The Times: Tech news feature - Console wars erupt
Cyberwar enters a ferocious new phase this weekend as Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo go all-out in the battle to dominate the £14 billion games console battlefield. By David Rowan
It is being called The Invasion of the Shopping Centres, an assault on Britain's consumers that cannot end with three winners. By late today, once the till rolls are in, analysts will have a clearer idea of where victory may eventually lie.
Microsoft is making a belated entry to the 30-year-old game market with the Xbox console. This weekend is its last chance to "pre-sell" Xbox before the official launch next Thursday and Microsoft is firing its biggest guns.
It says that it has spent £350 million promoting the console. Robbie Bach, the "chief Xbox officer", says this £299 matt-black box - US customers pay $299 (£210) - "is going to change video games the way MTV changed music". The selling point is a 733MHz Intel processor, which Microsoft says gives computing strength far beyond the opposition's, as well as cult games such as Halo and Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee.
Sony is making a pre-emptive strike; its £199 PlayStation 2 console was launched to acclaim across Europe in November 2000, and the company has chosen this weekend to promote what it calls "the biggest game launch the industry has ever seen". Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, an adventure game designed for Sony's console, has been previewed in such superlative terms that 550,000 advance orders were placed even before it went on sale in Britain yesterday.
This weekend the game's sales are expected to exceed £9 million, the sort of box-office take normally reserved for Hollywood blockbusters: Monsters Inc took a similar amount in its first weekend in Britain.
It may be no coincidence that Metal Gear's designers commissioned a cinematic soundtrack from Harry Gregson-Williams, whose Hollywood hits include the music for Armageddon.
Nintendo, meanwhile, has been hyping 2002 as "the year of the GameCube", its console that arrives here on May 3. Nintendo has budgeted £60 million for a European advertising campaign and predicts that it will shift a million units by July. At about £150, this will be the cheapest of the three competitors, but Nintendo believes that the 20 games available at launch, including Luigi's Mansion and WaveRace: Blue Storm, will give the GameCube the edge.
The money at stake makes this battle anything but a game. Last year Britain spent more than £1.6 billion on computer games, according to the European Leisure Software Publishers' Association, more than we spent renting videos or on visiting the cinema.
Analysts expect the new consoles to end a period of stagnation in the video-game industry. They are also being tipped as potential "home-entertainment gateways" that could evolve into the all-in-one audiovisual units that have long been predicted. Both the Xbox and the PlayStation 2 will eventually play DVD movies, host games online and send e-mails.
Justin Calvert, deputy editor of GameSpot UK, said the likely winner was PlayStation 2, which already is in two million British homes after just 16 months. "Even Microsoft and Nintendo quietly acknowledge that PlayStation 2 is the winner," he said. "They're just fighting for second place."
The weakest contender, he says, is Nintendo. "GameCube will struggle. They're last out of the blocks, and they have barely had enough software in place for their launches. Although Xbox is more expensive, it has 20 games available on day one. GameCube on launch won't even have a 'killer app', the one game that everyone has to have."
This war is, as much as anything, a clash of cultures. For decades Japan has dominated through relentless innovation and creative flair. Idiosyncratic artists such as Nintendo's creative head, Shigeru Miyamoto, get the freedom to invent ludicrous heroes such as Super Mario, a plumber, and the world is gripped.
Then along come the Americans boasting that sheer firepower will ensure their dominance. Microsoft gives the Xbox the biggest processor it can find, invests half a billion dollars to shout about it, and waits for others to design the games. For the Americans, the goal is to take the PC into the games arena, using a computer-based console to lure gamers to play online.
The Japanese have never seen computer power as the key to the games experience. In Japan video games have always been more closely linked to the television or to under-powered consoles.
Whatever the technicalities, plenty of people will be hooked. One enthusiast in Banbury, Oxfordshire, is said to have changed his name to PlayStation 2. It can only be a matter of time before we see a Mr Xbox or a Ms GameCube.
(The Times, March 9 2002)
It is being called The Invasion of the Shopping Centres, an assault on Britain's consumers that cannot end with three winners. By late today, once the till rolls are in, analysts will have a clearer idea of where victory may eventually lie.
Microsoft is making a belated entry to the 30-year-old game market with the Xbox console. This weekend is its last chance to "pre-sell" Xbox before the official launch next Thursday and Microsoft is firing its biggest guns.
It says that it has spent £350 million promoting the console. Robbie Bach, the "chief Xbox officer", says this £299 matt-black box - US customers pay $299 (£210) - "is going to change video games the way MTV changed music". The selling point is a 733MHz Intel processor, which Microsoft says gives computing strength far beyond the opposition's, as well as cult games such as Halo and Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee.
Sony is making a pre-emptive strike; its £199 PlayStation 2 console was launched to acclaim across Europe in November 2000, and the company has chosen this weekend to promote what it calls "the biggest game launch the industry has ever seen". Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, an adventure game designed for Sony's console, has been previewed in such superlative terms that 550,000 advance orders were placed even before it went on sale in Britain yesterday.
This weekend the game's sales are expected to exceed £9 million, the sort of box-office take normally reserved for Hollywood blockbusters: Monsters Inc took a similar amount in its first weekend in Britain.
It may be no coincidence that Metal Gear's designers commissioned a cinematic soundtrack from Harry Gregson-Williams, whose Hollywood hits include the music for Armageddon.
Nintendo, meanwhile, has been hyping 2002 as "the year of the GameCube", its console that arrives here on May 3. Nintendo has budgeted £60 million for a European advertising campaign and predicts that it will shift a million units by July. At about £150, this will be the cheapest of the three competitors, but Nintendo believes that the 20 games available at launch, including Luigi's Mansion and WaveRace: Blue Storm, will give the GameCube the edge.
The money at stake makes this battle anything but a game. Last year Britain spent more than £1.6 billion on computer games, according to the European Leisure Software Publishers' Association, more than we spent renting videos or on visiting the cinema.
Analysts expect the new consoles to end a period of stagnation in the video-game industry. They are also being tipped as potential "home-entertainment gateways" that could evolve into the all-in-one audiovisual units that have long been predicted. Both the Xbox and the PlayStation 2 will eventually play DVD movies, host games online and send e-mails.
Justin Calvert, deputy editor of GameSpot UK, said the likely winner was PlayStation 2, which already is in two million British homes after just 16 months. "Even Microsoft and Nintendo quietly acknowledge that PlayStation 2 is the winner," he said. "They're just fighting for second place."
The weakest contender, he says, is Nintendo. "GameCube will struggle. They're last out of the blocks, and they have barely had enough software in place for their launches. Although Xbox is more expensive, it has 20 games available on day one. GameCube on launch won't even have a 'killer app', the one game that everyone has to have."
This war is, as much as anything, a clash of cultures. For decades Japan has dominated through relentless innovation and creative flair. Idiosyncratic artists such as Nintendo's creative head, Shigeru Miyamoto, get the freedom to invent ludicrous heroes such as Super Mario, a plumber, and the world is gripped.
Then along come the Americans boasting that sheer firepower will ensure their dominance. Microsoft gives the Xbox the biggest processor it can find, invests half a billion dollars to shout about it, and waits for others to design the games. For the Americans, the goal is to take the PC into the games arena, using a computer-based console to lure gamers to play online.
The Japanese have never seen computer power as the key to the games experience. In Japan video games have always been more closely linked to the television or to under-powered consoles.
Whatever the technicalities, plenty of people will be hooked. One enthusiast in Banbury, Oxfordshire, is said to have changed his name to PlayStation 2. It can only be a matter of time before we see a Mr Xbox or a Ms GameCube.
(The Times, March 9 2002)
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