Today Let's Talk Video Games

A few months ago, I met with an executive on the Xbox team who made a most incredible statement. He said, "There are only two properties that count in video games right now, Halo and Grand Theft Auto."

I had to disagree. "You're forgetting about Mario," I said.

He admitted that he was forgetting about Mario; but he also said, "Mario isn't as big as he used to be."

Microsoft executives have a pretty good reason for burying their heads in the sand when it comes to Mario. They have an equally good reason to play dumb when it comes to Gran Turismo. For the last year Microsoft has had the next generation console market pretty much to itself. Next month, Nintendo and Sony are going to cut in on that dance.

Here are my predictions:

First a no-brainer--Microsoft will womp everyone this Christmas.

Why is this a no-brainer? Look, Sony and Nintendo are going to come to market with a few hundred thousand consoles to sell. Microsoft will have millions of consoles in inventory. Microsoft has worked out the manufacturing glitches. This is not a question of quality, it is a fact of quantity. Microsoft is simply going to have more boxes on store shelves.

If you want an example of how this happens, think back to the Christmas of 2001. That November, Xbox and GameCube were the new systems coming after a very lackluster first year of PlayStation 2. What happened? Microsoft and Nintendo sold everything they had in stock. Sony did not. But that did not change the outcome of the holidays. Sony limped into that holiday season with a two million console lead and it waltzed out of that holiday season with a three million console lead.

As Sony Computer Entertainment America senior vice president Jack Tretton said in an interview, “If they are going to catch up to us, they better start closing the gap."

They never did.

Look for Xbox 360, with its larger inventory, better price point, and second generation games to pull away from the competition this Christmas.

Now to the wild card--Wii.

In my mind, Nintendo is like a wonderful old friend who has a drinking problem. You like the friend, you like to spend time with the friend, but every so often bad behaviors come up and remind you that this friend has problems.

Look, the Wii is a souped up GameCube with a clever new controller and the ability to go online. Nintendo dazzled us all last E3, myself included. No one handles E3 politics like Sony, but no one manages E3 hype like Nintendo. And why not? Nintendo is everybody's old friend. We all grew up with Mario.

I like the look of Wii. I got a major kick out of Wii Tennis. Mario Galaxies was my favorite game at E3. You can take you Bioshocks and Sain't Rows, give me a good Mario adventure any day.

Like the old friend with the drinking problem, Nintendo is quick to fess up to old faults. "Yes, we really screwed up using cartridge format on N64. Yes, we did not support GameCube the way we said we would. Yes, we have been hard on third-party publishers in the past. Virtual Boy... oh, what were we thinking?"

And, like the old friend with the drinking problem, Nintendo bows its head after making these confessions and says, "We've learned our lesson."

And maybe Nintendo has learned its lesson. Maybe Nintendo has only learned the right things to say. The jury is out.

Here is what worries me. Nintendo promised that Wii would feature DVD playback and pulled it. In the past, Nintendo was a company with a knack for breaking promises. Nintendo says it will stick to its guns when it comes to making promises from here on out. Personally, I do not consider DVD playback a deal-breaker. If Nintendo can deliver on all of its other promises, that will be good enough.

What concerns me more is greed. Yes, corporations exist for one reason, to make a profit. Some companies manage this objective with subtlety and slight of hand. When it comes to corporate greed, Nintendo has all the subtlety of a pregnant elephant.

Observe... Wii is a souped up GameCube. Nintendo has even told some developers to create Wii games using GameCube development kits. Nintendo boasts long and loud that it can sell GameCubes for a profit at $149, so why charge $249 for Wii.

Oh yes, I know, Wii has built-in WiFi, Internet, and a fancy controller. It is approximately twice as powerful as GameCube. Fine, charge more... but $100 dollars more? Nintendo epitomized the "give away the razors to sell the blades" philosophy when it launched its NES in 1985-6. Now it wants to make money on both blades and razors while Sony and Microsoft still hand out razors for a loss.

Some will argue that Wii comes with a game packed into the box--Wii Sports. In my mind that justification makes Wii Sports the most expensive game since SEGA released Virtua Racing for Genesis with an processors chip built into the cartridge. Would you really pay $50 for Wii Sports if Nintendo sold it sepearately? Nintendo expects you to spend $249 instead of $199 or possibly $149 to buy a Wii because that game is packed into the box.

My biggest concern with Wii, though, is that Nintendo will run out of ideas for utilizing the controller. I'll tell you what, if Nintendo can keep up the quality with Wii... if we get more than one Mario adventure in this generation... if Nintendo lives up to this whole "it's all about innovation and fun" slogan it is unleashing, than Wii is well worth the $250 pricetag.

If, on the other hand, Nintendo starts to run out of new ideas six months down the line, as it did with Virtual Boy, Wii will be a major ripoff. If, come August, Nintendo starts pushing a standard controller and saying, "Hey, Wii plays regular games galore!", then Nintendo will have pulled yet another scam on the game-buying public.

Do I think Nintendo will do that? I do not know what I think. I am that confused. Nintendo scammed us all with N64, Virtual Boy, and GameCube. On the other hand, Nintendo has mostly stuck to its guns with DS. As I said before, Nintendo is that wonderful old friend with the drinking habit who now says he's reformed.

I hope it is so.

And now a word about Sony. I once wrote PlayStation 3 off entirely. I have revised that opinion. I veiw Nintendo as likely to do good with a lot of potential to screw up. I view Sony as likely to screw up with a great potential to succeed.

My biggest problem with PlayStation 3 is not the $600 price, which is frankly more reasonable than the $250 Nintendo is charging for Wii, when you consider what you get for your money. My problem with Sony is that I do not think Blu-Ray will succeed.

Sony knows that companies that launch successful new media make big, big money. The problem is, Sony's media never seem to take off. Betamax, UMD, Memory Stick--none of them have shaken the Earth. As for Blu-Ray... the prognosis does not look good. The reason people switched from vynal records to CDs was becasue they were tired of wapred records and stretched cassettes. The reason people switched from VHS to DVD was because folks were genuinely tired of VHS.

Do you know anyone who is tired of DVD as a format? Middle America is not ready to switch to $1,000 Blu-Ray decks and $60 Blu-Ray discs when DVDs cost $15 and DVD players cost $40. Heck, tests are showing that HD-DVD offers better resolution.

To me, Blu-Ray has laser disc written all over it. Do you remember laserdisc? Those were the LP-sized movie discs that came out in the seventies. Audiofiles loved 'em because they had a clearer picture than VHS, but laserdisc limped along for over a decade before DVD drove a stylus through its heart.

The success or failure of PlayStation 3 may ultimately be a referendum on the feasability of Blu-Ray and not a judgement of Sony as a game company.

Can PlayStation 3 succeed? I think that in order for the console to succeed, the PlayStation division may need to pull the rest of Sony out of the mire.