Microsoft stated through Peter Moore: “Tell me why you would buy a $600 PS3? People are going to buy two [consoles]. They’re going to buy an Xbox [360] and they’re going to buy a Wii… for the price of one PS3.”

Now Sony stated  through Phil Harrison: “I think Peter Moore is exactly right. I think Nintendo will be the second system consumers purchase after PlayStation 3. I haven’t had a chance to check out the Wii myself, but Nintendo has a great history of innovation and has always done great things for gaming and long may they do so. But as it relates to our strategy they are very much in a different market.”

More About: Microsoft, Peter Moore, Xbox, 360, PS3, Sony, Phil Harriso, Nintendo, PlayStation 3, Wii

In the technical demonstration for a new, unnamed Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 Star Wars title, LucasArts confirmed the company’s intense interest in creating a Wii lightsaber game, if not yet its explicity existence.

Lucas Arts emplemployees where inquired as to whether the company planned on creating a lightsaber game for the Wii, and they commented: “We know” and “We are looking into it”, as possible concepts for the game were discussed. However, the firm has not yet made any official announcements regarding planned Wii titles.

spurce: Gamasutra

More About: Star Wars, LucasArt, Wii lightsaber game, Wii

Reuters:

 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. sided with rival Nintendo Co. Ltd. <7974.OS> on Wednesday in the fight to unseat video game leader Sony Corp.<6758.T>, saying many consumers will choose to buy both of their machines for the price of one PlayStation 3.

The bad blood between Sony and Microsoft in the fight for dominance in the nearly $30 billion video game industry has escalated over the last few days, with both sides trading barbs at the E3 Expo, the video game industry’s annual trade show.

Microsoft entered the next-generation game console market first with its Xbox 360 last November.

Sony aims to extend its market leadership with its upcoming PS3, while Nintendo plans to offer a new game machine called Wii in the fourth quarter.

“Tell me why you would buy a $600 PS3?” Peter Moore, a Microsoft vice president, said in an interview. “People are going to buy two (machines.) They’re going to buy an Xbox and they’re going to buy a Wii … for the price of one PS3.”

Microsoft predicted on Tuesday it will have 10 million Xbox 360 consoles in the market before Sony launches the PS3. The high-end Xbox 360 sells for $399, but it does not include a built-in high-definition DVD video player that comes with Sony’s PS3.

Sony plans to sell a premium PS3 model for $599 when it debuts in North America on November 17, and Nintendo has not yet disclosed pricing for Wii.

Wii comes equipped with motion sensitive controllers to allow users to mimic the motion of wielding a sword or swinging a tennis racket.

Moore then turned pitchman for Nintendo’s Wii, the latest offering from the Japanese company that once dominated the video game industry.

“People will always gravitate toward a competitively priced product — like what I believe Wii will be — with innovative new designs and great intellectual property like Mario, Zelda and Metroid,” Moore told Reuters.

Sony currently dominates the worldwide video game market with a 66 percent share, while Microsoft and Nintendo each hold 17 percent, according to Strategy Analytics.

“We have 100 percent market share of the next-generation, and their job is to take that from us,” said Moore.

“When I think on everything that we’ve got going right now that is real versus what Sony promises to do six, seven months from now, obviously we feel very good about where we stand.”

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Despite Microsoft’s head start with the Xbox 360, the software giant still faces an uphill climb in Sony and Nintendo’s home turf.

Microsoft received a tepid response to its Xbox 360 debut in Japan and demand fell short of expectations during last year’s holiday season when it sold about 100,000 machines.

The company introduced a competitively priced console in Japan, but some of its game titles did not appeal to Japanese gamers. Moore expects upcoming role-playing games like “Lost Odyssey” and “Blue Dragon” from the creator of the popular “Final Fantasy” series to do well in Japan.

“Quite frankly,” said Moore, “if we’re sitting here a year from now and things continue to fall flat, then we might say ‘we don’t know what to do anymore.”‘

More About: Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii

Time Magazine has released an article about the Nintendo Wii console, A time’s reporter was allowed to try the new wii controller and play some game demos.

Here are some important aspects of the Article:

“the industry is deeply troubled. Fewer innovative games are being published, and gamers are getting bored. Games have become so expensive to create that companies won’t risk money on fresh ideas”

“Here’s Microsoft’s plan for the Xbox 360: faster chips and better online service. And here’s Sony’s plan for the Playstation 3: faster chips and better online service. But Iwata thinks that with a sufficiently innovative approach, Nintendo can reinvent gaming and in the process turn nongamers into gamers.”

“Iwata has noticed is something that most gamers have long ago forgotten: to nongamers, video games are really hard. Like hard as in homework. The standard video-game controller is a kind of Siamese-twin affair, two joysticks fused together and studded with buttons, two triggers and a four-way toggle switch called a d-pad. In a game like Halo, players have to manipulate both joysticks simultaneously while working both triggers and pounding half a dozen buttons at the same time. The learning curve is steep.”

“Nintendo threw away the controller-as-we-know-it and replaced it with something that nobody in his right mind would recognize as video-game hardware at all: a short, stubby, wireless wand that resembles nothing so much as a TV remote control. Humble as it looks on the outside, it’s packed full of gadgetry: it’s part laser pointer and part motion sensor, so it knows where you’re aiming it, when and how fast you move it and how far it is from the TV screen. There’s a strong whiff of voodoo about it. If you want your character on the screen to swing a sword, you just swing the controller. If you want to aim your gun, you just aim the wand and pull the trigger.”

After playing the Wariowar minigames , he commented:

“It’s a remarkable experience. Instead of passively playing the games, with the new controller you physically perform them. You act them out. It’s almost like theater: the fourth wall between game and player dissolves. The sense of immersion–the illusion that you, personally, are projected into the game world–is powerful. And there’s an instant party atmosphere in the room. One advantage of the new controller is that it not only is fun, it looks fun. When you play with an old-style controller, you look like a loser, a blank-eyed joystick fondler. But when you’re jumping around and shaking your hulamaker, everybody’s having a good time.”

“We created a task force internally at Nintendo,” Iwata says, “whose objective was to come up with games that would attract people who don’t play games.” Last year they set out to design a game for the elderly. Amazingly, they succeeded. Brain Age is a set of electronic puzzles (including Sudoku) that purports to keep aging minds nimble. It was released for one of Nintendo’s portable platforms, the Nintendo DS, last year. So far, it has sold 2 million copies, many of them to people who had never bought a game before.”

“The name Wii not wii-thstanding, Nintendo has grasped two important notions that have eluded its competitors. The first is, Don’t listen to your customers. The hard-core gaming community is extremely vocal–they blog a lot–but if Nintendo kept listening to them, hard-core gamers would be the only audience it ever had. “[Wii] was unimaginable for them,” Iwata says. “And because it was unimaginable, they could not say that they wanted it. If you are simply listening to requests from the customer, you can satisfy their needs, but you can never surprise them. Sony and Microsoft make daily-necessity kinds of things. They have to listen to the needs of the customers and try to comply with their requests. That kind of approach has been deeply ingrained in their minds.”

“Cutting-edge design has become more important than cutting-edge technology. There is a persistent belief among engineers that consumers want more power and more features. That is incorrect. Look at Apple’s iPod, a device that didn’t and doesn’t do much more than the competition. It won because it’s easier, and sexier, to use. In many ways, Nintendo is the Apple of the gaming world”

Full Story: A Game For All Ages

More About: Time Magazine, Nintendo Wii console, wii controller, game demos, Iwata

Nintendo Wii is the most expected console at E3 over the Sony playstation 3 and the already in the market Xbox 360.All that in a poll realized by gameinformer askig to their visitors:

Which platform are you most excited to hear more about during E3 2006?

Sony	37%
Microsoft	20%
Nintendo	41%
PC	2%

This are the results unlit now with more than 3100 votes.

This was expected, with the impact of the new Nintendo’s console Name WII , leting behind their codename Revolution. This new name is polemic for some people some others love it, but the truth is that the marketing of nintendo for the E3 has been good enough to get the people waiting for more info on the Nintendo Wii at the E3.

More About: Nintendo Wii, E3, Sony, playstation 3, Xbox 360, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, PC, Revolution, Wii