Nintendo vs. Sony Week: Wii vs. PS3
May 18, 2007
(Note: Throughout the week, Flava and Flinch will be battling it out controller-to-controller, cartridge to CD as they determine which gaming company is best in the land: Nintendo or Sony)
So this is it. The last day of the wildly successful Nintendo vs. Sony week. And we’ve certainly saved the best for last, as we dive head-first into the hottest debate in the console gamming world: Nintendo Wii vs. Sony Playstation 3. We wanna say thanks for all the new readers we gained, and a special shout out to all the original OGs who were there from the begining. Play on, playas.
At this moment in time, a console battle is being waged which will go down in the annals of console battledom. Lo, we have before us the mystical Wii, a device so creative as to redefine creativity. A fully cable-free controller that moves as you move, reacts as you react.Is the Wii actually redefining how people interact not only with gaming consoles, but with machines? Is the Wii brining society closer to the machine, ultimately leading to a Matrix-like human/machine coupling?
Meanwhile, Sony once again is attempting to bring raw, brute power to the gaming console world. Begone ye underpowered chipsets. Step aside old load technologies. ( I spit in your general direction, cartridge. I fart in your general direction, compact disc. DVD? Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!)
Here comes the awesome power of the PS3, a device more powerful than many home computers. A device destined to define home entertainment. A device destined to cost over $600.
A device destined to change the way we think of gaming more than the Wii. Like everything else Nintendo does, the Wii is a fun little toy. Enjoy swinging your arms playing Tennis or Baseball. Enjoy watching those oh-so-cute avatars on the screen. Enjoy having no mental challenge at all.
Enjoy the new Mario games. Yawn.The Nintendo Wii is the vitamin enhanced white bread of consoles.Meanwhile, the Sony PS3 is the multigrain all-natural wheat bread. It’s complex, high in fiber, and all around good for you. It engages the body and the mind, and the spirit is not far behind.
Instead of mindless arm swinging, the PS3 has the most realistic graphics and gaming engine ever put out to the mass market. When you walk through the electronics store, it’s really hard to tell if that football game in the far corner is a real game or two kids playing a PS3.
The PS3 can also take full advantage of your newly purchased HD ready TV. Not only do the games show up in full HD glory, the “jury is out” inclusion of a Blu-Ray drive sets the visual enjoyment of movies to maximum warp speed.
Look, I’m not into cutesy cartoons. I’m into serious games that take me to another world, away from the day’s stresses and troubles. The PS3, like no other platform before, accomplishes this.
Now Flava, please bore us with some BS about how all of this doesn’t matter, because playing cartoon games is (oh my gawd!) so much fun!
When I was mulling the Nintendo vs. Wii debate over in my head, I did what I always do: try to think of an analogy. It is my bread and butter. I’m the analogy guy. And so my brain did its apples-and-wolverines thing, and my mental computer spit out this gem:The PS3 is like Radiohead, and the Wii is like the Black-Eyed Peas.I know. This shocked me as much as it surely does you. Did I paint myself in a corner? Has my love of all things Nintendo been misplaced? Do I even exist??? How can I like the Fergie of video game systems?But then I had an epiphany. And I went all Allen Iverson:
We’re talkin’ bout video games! I mean, we’re talkin’ bout video games! We’re not talking about art! We’re talkin’ bout VIDEO GAMES!!!
Repeatedly throughout the week, you have dismissed Nintendo’s products for being fun. What? Seriously? It’s no longer okay for video games to be fun? Isn’t that the whole point?
Sometimes, I’ll get sucked into playing Call of Duty or some crap. The first couple levels go well, and I’m having fun. But then I get to level four or something and I die. So I play it again. And I die. And again, die. And between the time it takes to load the level, play the level, fail the level, go back to the menu, choose the level again, load the level again, and repeat; I’m approaching an hour of the same crap. And I think: why? Why am I doing this?
I guess I am supposed to feel a deeper sense of accomplishment for defeating a difficult level. But I never do.
Here are the levels of gratification for video game accomplishments (from least to greatest):
- Beating a video game
- Beating your friends at a video game
- Beating the original Ninja Turtles NES game (that shit was impossible)
And that’s it. I don’t care if the game is Lego Star Wars or Devil May Cry 2. When I’m done, I’m done.
Once a week or so, I gather some friends, some beer, and a pizza in a room together to have a video game night. Teriffic fun, I highly recommend it. When we started, I assumed that we would be playing mostly PS2 games like Madden, NBA 2k7, Star Wars Battlefront, etc. And we did at first (with the help of a multi-tap).
But every game we played fell into the same pattern: out of four people, one guy dominated the game, one guy really sucked at the game, and two guys were only having a mild bit of fun. It was okay, but it wasn’t the riotous fun that we were hoping for.
But then something magical happened: we aquired a Game Cube. My roomates had one, because I never would have thought to buy one myself.
Yes, that’s right Flinch. I was once like you. Flava was once a Playstation snob.
Anyhoo, we started playing games like Mario Party, Mario Cart, the new Bond game, Super Strykers, etc. The competition was intense and everybody was having a good time. No, wait. Everyone was having a great time. Teams that won gave each other high fives; teams that lost talked trash about how they were going to win the next one. The room was alive, and video games turned into something that I never knew they could be:
They were fun.
So we’ve been doing this for a long while now. We’ve upgraded to a Wii via one of my friends (I hope to get mine soon) and it is even better. Now that we are all standing and moving around, the energy in the room is even more electric. I look forward to these days all week.
Every once and awhile, I’ll need a gaming fix while by friends are busy and I’ll fire up the ‘ol Playstation 2 to remember the good times. I sit down in my room by myself. Maybe grab some Baked Lays and a PBR. I fire up the machine and wait for it to load. I play the next level, I die. Restart. I try again. I die again. Back to the menu. Load. Wait. Try again. Die. Try again……………………….
Screw this. I’ma go and ride my bike.
Flinchbot Says: Actually Flava, I agree with you. If we spent more time riding our bikes, and less time rotting our brains with video games, we would be healthier, wealthier, and wiser.Which means we’d get laid. I mean, we’d get laid more. Yeah…that’s what I meant.More.
FlavaDave Says: And there it is. When arguing about video games, there are no real winners.Although, I should point out that playing Guitar Hero II at my house got a friend of mine laid. But that’s a story for another time…………
That’s it everybody, go home. Nothing more to see here. Go hit the showers and come back ready for a clean run at it after the weekend. Thanks for visiting us, and we will see you bright-and-early Monday morning for a fresh new topic and a cripsy, crunchy, delicious new edition of F versus F. Later!
3 Comments | 
Mario, NES, Nintendo, Playstation, Playstation 3, Video Games, Wii | 
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Posted by flavadave
is rare).So why would I play the exact same games that I can play on my PS2 with worse graphics, a smaller screen and tiny buttons?Oh yeah, I forgot. I can watch movies on it, too. But how do I fit my DVDs in there? What’s that? I gotta buy a disk that can be played only by my PSP at full price? Uh, no thanks. I’ll stick to my video iPod, thanks.
mpany’s game system, portable or no.But the coolest part of the screen is the fact that it is a touch screen. Cooking Mama is a brilliant game that is done entirely by touch. In fact, the game would be impossible without it. Are there any games on the PSP that would be impossible if the PSP never existed?
Plus, the DS gave us New Super Mario Bros., which is an absolute joy to play.
You want to watch movies on the go, so you grab your video iPod.
You want to browse the web on the go, so you grab your cell phone.
You want to check in on RSS feeds on the go, so you grab your (much nicer) cell phone.
You want to watch live TV on the go, so you grab your…uh…PDA (or really, really nice cell phone.)
Now why would I do that? Doesn’t that run contrary to the spirit of the site?No my friend, it doesn’t. Remember, the argument is over the greater gaming company: Nintendo or Sony. Flinch will win this battle, but I shall win the war.Instead, I tell you this: The Playstation 2 is the 
have, like, friends.
except for Quake II). You should have saved all the BS you spewed at the NES and used it for the N64, but its too late now.
about 6 months after the massive stupid hype that this thing got (something Nintendo has never seen). I bought it, I played games, I got addicted to SSX Tricky, my roommate Derek and I had epic FIFA battles, and I rolled all who dared enter m y house boasting their abilities at Madden (I don’t care which version. Hell, Bring in the NCAA Football game and I’ll smoke you at it too. (And for fairness, my record is something like 87-1. I did lose last year finally.)The PS2 keeps going with Guitar Hero. And Guitar Hero II. And Guitar Hero: Hair Metal. And Guitar Hero: Sonny and Cher. It’s worse than freaking CSI:Muncie.But you know what? I didn’t buy a PS2 just to be a game system. Remember when Sony advertised this thing as a home entertainment center? Sure, my PS2 was my first DVD player and we still use it as the CD player for piping music out on the deck during long, drunken summer nights.But adding in a DVD player hardly makes a device a home entertainment center. Can I stream crap to it like the XBox can? Can I record TV shows like a Tivo? Nope. It can’t do any of that crap.
And that was the dream I was pursuing when I bought it. Any dumbass can make a video game console (See Nintendo). But it took someone with vision to really get the concept together of making a game system a home entertainment center. And that visionary genius was, gulp, Microsoft.
