Two-Party System

Game system trends are much like the two-party system often used in voting.  With the votes (or purchases in our case) being dominated by two parties - Labour vs Tories = Spectrum vs Commodore (ish), Amiga vs Atari, Sega/Nintendo, Microsoft/Sony.  That's not saying as a buyer there aren't more options, you may vote Green Peace or Lib-Dem - in which case you would probably be a PC gamer or have a more "casual" console like the Wii today.

What this means is that the main market is competed for by two major powers - These would now be Microsoft's Xbox 360 (this generations winner) and Sony's PlayStation 3 (too rich for the recent depression?).  Nintendo's Wii while being the outside choice (Liberal Democrats) is doing very well by filling the need in the market for a cheaper and more accessible alternative.

We are currently on the seventh generation of consoles - which funnily enough cycles about every four years just like elections.  The cycle with politics seems to stem from longing for improvement - In my eyes the system is broke and there is no real choice, is like having sauces to pick to go on your chips - at the end of the day it's still just chips.  The third choice is sometimes like ordering a kebab - Something different and sometimes risky... If Green Peace came into power how could they actually handle the economy and foreign affairs?  I'm guessing they would just get overcome with corruption in time and soon become as the previous government.

Eighth Generation Console Election "Policies"

Xbox 360
The First console (always a strong selling point), Strong live multi-player, big  name titles (Halo 3, Gears of War) and a large library of retail and live game, and independent games market.

PlayStation 3
Really cool gadget - HD gaming & BlueRay player, more powerful then Xbox, name releases... Gran Turismo

Wii
Family console, interactive control, simple, playable and accessible.

Personally I eventually got an Xbox - It was a lot cheaper then the PlayStation, and with a lot more "serious" games than the Wii, and more variety in games.  A big selling point for me was the news that both Tekken and Final Fantasy would be on the Xbox.  These were previously only on PlayStation consoles - The migration is a sign of the difficulties facing Sony's Playstation 3.  I think it was failing first due to the price tag (not many people could even originally afford a HD TV), the difficulty making games to run on it, and lack of many games to compete with it's market rival the Xbox.  To be honest I wouldn't mind a Wii now - The GameCube was great for the living room and had many 4-player games on the staple Mario series (Soccer/Tennis/Kart) among other "Party" games.  Nintendo have done well not to compete with the main two and take in what where innocent bystanders.

What's in the future?

Well government wise we are gonna keep getting screwed by the rich until something drastic happens.  We can always turn to consoles though and while away our evenings after a days work.  Console wise I think things are looking promising for Nintendo - With the rise of HD popularity they are taking the step up also, and have a good idea with the interactive pads with there Wii U (2012 release).  Their selling point for these is that they can work independently from the console - Great for shared TVs, good graphics and some serious titles "Batman: Arkham City, an Assassin's Creed game, Dirt, Ghost Recon Online, Tekken, Metro Last Light,Aliens Colonial Marines, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, and Darksiders II all got a mention as coming to the Wii U" (TEKKEN!).  This means they are hopefully broadening their market and not shifting it.  


PlayStation is all rumors, maybe they've had it?  We should expect a 2013 release.  They should wait I reckon and make an affordable contender.  (Sorry I have little first hand PS3 experience)


Xbox is also rumors - I'd expect more of the same but juiced up.   They have been drastically updating the functionality of the Xbox (adding HDMI, and built in wireless & hard drive) not to mention the Kinect (their answer to the Wii motion sensors) this was pretty clever as they often broke and also keeps high and low ends of the market - older consoles being cheaper and more obtainable.  Being Microsoft means they can use the latest cores from PCs and gives them another edge in pricing/power ratio (and stability).


Think its gonna be a Microsoft/Nintendo election for me when it comes - Think it depends on Nintendo's marketing and PlayStation's ploy...  and how much of a life I have.