The initial war of the next-gen consoles is over. The consoles are out the door and now the battle is waging on two primary areas: New revisions and especially content! The different consoles have different audiences, but all audience look at the content when deciding on a console…

There is one thing that hasn’t changed its pace since before the beginning of this next-gen war, The Hype Apparatus. All console sides were quick to claim victory, like it would mean anything! Apart from the hype machines the word on the street is important, what is also known as the Buzz… Nintendo – with it’s Wii – got the most buzz to begin with. Even id software, who practically invented real 3D gaming on the PC, went out and called the Wii fantastic and said that they wanted to make software for it.

Meanwhile Sony was struggling with issues with their newly launched console and quickly was forced to admit that they had made huge PR errors. Their typical spin was even the focus of great ridicule across the net, when the big giant of console gaming had to admit that the hype didn’t match the sales numbers. Why Sony would say one thing the first week and then deny it the next made it clear that the giant was having internal squabbles to deal with with victory suddenly didn’t come served on a silver dish from day one. Sony’s hype machine made every reporter believe that the PlayStation 3 would be years ahead of the XBox360, but in reality the PlayStation 3 had a last-gen graphics card from NVidia, a processor matching that of today’s world and perhaps a drive of tomorrow with their Blu-Ray inclusion – depending on who wins the next-gen DVD war. It might also end up being an expensive choice that keeps the PlayStation 3 expensive, while another format wins the next-gen DVD format war. Of course Sony claims that everything is way beyond next-gen, like a true hype machine would do – Another day, another positive spin on a troubled situation. Sony’s spin on things just kept on coming. Of course when Sony hyped Microsoft re-hyped, claiming that whatever Sony said was wrong and that they had done it right. riiiiight… Microsoft’s claim that the PlayStation 3 is no better than the XBox360 might be correct, however, as the XBox360 has one thing that Sony’s PlayStation 3 never got the time to do – It has a consistent design. The PlayStation 3 is a gathering of perhaps powerful components, but the lack of real video-memory, the last-gen graphics engine, the slow Blu-Ray drive and especially the complicated Cell processor makes it inconsistent and expensive to develop games for.

While the hype machine continues and the battle for having the largest voice and the most hyped console continues another battle is set in motion. Now the sides have explained the many advantages with their design of their console and now they have to get the content for it. The public know the machines now and all that matters now is what titles are available for the different consoles. It has always been the games that decided the outcome of such a battle and this one won’t be any different. While Sony was the undisputed market leader in the last-gen war Microsoft and Nintendo have suddenly become large competitors and are competing with Sony for the influence of the same game development companies. The signs are clear: Sony will hardly be able to get any exclusive titles this time around, while Microsoft, with their larger console customer base at this point, will get far more. Gears of War showed how much a title can mean, like Halo has done it before for Microsoft. Now Sony’s dominance of the important player, EA, is sliding. UbiSoft has also been out requesting that Sony lower the prices on the PlayStation 3 or all will be lost for the console. This is hard on Sony, as they are already loosing a lot of money on each console sold. Analysts has already been out saying that Sony’s bet on the PlayStation 3 may have been overly ambitious. This is shown very clearly in their financial quarter, where Sony is reporting a record loss and the cause is mainly poor PlayStation 3 sales and high costs.

At the same time Sony is reporting heavy losses Nintendo is reporting great revenue and earnings because of their two major successes, The DS and The Wii. Even the CEO of Sony has to admit that the Wii is fantastic at this point in time. In the mean time Nintendo is breaking all the records out there, heavy on the trail of breaking all the records of the PlayStation 2, which has been the biggest seller in recorded history. First the Wii sells more than 5 million units in 3 months and arrive at the 6 million mark well ahead of schedule, even outselling the DS, but Nintendo also takes all Top 20 spots on the Japanese charts. In Japan the Wii is outselling the failed PlayStation 3 more than 5 to 1 and in USA it is selling more than the PlayStation 3 and XBox360 combined. Nintendo got a new market all to themselves and both Sony and Microsoft never saw that coming. Like Square Enix said: Nintendo did it right – Sony and Microsoft overdid themselves. While Microsoft and especially Sony is loosing money on each console sold Nintendo is actually earning on each console and has been since day one. Their lead in this Next-gen war is at this point quite undeniable and is marked clearly when Nintendo passed the value of Sony as a company earlier this month.

However, Nintendo isn’t in the clear yet. At this point they are number one, but they have a major problem now! There simply isn’t enough quality content for the Wii. If you take a look at the available content for the Wii it is filled with crappy conversions from the PlayStation 2, Titles meant for the Gamecube that has been quickly adapted to the Wii controls and then Nintendo’s own titles. In terms of quality titles we are left with a very few, which are mainly Nintendo’s own, like Zelda (which is also just a port from Gamecube), Wii Sports and then the upcoming Metroid Prime. The many lousy and rushed conversion are expensive and do not use the innovation in the Wii. Then you could, like Nintendo would say to you, buy some Gamecube games for your Wii, while you are waiting for some real content. Well, problem is: Who in their right mind goes out and buys last-gen content for a “next-gen” console? … And even if you wanted to, for some reason, there is hardly any Gamecube games available anymore! In short: There are too little content at this point for the Wii at a quality that justifies the high prices. This will quickly become a problem as the XBox360 cannot battle the Wii on graphics alone, but when good titles continue to published for the console it will slowly sway customers away from the Wii. Even the PlayStation 3 has more quality content than the Wii has at this point. People want more than just a couple of new Mario-titles for their console, and they don’t want cheaply made, expensive, lousy conversions! They want original content that takes advantage of the Wii in terms of both graphics and the controls and gameplay as well… And they want the online part to work, as they were promised! If Nintendo doesn’t do something fast Sega might be right in their prediction that the Wii will too quickly end up looking dated and the creativity for this new playground lost… Of course the opposite was predicted by John Romero, who thinks the Wii has the perfect design for what it does compared to the XBox360 and the PlayStation 3. Some publishers have already seen that the Wii has a good potential and acted accordingly, but Nintendo needs more quality content and fast!

The battle for the exclusive content is now on full for the three consoles! While the sales number for the consoles are still interesting it is of less importance now. The rest will be fought on who gets the exclusive title that everyone wants to play with all of their friends. While the PlayStation 3 is perhaps the most unwanted console in recent history and many predicts Sony’s fall, as they are watching Sony descent from the throne of gaming consoles, they might still end up winning if they get the correct, exclusive content. Nintendo is selling consoles faster than anyone ever has before and are closing in on the XBox360’s sales in a much smaller time frame! While it may be Nintendo the other two were chasing at E3 this time around the battle for content is being led firmly by Microsoft, who has a firm customer base and are past the second-gen titles at this point for their console. Even Sony at this points admits their installed PlayStation 3 base is not enough for a Grand Theft Auto 4 exclusive, and without a larger base even the large PlayStation-franchise Metal Gear Solid 4 might even end up on XBox360 as well. Already Square Enix has proclaimed that next long-awaited Final Fantasy won’t be a PlayStation 3 exclusive, like it was previously expected. At this point Sony has its work cut out for them and to get back into the war they need more or less a miracle. While Nintendo made a lot innovation Sony focusing on massive hyping instead.

In the mean time Microsoft is slowly winning publisher by publisher and getting all the exclusive content. However, they are not without major problems of their own. Their problems is in hardware instead. The XBox360 is simply built with too little quality in mind and lawsuits concerning scratched disc and returned consoles after the feared Red Ring of Death is seriously hurting Microsoft’s revenue this year. Their hope is to refine the production process to reach 65 nm. and thereby be out in the clear when concerned about heat-issues, while also saving a few bucks on manufacturing. However, that move won’t come until fall – not even in their new Elite version. Until then Microsoft is betting on content to keep them in the battle. Their latest announcement is IPTV with a good studio support behind it.

The battle for content is on – and it is raging fast! Sony is amassing its forces and are betting heavily on Killzone 2 as a smash title, as all the rest of the former exclusive has gone the way of the XBox360. Microsoft is about to hit the competition hard with Mass Effect and especially Halo 3, but also really a lot of other interesting titles. Nintendo bets the entire fall on Metroid Prime 3, and then hopes the next Mario game will relight the fire on the Wii this Christmas, where it has until then only seen bad conversions and poor movie licenses. Microsoft and Sony is betting on High-Definition content that looks good and sound great, but doesn’t focus a lot on gameplay. Nintendo promised innovative gameplay, but only delivered a few titles worth such a claim – the rest cannot even be said to be good titles on the Gamecube. Common for all of these next-gen titles is that none are actually that innovating. Artificial Intelligence is still mainly If-then-else sentences. Graphics is good, but without proper acting and voice and depth of character it becomes a shell that is too easily dismissed. Sound is better, but what next-gen title has a soundtrack worth putting on HIFI and listen to it at this point? One smash title could mean a lot in this war – and there is a lot of room for improvement…