Another Year, Another Battle In The Console War

With the festive season now behind us, many wonder which of the seventh-generation video game consoles came out on top for 2007. The Big Three - the Nintendo Wii, the Microsoft Xbox360 and the Sony Playstation 3 - have all partaken in fierce competition, each with its own unique selling point and games.

The short answer is that, for now, the winner is the Nintendo Wii. Taking the console market by storm since its launch in November 2006, it has seen an unprecedented popularity amongst what is known as "casual gamers" - those who do not wish to invest time and emotion on what they perceive as overtly complex games. Using inexpensive controllers, known as WiiMotes, that capture the motion of their user's hands, Wiis were scarce as demand for the console surged - making it to the top spot of the Telegraph's "Hardest to find Christmas gifts" list and becoming the most searched for term on eBay. This could have been a conscious effort by Nintendo to avoid saturating the market, but the company denies this, instead citing inefficiencies with the supply of third-party components.

It's not all plain sailing for the Japanese console giant though. Despite its Wii and Nintendo DS being leaders in the home and handheld gaming market respectively, the majority of games available for Wii have been made in-house. Shunning the market for decidedly family-unfriendly games like Halo 3, it remains to be seen whether its simple appeal is sustainable in the upcoming year; but for now, the Wii is definitely in the lead.

As for who's in second place, the jury's currently out. Analysts were divided over what to expect this Christmas. DFC Intelligence, a video game and entertainment industry research firm, predicted in September that the Xbox 360 was likely to finish third this Christmas, with the gap widening over the course of the year, unless it managed to strengthen its weak position in the all-important Japanese market. On the other hand, research group BrandIntel expected the PS3 to fare worse this festive period, citing its high price and comparative lack of games as the main reasons.

With the two consoles appealing to more hardcore-gamers than the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft announced last week that it had sold 4.3 million Xbox 360 machines worldwide in the last quarter of 2007, while Sony announced this week that it sold 1.2 million in the U.S. during the Thanksgiving to New Year's period. These apples-and-oranges figures make for hard comparison, but it's clear that both machines are still in the running.

Sony anticipated its issues by slashing prices on the PS3, and sales must have been helped with the news that Warner Bros have decided to drop HD DVD as a format for its home video releases, making the PS3's Blu-Ray playing capability a bigger draw than previously. Microsoft meanwhile, benefited greatly from the release of Halo 3. Since its release in September it has sold 8.5 million copies, which means that almost half of the 17.7m Xbox 360 owners bought the game. It is currently the top-grossing video game of all time, bringing in $300 million by the end of the first week of release.

Perhaps the biggest winner in the current console war, however, is the game-playing public. Gaming is slowly becoming the leader in entertainment and well on its way to surpassing Hollywood. It might not do so this year or even this decade, but thanks to the success of games like Halo, the industry is sure to see significant investment, widening the selection and quality of games for years to come.

Andrew Regan is an online, freelance author from Scotland. He is a keen rugby player and enjoys travelling.

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