I'll tell you where specs can go ...

Okay, so a few days ago I posted some thoughts on the impending next-gen console wars, but I'd like to take some time -- probably a few posts -- to review the way I think the previous war went.

I want to be clear that this is not an Xbox hunt; I'm not an Xbox-hater, PS2 "fanboy", whatever you want to call me. I own an Xbox; I really wouldn't want to be without it. I like it much more than my GameCube. All of this is just my perception of how things shook out. There may be a slight edge to my voice because, by sizing up what others are saying in comparison to what I see, I've perceived an injustice. If I'd perceived some kind of injustice on the Xbox's behalf, I would leap as readily and passionately to the fray.

That said, let's begin ...

Market Share - share and share alike?
If you're Nintendo and Microsoft, yeah. From a market standpoint, there was no contest: Sony won, hands down with about 70% of global sales. Microsoft did very, very well to grab, in its first outing, as much share as Nintendo with about 15%. That's fantastic. Billy should be pleased, and I think the Xbox is worthy of every scrap of it.

In the hearts and minds of gamers the world over, however, PS2 didn't fare as well. It seemed I couldn't tune into a single G4TV show where Xbox wasn't the favorite of the two among gamers (particularly celebrity athletes) and industry professionals. That is an injustice.

It's necessary, when being in the minority, to offer an explanation for not only one's position but why the majority believes the contrary. I'd like to briefly try to address the latter first. The main reason I can guess is numbers. You want stats, the Xbox had them. In a contest of hardware prowess, PS2 was not only behind Xbox, but GameCube. On paper, it couldn't win; so much so that regurgitating the specs here as argument would be a waste. You can hunt for them here if you like.

Xbox had them both smoked.

GRAPHICS - It's under the hood, but does it hit the road?
The hushed truth, though, is that you cannot and do not play specs, you play games. In other words, that difference must translate. The very reasonable hypothesis is that they should translate. In fairness, they sometimes did translate, but for the most part, overall, they most certainly did not. They were a negligible force.

The difference only showed up to a significant degree in exclusive titles (Halo, Ninja Gaiden, Panzer Dragoon Orta, others). But in cross-platform titles it almost inevitably produced few clear winners, and sometimes, egregious losers. I can't think of any better example of this than one of my favorite racing games: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2.

No one in their right mind can sit down with the PS2 version and say any of the other versions is anything more than a crappy shadow of that one, from graphics to car physics, to game gimmicks like the slow-motion switches when the vehicle goes airborne. All of it was trash on every platform (even the PC), but when you put in the PS2 copy, you were playing a next-gen game, and one of the best and funnest.

There may not be any more examples as glaring as that one, but budget and time constraints restricted developers who were releasing a title on multiple platforms to design it to the weakest one and make whatever "pimps" they could to the stronger console versions within the time it takes to do one game, not two or three.

But all of that still doesn't do the PS2 justice. If you read enough game reviews, you'll remember many occasions where the PS2 surprises audiences with its graphics. The most memorable, for me, was Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. The most memorable comment, though, was in GameSpot.com's review of Champions of Norrath, they go so far as to say the developers found a way to "trick" the PS2 into doing things of which it apparently was not supposed to be capable. Studios like Snowblind did this off and on the entire cycle of the console, and produced works of wonder like Gran Turismo 3 & 4, Metal Gear Solid, and ICO.

To be clear, though, this is not all inherent in the system. PS2 is not inherently a better system than the Xbox or the GameCube, but by a number of factors which Sony has been able to marshall over the last few years, it built a gaming empire with the impenetrable support of developers, a massive library, a superior controller design, and a daunting line-up of exclusive blockbusters.

In future posts, I'll look at each of these aspects in a little more detail.