I'm throwing my opinion behind XBox 360 vs. PS3.
Reading the recent May 23 Time cover story on Mixrosoft's XBOX 360, I can't help but feel that Microsoft may actually be a good, if not great, thing for gaming. The article talked a bit about the inner workings of Microsoft's XBOX division, and it's clear that this division has been well insulated from the rest of Microsoft's corporate thinking. J Allard, who heads Microsoft's XBOX efforts, seems an able visionary (who convinced MS in 1993 to take a closer look at a thing called the internet), and someone who can hold Bill Gate's attention, enough so that their division, more of it's own entity/company, doesn't seem to answer directly to any of the more distatseful aspects of Microsoft's nasty corporate side.
That is to say, when Microsoft makes investments in videogames, as with the XBox and the various other PC developers they own, they seem to let the developers do their own thing. At least, I haven't heard anything to the contrary.
In fact, I remember watching a documentary of the development of a Microsoft Crimson Skies XBox game, and it looked like Microsoft was truly content to let the developers go in directions they wanted to go. Of course, Microsoft's representative always kept an eye on the budget, but it was more like they were willing to spend the money if they could be convinced that it was being used wisely. In fact, they delayed that particular game in the documentary for 6 months and scrapped the lead designer because the developers felt the game wasn't going where it needed to go. This is a gutsy thing, and can only benefit from comparison to Nintendo-esque delays.
Anyways, what this insulation and support from MS bigwigs means is that the Microsoft games unit seems to be much more open to what types of gaming the future will need as opposed to Sony's thinking on the matter.
This is suggested also by the Microsoft technology analysis press release that came out after E3 comparing the PS3 and X360. Whereas the Cell processor with it's multi-tudes of different processor entities was optimized solely for non-flexible pure graphical power, the XBox 360 looked superior in ease of development AND in more essential and more important areas such as the unique processing capabilities that AI programming would require.
This shows some level-headedness and future-sense from the XBox team compared to Kutagari. Whereas Kutagari has built a straight-up number-crunching monster and has the gall to call it a supercomputer that sounds ominously like Skynet (see: the Terminator movies), Microsoft is instead finding out where gaming has exploded in this last generation (the enemy and squad AI in games like Halo) and didn't forget that in addition to their quest to up the technological ante.
Basically, while Sony sees technology as a way to pump out more polgyons, Microsoft interprets technology more freely based on what the games of today need.
Add this software-oriented hardware design with an insulated game division within microsoft that has and probably shares developmental freedoms, and I don't care whether Bill Gates sees $ signs with a MS console in my living room, it simply looks like the XBox 360 will be a good thing for gaming, and offers a positive direction as opposed to Sony's one-sided view.
For those Nintendo fans out there looking for a more moderate choice than "Innovation-at-all costs" Nintendo and "Graphics-at-all costs" Sony, Microsoft, an American company in a traditionally Japanese world, may be worth taking a look into.
I already feel that the XBox 360 will compete powerfully and could even beat the PS3. Maybe if I have the money, I might pick it up a year or two into the life-cycle. That's in addition to my revolution of course, lol.
Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com
P.S. The shortening of game console generations is sadly a byproduct of not only technology's leaps and bounds, but Microsoft's need to make a virgin sacrifice, the first XBox, to the videogame industry monster. The first XBox existed not to make money, but test gaming ideas, markets, and show that Microsoft wasn't an "oogie-boogey" doomsday-bringing demon after all. And it's succeeded. Microsoft has my respect now, whereas in 2001 they had only my wary caution.