I can kind of see where he’s going with this. The Wii is the sweet thing you fall in love with instantly – pretty cute, with a bubbly personality. The PS3 is the little tease who’ll always be late because she can’t get her blu-tinted lenses in. You know it’ll end in tears or rehab.

And while Miss Wii is great fun – all your friends love her to bits – the Xbox 360 is the temperamental, but hot, mistress you keep on the side…

[tags]motley fool, marry, kill, date, xbox 360, wii, ps3[/tags]

“The PS3 is a total disaster on so many levels, I think. It’s really clear that Sony lost track of what customers and what developers wanted. I’d say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a ‘do over’. Just say, ‘This was a horrible disaster and we’re sorry and we’re going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it’”

in an interview with Game Informer Magazine. While that’s pretty strong stuff from a major developer, what caught my eye was his view on the Wii:

“The happy story is the Wii. I’m betting that by Christmas of next year, the Wii has a larger installed base than the 360.”

As much as I love my Xbox 360, he may be right. Do I think the Wii is better than the Xbox 360? No. In addition to being my games console, my Xbox 360 has become my media centre too; its a small thing, but the fact I can show my photo collection on my plasma screen is something that has impressed many friends and dinner guests.

The thing is, if I want a games night with friends who aren’t necessarily gamers, I’m not going to be talking them through the controls for Gears of War or PGR3. We’re going to be playing tennis or bowling in Wii Sports, or jumping cows over hay bales – we’ll be playing games that a beginner can pick up and play almost instinctively.

I don’t think its fair to call the Wii a “next-gen” console, but the games I’ve played so far are easy to learn, fun to play and don’t require a 10-hour mega-session to make progress.

My view is that, in the long term, the Xbox 360 will outsell the PS3 by a considerable margin, but I hope that Microsoft are paying attention to the party-game-playability of the early Wii titles. It would be embarrassing to be outsold by racing-cows…

[tags]wii, xbox, xbox 360, PS3, valve, next-gen, console[/tags]

http://www.xbox360defective.com/index.php

He is one of a growing number of angry gamers frustrated at the way Microsoft are ignoring the scale of the problem. If the comments over at the xbox.com forums are anything to go by, Microsoft’s attitude to their paying customers will do more for sales of the Wii and the PS3 than any ad campaign:

• http://forums.xbox.com/8347347/ShowPost.aspx
• http://forums.xbox.com/8527831/ShowPost.aspx
• http://forums.xbox.com/8220655/ShowPost.aspx
• http://forums.xbox.com/8524389/ShowPost.aspx
• http://forums.xbox.com/8744140/ShowPost.aspx
• http://forums.xbox.com/8767317/ShowPost.aspx
• http://forums.xbox.com/8767792/ShowPost.aspx

I really hope that, behind the scenes, Microsoft are frantically working on a fix because the longer they try to ignore this, the more damage they’ll do to the good reputation that XBox360 was building.

[tags]customer service, dashboard, update, bricked, console, defective, Xbox360, Live, red, lights, ring of light[/tags]

Reading through the forums on xbox.com, I’m not the only one who has had their console bricked by this update, either. A similar thread on Major Nelson’s blog was seeing some lively activity on the subject too, before comments were closed. If you’re in the same position, don’t you find that what’s adding to the frustration is the lack of any kind of response from Microsoft? This started being reported a week ago.…!

Putting this right is going to cause Microsoft a nightmare before Christmas, because the update appears to prevent the wireless adapter from starting, making an “over the air” fix unlikely. This leaves customers with having to ship their consoles off for repair, so we’re going to be Xbox-less over Christmas! If I was running the Xbox team, I’d be pushing my people to provide a fix that users can download to a USB thumb drive and run themselves.

Xbox has been building a great community at Xbox Live, and like most social networks, it grows by word-of-mouth; only a couple of weeks ago I was telling a friend how great my Xbox 360 is; how it’s not just a games console but a media centre too; how much fun Xbox Live is. After I told him about the update-from-hell, and mentioned that I’ll probably have to get a replacement, he said, “I think I’ll wait for the Wii instead…..”

And that’s the biggest risk for Microsoft – pissed-off people will talk more often and more loudly than happy people. If Microsoft don’t start talking to their customers soon, the lack of communication will kill Xbox Live more efficiently than the faulty update.

As for me, I’ll be gazing at a copy of “Gears of War” on Christmas morning, wondering when I’m going to get to play it.

[tags]marketplace, live, games, console, update, 1080p, dashboard, bricked, bricking, repair, replace, replacement[/tags]

On the recommendation of a friend, I picked up New Super Mario Bros. and suddenly I can’t put my DS down! To be perfectly honest, I had thought Mario would be a bit dated by now, but not a bit; great graphics, great sound and most important – great game play.

This was what I had expected from Lego Star Wars, and Splinter Cell, not from a game whose basic idea has been around for well over a decade.

I’ve put Age of Empires on my Christmas list (Santa, are you reading this? I’ve been a good boy all for most of the year….) and I’m really looking forward to seeing how one of my favorite PC games translates to the DS, so if you’ve played it on your DS, let me know what you think of it.

[tags]Super Mario, AOE, Age of Empires, handheld, gadget[tags]

In other categories:

• T3 Innovation Award – Xbox Live Marketplace 
• Bliss Girl’s Game of the Year – Nintendogs
• The Sun Family Game of the Year – Nintendogs
• Handheld Game of the Year – GTA:Liberty City

Other winners saw Ghost Recon:Advanced Warfighter running off with the Editor’s Choice Award and, strangely, Online Game of the Year going to Age of Empires 3. Strangely, because I would have thought that World of Warcraft would have been a more popular vote than AoE.

In the “Totally Pointless Award” category, the PS3 took the award for “One to Watch for 2007″.

For the PS3 to be deserving of anything other than a roll of the eyes, perhaps the category should have been called the “Overhyped, Overheating, Oh God When Will This Thing EVER Be Released Award”. Maybe next year….

[tags]game awards, golden joystick, PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox360, Oblivion[/tags]