The next generation, Round 1-Draw?

Well, the first salvos have been fired, and I'm not really sure who's come out on top. All the systems look really slick, but there's been some major missteps on everybody's part. But I will say at the same time, unless something major changes, I plan all getting all 3 (just not necessarily at launch). The Big N arguably has the coolest straight out design, but we already know their system is the least powerful for the next round(easy math, Revolution is 2 or 3 times more powerful, 360 is 13 times more powerful & PS3 is 35 times more powerful) and there was no gameplay footage shown whatsoever and nothing about a general release date(but they will also probably be significantly cheaper than 360 or PS3, which will help). Honestly the only cool thing to come out of their preliminary press conference was the new trailer for the latest Zelda game for the GC-where a lot of incredible gameplay footage was shown, including Link turning into a wolf that is ridden by a mysterious character. It'll be probably just enough reason to hold on to my GC a little longer, but that seems to be Nintendo's specialty, giving you just enough and not even a bit more (i.e. though not shown, Nintendo's official asskicker, Reggie Fills-Aime mentioned that Smash Bros. will be on the Revolution and will have Wi Fi capability, that's really all I need).

Microsoft, having already blown their load early, showed several upcoming games and talked about how their console will be everything to everyone. That's great, but I want my console to play videogames, not be some ridiculously overpriced media center. And while some titles looked pretty damn cool (Morrowind IV), Most looked skecthy at best. And what was suppossed to be the premier title, Perfect Dark Zero, was a no show. Even more troubling was Bill Gates recent statement that Sony would definitely be going up against Halo 3 when they launch(which is officially next Spring), but no footage of Halo 3 was shown either. But what officially got me onboard is that they will have Final Fantasy XI, which I didn't even consider a realistic possibility, and there will be limited backwards compatability (big selling titles like Halo 2 will work for sure, but I probably won't be playing Worms 3D or Phantom Dust on the system). Also, not one upcoming Xbox title has got me excited, at least not any exclusives.

And then there's Sony. I will officially say that the video for Killzone 2 (check it out at Gametrailers) had me saying "holy shit!" out loud several times. But given that the last Killzone was an incredible graphical feat, but sorely lacked in gameplay, it's not enough to make me want the system. Plus, not one other title really gave any good impressions. They gave a vague launch date of Spring 2006 (and I still say that's a bad time to launch any system). And given that they easily will have the most powerful console (and feel they can do no wrong), their system may be significantly costlier than others. Add that in with Sony's tradition of extremely buggy hardware, and they actually come out not looking any better than Microsoft. And aside from Kingdom Hearts II, I can't honestly say there's many PS2 games on the horizon I'm looking foward to.

Now, there's still a few days left, but considering how much the last generation blew us away, this isn't a great start. I'm not saying I'm not geniunely excited about these new systems, but not with the level of pure awe and glee I felt the last time. And to lessen that glee, EB games has officially started accepting preorders on Xbox 360 games at 59.99. While it's not official, it's damn likely, which means I'll be a lot more finicky about my next gen purchases.