DFC Report: Too close to call

[g35er]

The newest DFC report has been released. It's heavily focused on Sony and seems to indicate that the next gen's war is Sony's ball to drop or to catch, and a lot of it is based on price. But their final analysis is...they dunno.

Here is the Gamespot blurb:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6159034.html?tag=latestnews;title;0

and the article
http://www.dfcint.com/game_article/sept06article.html

 

[Guden Oden]

Frankly, I think PS3 could swing either way. Sony clearly bit off a bit more than they can chew, they probably never expected MS to leverage so much of their economic and development-capability might behind their xboxes. Probably was a bit of a blow to them and is forcing them to overextend to a certain respect. This is what's so dangerous with defacto monopolies like microsoft, they don't have to win by being the superior choice, they just need to outspend the competition...

I do hope sony succeeds tho, and that PS3 goes on to be a smashing success. It would only be BAD for the market if MS was to take over the high-end part of the spectrum, not least because then MS's death star would start focusing primarily on the nintendo rebel alliance instead.

 

[Paul_G]

I do hope sony succeeds tho, and that PS3 goes on to be a smashing success.

It's funny, but i'm the opposite, i see it almost as a changing of the guard. Nintendo and Sony have both had their time at the top and done things to improve gaming and where it is going, now i see MS as the natural follow on to that. I think a 3rd time on top for Sony will do more to stagnate gaming in the long run. And before you call me out on this, i have no evidence as such, just a gut feeling that like most companies that sit at the top of a sector too long, they grow fat and complacent, and a kick to the bottom often helps them come back stronger.

 

[London Geezer]

Well, purely from a marketing point of view, Sony seems to have gotten a few things wrong or the other way around. Sometimes it just looks like they took a Marketing book, read it, then said "OK guys, let's do the exact opposite!". This is most likely due to the fact that they think they can "afford" to take huge risks, seen how dominant they have been in the market in the last 11 years. Whether they can afford it or not is out of the question at the moment, we'll have to wait and see how things work out for them.

By contrast, MS seems to do things "properly", again, strictly marketing-wise.
God knows what's gonna come out of it.

I think PS3 will be a "success" as in it will sell millions of units (of course, even if only in Japan). But how many millions and how much of a success it will be is very unknown.

 

[zed]

It's funny, but i'm the opposite, i see it almost as a changing of the guard. Nintendo and Sony have both had their time at the top and done things to improve gaming and where it is going, now i see MS as the natural follow on to that. I think a 3rd time on top for Sony will do more to stagnate gaming in the long run. And before you call me out on this, i have no evidence as such, just a gut feeling that like most companies that sit at the top of a sector too long, they grow fat and complacent, and a kick to the bottom often helps them come back stronger.

If youre looking for a breath of fresh air, MS is the last company u want, they are very conservative and WRT to there size do very very very little innovating, Sony whilst also being a fatcat company do attempt different things (true a lot of the things they try are crap)

 

[Paul_G]

I'm not looking for a breath of fresh air like you mean, but i think the longer Sony stay market leaders, the more they will do what l-b said and just do silly things that because they can. Having a new company take the lead and develop the market, even if it is conservative, would inspire Sony to come back with a better product.

That said i do have to disagree with you. MS are conservative, it's difficult to be dynamic and changing when you are that large, but I look at all the news coming from X06 and i do not see conservatism in the gaming division. Sony as a parent company are equally conservative, for instance they waited a long time before moving away from the CRT market, to their cost in the end as they are now chasing other companies where before they were market leaders, but SCE are nothing like that

 

[London Geezer]

I'm not looking for a breath of fresh air like you mean, but i think the longer Sony stay market leaders, the more they will do what l-b said and just do silly things that because they can. Having a new company take the lead and develop the market, even if it is conservative, would inspire Sony to come back with a better product.

I don't think Sony's problem is the quality of their product. The product is arguably of very high quality, and that's a bit of a problem. It's just a bit too much. Their problem is they wanted to make the product they wanted to make and not necessairly the product the customers want. Then they will worry about trying to convince us that their product is what we want or need, which will come from promotion. In the meantime they know they will sell well because it's a Playstation. Plus, the product is late. VERY late.

But as i said, they have done MANY things the other way around and it will be very interesting to see what happens.

Some of the things they have "overlooked":

- they almost priced themselves out of the market (though the 20GB PS3, from latest updates, might be just right)
- they tried to please everyone - which is impossible by definition - and tried to put everything in their product (a drive that plays anything ever put on disc except DVD-A, and apparently most games for Sony's 2 previous consoles, multi-card reader - which is totally not needed - 89 USBs, Blutetooth and god knows what else they put in there), making it more expensive than it should be. Sign of bad market planning (segmentation, targeting etc) or maybe it's just them taking a risk, who knows.
- they raised expectations VERY high but then sometimes weren't able to meet them, disappointing many customers, first with the teraflop crap, then the CGI issue and then with the very bad delays, then the features cut and all the things we have discussed endlessly since the first announcement at E3 2005. (raising expectations too high and then not being able to hold on to that momentum and disappointing customers is VERY bad in business). Most of this will be unknown to their "casual gamers" target audience so it's not THAT bad...

I'm sure there's more.

One of the philosophies of Marketing is to sell the product the customer wants, when he wants it, where he wants it, at the price he wants it. Sony got the majority of those a bit wrong.

The funny thing is that if somehow PS3 manages to sell like PS2, then that would make a f**king perfect study material for my course!


Anyone looking for a breath of fresh air from either Sony or Microsoft are very much looking in the wrong place and have a warped vision of "fresh air".
Sony and MS are just as conservative and at the same time dynamic as each other.

 

[Guden Oden]

It's funny, but i'm the opposite, i see it almost as a changing of the guard. Nintendo and Sony have both had their time at the top and done things to improve gaming and where it is going, now i see MS as the natural follow on to that.

What you said would have been true, had it been pretty much any other company but MS behind the xbox. The problem is though, that MS is not an innovating company. They're a follower, a copycat and a bloater, though not neccessarily in that order.

They look at what others do, they do the same, and then they add on more, wether more is what's needed or not. Just look at the UI of the MS live messenger for example. An already cluttered GUI in the old messenger has become even worse. All MS does is infected with the same taint, regardless of what it is. All that is xbox is shit they've bought, rather than developed themselves. Everything they know is bought knowledge. They haven't learned anything themselves, other than a few what-not-to-dos, with the first xbox (such as not paying a lot of royalties to nvidia for custom chips, etc).

MS's only interest is capturing the most market share and making the most amount of money possible. And don't say that is all sony and nintendo cares about either, because MS has a long-standing tradition of simply dropping everything with regards to product evolution once they reach market dominating history. For an almost perfect example of that, just see how many years they've been selling IE6. Even when nintendo was at its peak of ruthless domination, they still innovated.

MS won't do that, should they come in the same position. They'll become as stale as EA, and even more monstrous.

 

[London Geezer]

They look at what others do, they do the same, and then they add on more, wether more is what's needed or not.

That is true of every single company in the universe trying to compete against other companies. In competitive markets, one company does something, the others follow, then another company does something else, and the others follow.

Let's not pick on one company in particular. Every company in every competitive market has done this and will do it until we have that stuff called money.

Sure, some companies "innovate" more than others, and some companies "copycat" more than others, but the line is very much ever-changing.

 

[Paul_G]

MS's only interest is capturing the most market share and making the most amount of money possible. And don't say that is all sony and nintendo cares about either, because MS has a long-standing tradition of simply dropping everything with regards to product evolution once they reach market dominating history. For an almost perfect example of that, just see how many years they've been selling IE6. Even when nintendo was at its peak of ruthless domination, they still innovated.

I don't see IE6 as a perfect example for yourt point by any stretch, mainly since IE is free and it simply serves a function, which cannot be said of a console and its games. However it does prove my point in another sense. I see the stagnant development of IE as something like the way the games market would end up if the same company (be it Sony or MS or Nintendo) led every generation . The release and subsequent popularity of Firefox prompted MS to up their game, to the point that they have now committed to regular development of IE. I see the same happening in the console market if MS do well this time. It will force Sony and Nintendo to re-evaluate their position and come back stronger next time round.

 

[Arwin]

I'm hoping that all three consoles do well - this should be good for consumers. We can then choose the console that suits us best. It's just like the DS and PSP - the two only stimulate each other to be better, and consumers can choose which one offers them that which they like most, or buy both! In the meantime, both are a commercial success. The DS is maybe ahead of the PSP, but the PSP is doing great nonetheless, so no problems there. And it's a great example that the consumer benefits, because each offers a unique experience in terms of handheld gaming.

In the last generation, I had a PS2 and an Xbox, and while I bought PGR2, Halo 2, Race Driver 2, Sands of Time (yes, it was better on Xbox) and one or two other games, the PS2 very clearly offered me what I wanted most. The lack of a racing wheel with force feedback on the Xbox killed it for me, and none of the racing games came close to the feel of GT4 either (again, partly through the lack of the wheel), though they partly made up for it with online features. Then of course there were the whole range of other Japanese games released only on the PS2, as well as plenty of other great exclusives. I'm going to see similar problems for the 360 actually, because the first Force Feedback wheel doesn't look convincing - I'm looking forward to a Logitech product for the 360, and if Forza doesn't at least support the DF Pro or equivalent, then, well. Once you got hooked to 900 degrees steering, there's no going back, not for me anyway.

The big plus for the Xbox was its harddrive (even if I considered it just as a big memory card, that still was worth it for me), and Live support which was good, but is expensive. I've had it for several years, but only used it for 2 months total, probably less. This is my own mistake, but it does serve as a good reminder that it is really not cheap, doubling the cost of ownership of the console. I have had some great online experiences on my PC (Warcraft), and they didn't cost anything, and the games were cheaper too. Rather than now regretting that they didn't have a harddrive-less Xbox last generation, they should have made sure that everyone noticed that the HDD was an important feature. They missed that opportunity.

For the next generation, I'm again taking an open mind towards each console again, but from the looks of it so far, I'm very happy with what Sony is offering, and very meh towards the other three. Again, I'm hoping all three will be good. I remember the days of the Atari ST versus the Commodore Amiga very well, and that resulted in great games and it was great fun to compare the different versions. I owned the Atari ST first and for most of that period and played on the Amiga at a friend's place, but later bought a 600HD and had great fun with that as well. I felt that the Amiga games were better generally, but each had its benefits and downsides (I have had a lot of fun with my Roland MT-32 hooked up to my Atari ST while playing Sierra games).

Last generation we also had comparison features on the internet between PS2, Xbox and GameCube versions of multi-platform games, and I always enjoyed those immensely.
I would love for that period to be continued into the next generation with renewed vigor.

Competition is great for consumers. Each of the companies have their downsides, and the best way for them to overcome them is by being forced to by their competition.

I personally don't have much faith in the 360, at this point, nor do I have a lot of faith in the Wii. But I am glad they exist, and hope they do well, as each of these three will help the other two to find their strengths and play to them. It's like having a discussion between great minds, each helping the other to become more precise in both content and presentation.

Right now, I do have a lot of faith in the PS3. It is the console which, with some distance, allows for the biggest innovation in games and has a great architecture that will allow games to keep up or distinguish themselves from PCs for quite some time to come. It has all the features I looked for in terms of a multi-media device for in the living room, including BluRay and 1080p support, and a webbrowser (for which 1080p is a definite plus), among others. While still a relative unknown quantity, I also see a lot of potential in the sixaxis features of the console. And it looks like it will get more than its fair share of good games.

As a market leader, the PS3 could have become complacent, but it hasn't - whenever and whereever it has been challenged, it has aggressively moved forward in response, rather than cling on to its current assets, and it has listened quite well to developers (though it will never satisfy all of them of course). Now it can reap the rewards - multiplatform games will eventually look best on the PS3, and it looks set to receive its fair share of unique games to boot.

I could go on and on to list what I like about the PS3 and what I don't like about the other consoles, but I don't want to go there. Instead, I will wait until the PS3 is released, and then start judging it on actual merit (as best I can).

 

[expletive]

What you said would have been true, had it been pretty much any other company but MS behind the xbox. The problem is though, that MS is not an innovating company. They're a follower, a copycat and a bloater, though not neccessarily in that order.

Stick to the console space. Since the PSX one could argue that Sony has been the least innovative of the big three. MS gets full credit for a standard HD, ethernet, and a massive online community. They were providing these things out of the box before the others even knew or admitted it would be relevant.

As MS further combines their markets and leverages their Windows business, i see them being able to provide services that the other wont be able to over time. That's not to say they will sell more consoles than sony or nintendo this gen but i think over time this will become a software business more than a hardware one, that's where MS will have a distinct advantage.

 

[Arwin]

Stick to the console space, since the PSX one could argue that Sony has been the least innovative of the big three since then. MS gets full credit for a standard HD, ethernet, and a massive online community. They were providing these things out of the box before the others even knew or admitted it would be relevant.

Actually, Microsoft has very clearly indicated that they believed that Sony did the smarter thing by having the PS2 ready for ethernet and HD as an option. They have felt that having the 50$ extra that the HDD cost in the Xbox even late in its lifecycle really held them back, and this is why they went for the Core option in the next generation. In other words, by their own accounts, MS doesn't deserve credit for a standard HD.

Ironically, while most believed that this generation did call for a standard HD, now MS didn't actually include one.

That leaves the massive online community, which however was still smaller than the PS2's online community, and cost a lot of money, but at least it was innovative and generally set-up well. It also however has a number of downsides which actually slow down innovation - developers couldn't add their own features, and everything had to go through Microsoft and on Microsoft servers. EA didn't agree with that, nor did the guys from Tony Hawk initially, just as some examples. Even now in the 360, by default it is not possible for third-party developers to add functionality beyond what Microsoft supports, but fortunately they do seem to be finalising XNA support that also allows new features to be supported by third-party at the developer back-end now.

Still, if Sony is going to allow third party to offer support for online features on the PS3, that would enable a lot of competiiton in that space and that could in turn be good, as long as you have some kind of central, unified Sony logon, the rest doesn't bother me - if Resistance indeed succeeds in offering 40 player online support and Epic is successful in offering mod-support and similar server setups as they can for the PC space, then Sony's more open style may turn out better than Live.

As a PC developer I am generally quite happy with what Microsoft offers, especially in terms of .NET Framework and development software. But at the same time I realise that I could at this point write a Word replacement that has about 1% the features of Word, but is *much* better suited to our office.

When Microsoft points out that only 10% of Xbox users were online last gen, and that 60% is online this gen, they fail to mention that there's a big chance that the two actually overlap - the 10% are the early adopters, and there's going to be a very big overlap between those and the 60% of 360 users that are online now, never mind the Silver/Gold setup which didn't exist last gen.

 

[Teasy]

That is true of every single company in the universe trying to compete against other companies. In competitive markets, one company does something, the others follow, then another company does something else, and the others follow.

Let's not pick on one company in particular. Every company in every competitive market has done this and will do it until we have that stuff called money.

Sure, some companies "innovate" more than others, and some companies "copycat" more than others, but the line is very much ever-changing.

Not all companies try to copy and one up every other company in the same market as them.

 

[expletive]

Actually, Microsoft has very clearly indicated that they believed that Sony did the smarter thing by having the PS2 ready for ethernet and HD as an option. They have felt that having the 50$ extra that the HDD cost in the Xbox even late in its lifecycle really held them back, and this is why they went for the Core option in the next generation. In other words, by their own accounts, MS doesn't deserve credit for a standard HD.

Ironically, while most believed that this generation did call for a standard HD, now MS didn't actually include one.

The point is that they took risk to test the water for the industry by including it as standard. Whether or not they thought it was a good idea for them this generation, isnt really relevant, it still was an innovation because they were the ones who took the risk (and losses) to bring it to market.

If youre going to make the argument that standard broadband, and a unified online service wasnt innovative, well i'm not even going to spend time arguing against that. MS was evangelizing the idea in 2001, when Sony and Nintendo didnt even have it on their radar. By some accounts, Sony still doesnt have their act together wrt online.

I still stand behind my point that Sony has been the least innovative. I'm not saying I care,mind you, as it was just a response to another post.

 

[Arwin]

The point is that they took risk to test the water for the industry by including it as standard. Whether or not they thought it was a good idea for them this generation, isnt really relevant, it still was an innovation because they were the ones who took the risk (and losses) to bring it to market.

The point I'm making is that Sony had the PS2 ready for HDD and Network, but decided to make it optional, and made the right choice. Innovation just for innovation's sake is not interesting, imho, you have to bring something into the market that adds something of considerable value.

If youre going to make the argument that standard broadband, and a unified online service wasnt innovative, well i'm not even going to spend time arguing against that. MS was evangelizing the idea in 2001, when Sony and Nintendo didnt even have it on their radar. By some accounts, Sony still doesnt have their act together wrt online.

I didn't make that argument and I am not going to. All I'm saying is that here too, MS may have been too early, but not only that, this particular innovation ran the risk of holding back further innovation.

I still stand behind my point that Sony has been the least innovative. I'm not saying I care,mind you, as it was just a response to another post.

Well, I find it debatable whether they have been the least innovative - they brought among others DVD (including movie playback), DualShock, Dual Analog sticks, and Eye Toy to the last generation, and in this generation the list of innovations, features and specs in the PS3 very clearly outstrips the 360's.

But you are missing my point. If last generation the Xbox had made sure something like Logitech's 900 wheel made it to the Xbox, then there's a chance I would have spent far more time on the Xbox and who knows how much I'd have enjoyed a game like Forza then. I would still probably also have played GT4 a lot and similar games, but it could have been a lot more even, and if GT4 hadn't been on PS2, or had been an Xbox exclusive with online features, then the Xbox would have seen me spend the most time on it probably, and Live would have gotten a lot of mileage out of me.

My point is just that the experience that one console offers over the other can be to someone's specific taste or not, but the fact that the two push each other is extremely important to us.

Almost secondary to the original point I wanted to make, which is that currently I feel the PS3 has a bright future ahead of it.

And that reminds me that when I heard about the Xbox, one of the first things that went through my mind is "this is going to be great for Western developers, who are now going to get a lot better support from any console platform". This is something that definitely was a good thing that Xbox brought to the console world.

 

[London Geezer]

Not all companies try to copy and one up every other company in the same market as them.

You're right, not all of them... Most companies do.

And when a company refused to "follow the trend", they get labelled "stuck in the last century". I'm sure you and I know very well a few examples.

 

[speng]

I think the PS3 initially is expensive for the average gamer. But in the first year, it's not catering to the average gamer. It is for hard-core gamers and AV folks looking for a good blu-ray player and the price is just right for what you get.

The price will come down in time to get to where the average gamer will buy the product but they will sell every PS3 they can make for the next 18 months easily.

Considering inflation the content you are getting and early in the technology cycle (blu-ray) and being a high-end gear currently. The price is fine, some folks cannot afford it yet, but they will buy it later on. If blu-ray becomes the major HD movie format, even more will buy.

The only way Sony can mess up is if their product is of no quality (hardware issues) and they don't have the games for the system. They already have blu-ray covered for movie content.

Speng.

 

[Sethamin]

Actually, Microsoft has very clearly indicated that they believed that Sony did the smarter thing by having the PS2 ready for ethernet and HD as an option. They have felt that having the 50$ extra that the HDD cost in the Xbox even late in its lifecycle really held them back, and this is why they went for the Core option in the next generation. In other words, by their own accounts, MS doesn't deserve credit for a standard HD.

Just because it wasn't financially successful, that hardly means it wasn't innovative. In fact, I'd argue that innovative companies generally have more failures than most, since they would tend to take more risks (Virtua Boy, anyone?).

It also however has a number of downsides which actually slow down innovation - developers couldn't add their own features, and everything had to go through Microsoft and on Microsoft servers. EA didn't agree with that, nor did the guys from Tony Hawk initially, just as some examples.

This is a myth. The only thing MS servers host are matchmaking functionality (and leaderboards and such), which they push on developers because there are a lot of MS Research algorithms behind it that are better than the shlock that most 3rd party devs come up with. The only reason EA didn't want to get on board is because they wanted to control the customer relationship and be able to collect usage data, email addressees, etc. from the customer. MS didn't want to let them do this, but they finally relented in the end, and we are all the worse off for it. Have you ever played an Xbox Live EA game? They're terrible. The servers are abysmal, the connections to them are always flaky, and they send you these god-awful marketing emails.

The limiting features thing is not precisely true either, except insofar as there are cetification standards that MS enforces. For example, your game must run well over a minimum broadband connection speed x with room for voice chat, and if it doesn't, then you can't ship that feature. That's more than likely why you don't see things like 40-player multiplayer. But it's a trade-off, since they want everyone with Live to have a good experience and not be shut out of the party. It is the opposite of the PC experience, I'll grant you, where a fast connection and rig give you an advantage.

Well, I find it debatable whether they have been the least innovative - they brought among others DVD (including movie playback), DualShock, Dual Analog sticks, and Eye Toy to the last generation, and in this generation the list of innovations, features and specs in the PS3 very clearly outstrips the 360's.

I agree with your first point here; I would definitely not say that Sony has been the least innovative. They have brought a lot to the table. But I think everyone has. Nintendo's past and future innovations are well documented, and Sony brought arguably one of the biggest shifts in gaming history: the move to disc (CD, DVD, etc.) based console gaming. Granted, Nintendo contracted them to do that, but they still pulled it off and they get credit for it.

On the other hand, I think you all are missing some great innovations that 360 brought to the table (none of these are arguably big innovations, but they are different from competitors and they add up):

• Ripping CDs to HDD and playing in-game soundtracks
• In game soundtracks in all games playing from your MP3 player, iPod. HDD, or computer.
• Unified login
• Unified friends list (and always accessible on 360)
• Voice supported in every online game (and private voice chat in 360)
• Rich presence
• Cross game invites
• Achievements
• Leaderboards
• Standard wireless out of the box
• Turning on your box with your controller (kinda silly, but I love it)
• Xbox Live Arcade (this actually existed on Xbox1)
• Marketplace with downloadable demos, videos, and other content

Now you could argue whether all of these are truly innovations or just incremental improvements, and I'm sure that in some cases someone else somewhere did do it first. But the fact is that these are all differentiating features right now from their 2 major competitors, and likely Sony and Nintendo will take the best ones from this list and fold it into their own console. That's how competition works, and we are all the better off for it (usually). It's somewhat difficult to innovate in the console space, since so much of the experience is in the hands of 3rd party developers. But we should recognize that all 3 parties bring something to the table and "steal" from each other (in a good way), and the consumer wins.

But to say that MS is not an innovative company and just follows the leader is just plain wrong. In fact, if anything I'd say that last generation of hardware (GC, PS2, Xbox) was an extremely stale one in terms of innovation for everyone, but this next one (Wii, PS3, 360) is shaping up nicely. To my eye all 3 companies have very different offerings. We'll have to see how the Wii and PS3 turn out in terms of other features that we may not yet know about, but I think it's a great time for the console space.

 

[Arwin]

Just because it wasn't financially successful, that hardly means it wasn't innovative. In fact, I'd argue that innovative companies generally have more failures than most, since they would tend to take more risks (Virtua Boy, anyone?).

I didn't say nothing about the Xbox was innovative, just think that support for a HDD built in (the PS2 was definitely HDD ready, so to speak) or default HDD built in are two different implementations of the same, and Sony's turned out to be the wiser one. Ditto for the network adapter.

This is a myth. The only thing MS servers host are matchmaking functionality (and leaderboards and such), which they push on developers because there are a lot of MS Research algorithms behind it that are better than the shlock that most 3rd party devs come up with.

You are saying that publishers do not pay MS a fee and have their own dedicated servers hosted by themselves, rather than servers they pay MS a fee for?

Because if so, I didn't know this. But also if so, then EA's server performance has nothing to do with it.

The only reason EA didn't want to get on board is because they wanted to control the customer relationship and be able to collect usage data, email addressees, etc. from the customer.

The by far most important reason was that at the time, Microsoft had the ESPN sports line which was a direct competitor of EA's sports line, and that through Live, Microsoft had access to all the usage data of ESPN sports games, thus knowing exactly what features are used how often and so on. EA found this unacceptable, and as part of the agreement to get EA on board with Live, Microsoft actually dropped the ESPN franchise.

Now you're saying that Microsoft were heroes in at least trying to keep EA's horrible marketing tactics off-line?? Talk about myth-creation.

The limiting features thing is not precisely true either, except insofar as there are cetification standards that MS enforces. For example, your game must run well over a minimum broadband connection speed x with room for voice chat, and if it doesn't, then you can't ship that feature. That's more than likely why you don't see things like 40-player multiplayer. But it's a trade-off, since they want everyone with Live to have a good experience and not be shut out of the party. It is the opposite of the PC experience, I'll grant you, where a fast connection and rig give you an advantage.

It is very precisely true. Developers are limited to features supported by the SDK provided by Microsoft, and cannot add their own server-side features, at least not until the XNA server-side feature development kit is/was released (is it out yet?)

On the other hand, I think you all are missing some great innovations that 360 brought to the table (none of these are arguably big innovations, but they are different from competitors and they add up)

I am not missing them, really, trust me. As said, I have the original Xbox, and I know all about the new features that the 360 brought to the table. As I said, the online part of their job they took care of quite well (though I still think they're being stingy by not including a browser, and I don't like the way they carefully try not to have the Xbox threaten Windows PCs too much)

To my eye all 3 companies have very different offerings. We'll have to see how the Wii and PS3 turn out in terms of other features that we may not yet know about, but I think it's a great time for the console space.

To this, I can agree. Xbox is succesfully challenging the other consoles to pick up their level of online support, though at the same time when the other two do pick up their online support, then having to pay for Live may become a more complicated issue.