The Wii is a terrible concept though. Just like the Wii U is also a failure. Nintendo has yet again gone with technology that will be almost 5 years old come their release date if the details dropped at E3 last year have been confirmed. I also think should again the rumors get confirmed, Xbox will be the winner in the next gen of consoles. Here is why, lets say they improve on the specs a bit and use a 7000 series card. The graphics would be amazing. now the biggest killer for the Wii U is Kinect 2. The Kinect 2 will make the Wii U obsolete and here is why http://www.techspot.com/news/46434-microsofts-kinect-2-will-be-able-to-read-lips-and-detect-your-mood.html Nintendo just has motion detection from 2 joy sticks and soon a gamepad type device, but this is what will set Microsoft apart and smash the Wii U. I don't even think Sony has something this advanced.
1. The Wii may not be state-of-the-art, but you don't win by having the shiniest toys, you win by
selling more stuff. The Wii did something that the other consoles weren't doing at the time, and guess what?
People liked the novelty of it.2. There won't be any noticeable difference in graphics quality between a 360 and a 720, though. The current HD 360 graphics quality is indistinguishable from reality, on most TV screens. If I walk in on my brother playing a 360 game, the only way I know he's not watching a live-action TV show is the health/map/ammo meters in the corner. What's the point in souping up the graphics if the human retina can't even tell the difference? It's not like Microsoft is releasing a version for eagles.
Graphics improvements are not the way to go anymore.3. Ooh, ahh, Kinect. Call me back when it's actually able to calibrate your distance from the TV reliably, and thus your height. I tried Kinect games on my brother's system, and it thinks I'm 2 1/2 feet tall. No, really, my Your Shape: Fitness Evolved data said I was that tiny. And I couldn't even fix the height data. Not to mention that Kinect requires a rather large room to be at all usable. My brother's 360 is in a 15x15' room and his Kinect still doesn't consider that enough space for much of anything.
Until the room size issue is dealt with satisfactorily, Kinect is a bad choice. Also, Kinect is an add-on, not something that comes with the console out of the box. A very
expensive add-on, might I add. Why would I buy a console
and a $150 add-on to get motion games, when I could just buy a Wii and have it right out of the box? Hel, if you still had a PSEye left over from the PS2 days, then upgrading to Motion Plus controllers on your PS3 was actually cheaper than buying a Kinect.
Another example: Child of Eden, one of the few games with full controller
and Kinect compatibility. I wasn't able to beat Level 1 until I switched to controller, then suddenly it became extremely easy. It's not that the Kinect controls weren't easy to pick up--they were, and the motions themselves were fairly simple ones. But the sensors kept interpreting my hand movements wrongly, so that I had to avoid any pretense of precision and resort to flailing around. That is not how motion sensors are supposed to work at all.
Both Sony and Nintendo did a better job with the whole motion-sensor thing than Microsoft this time around. I can't picture things being THAT much different 2 years after the first Kinect.
Now, let's look at the winners of every console war Microsoft has participated in, shall we?
6th gen: PS2
7th gen: Wii
You'll notice none of those are made by Microsoft. Microsoft has released exactly two consoles thus far. The original Xbox came in second in the sixth-gen console wars by about 125 million units (barely edging out the Gamecube, and beating that console isn't saying much). This time around? Sure, the 360's doing better, but it's still 28 million units behind the Wii.
Unless Microsoft changes tactics, it's not going to fare much better this time around. Free online multiplayer for some of its games wouldn't hurt, either, as both the Wii and the PS3 offer free online multiplayer for compatible games. With both Xbox consoles, you have to have a Gold (paid) subscription.