it sound like a new thing. In fact consoles have always been like this. If you go back to 80's there were systems like the Spectrum which certainly weren't PCs but were more than just consoles. But even if you take a more typical console, like say a Mega Drive, there was the Mega CD which added multimedia functionality.
I accept that the Mega Drive with Mega CD has nowhere near the functionality of the latest consoles, but I attribute that simply to technological advances - not a shift in the manufacturers mindsets. Over a decade on of course things have improved.
Now I gave the example of the Mega Drive with Mega CD (don't forget the 32X!) but there are others. For instance, the Spectrum, the SNES, the N64 and the Saturn all had online services. The N64 had an attachable disk drive. The Gameboy Color had a camera and printer. The Game Gear had a TV Tuner cart. The SNES had Mario Paint, which was more of a program than a game and it even had a frickin' mouse! Consoles striving to offer more PC like features in an attempt to woo more buyers is nothing new. Only the technologies themselves are.
As for things like operating systems, well all consoles since the beginning have had them. You need them. They control the hardware. Whilst it is the case that they are getting progressively more complex there is a reason for this and that is more out of the box functionality. Quite simply, if you are going to offer a built in Ethernet port, you also need to write code to actually use it. The only difference is that in the past all these extra features were by means of add-ons, each of which would have it's own software built in. A Mega Drive with Mega CD and 32X didn't have one "big" operating system, it had three smaller ones.
"I'm saying consoles are becoming more like PCs. Are you saying they aren't?"
To summarise, yes they are to a degree, but not as much as you appear to think. Adding more functionality to try bag more customers is age old. Thing now is that technology is making it far easier and far cheaper to get that functionality.
I will be sticking with Ninty for now, and probably the PS3 as well if they get their online service sorted out.
The XB360 sort of seems redudant now.
We all knew MS would do this. They've been going on about 'media integration' from day 1 of them going into the console market.