Comments on: Why Microsoft should acquire Sony's gaming division

Don Reisinger thinks Microsoft should acquire Sony's gaming division and Sony should want to accept the deal. What do you think?

[speleofool]

The thing that annoyed me about this article is the same tired assumption that all three of these consoles cater to a single "home consoles market." Nintendo is enjoying success because they changed the rules and attracted a whole new audience to console gaming. The Wii is inexpensive, has a library of kid-friendly games, and it's generally simple enough for a novice to pick up & play. The PS3 and 360, on the other hand, aren't as cheap as the Wii, but they offer state-of-the-art HD graphics & sound, a broader array of mature-audience games and plenty of hardcore gameplay for gaming enthusiasts. You're really talking about two distinct gaming experiences.

I wish people would stop calling for Sony and Microsoft to compete with the Wii. To really do so they'd have to dumb down their systems to be able to compete on price and those of us who really care about "next-gen" gaming will lose out.

As long as I'm weighing in, it's interesting how much short-term thought is apparent in both the original article and a lot of the comments here. Before the Wii, Nintendo was looking like they were all but out of the home-gaming race (they had their heyday with the NES) and Sony pretty much dominated with the PS2. If Nintendo hadn't hit the ball out of the park with the Wii like they did nobody would be writing articles about how other companies need to compete with them. Meanwhile, Microsoft stole the show from Sony this time around by getting to market so much earlier that the 360 offered a huge library with a decent assortment of polished 2nd-generation titles by the time the PS3 launched. It's really no surprise that the PS3 is seeing more of a surge now that they've had some time to catch up.

If history has taught us anything, it's that all 3 of these companies can and do deliver great gaming experiences. But I'd rather have them each doing what they do best than all trying to compete for the same market. Ugh.

Play nice!
Speleo.
and Microsoft stole the show from Sony by getting to market

[pajamas86]

I think Sony have been quite disappointing in PS3 in terms of sales and branding (it's just a whole new monster burdened by the PS name and success). Just because it has Blu-Ray doesn't mean it is the best gaming machine. The games provided are as good as Xbox or worse than PC. There are losing exclusivies from Xbox and Nintendo, making it kinda bummer to own PS3 other than a cheaper Blu-Ray player.

Xbox has a better gaming console from both AAA titles and downloadable arcade games, but it still loses the edge to overthrow Sony. PS2 is still a high barrier to cross, and Xbox loses in the archive of games. I think if Xbox pushes more in marketing, who knows, maybe Sony can be dethroned (it is quite bad anyway).