In fact, GameCube is losing ground to Xbox
every day and, like Martha Stewart, Nintendo has seen the writing on the wall.
GameCube’s declining sales prompted game developers at 2003’s video game
conference, E3, in Los Angeles, to reduce the projected number of titles they
were developing for the machine. Soon thereafter Nintendo dropped the price of
the console to $99. In the long run, the existing GameCube system simply
cannot compete with the horsepower under the Xbox hood.
Sony PlayStation
2
For years PlayStation has been considered the king of consoles for no other
reason than its countless number of extremely popular game titles. (Sony
PlayStation 2, or PS2, replaced the original PlayStation in 2000.) Titles such
as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals, Metal Gear Solid 2 and
Gran Turismo provide millions of us with limitless hours of entertainment …
while single-handedly robbing us of career advancement, profound relationships
and so forth. It’s been worth it. Sony made PS2 backwards compatible with
original PlayStation games—a big plus for original PlayStation owners.
And
to keep things fresh, the company recently gave PS2 read-support for DVD-R,
DVD-RW, DVD+R, and DVD+RW recordable and rewritable optical discs, and a
progressive-scan video output. The console is limited to two controllers, but a
peripheral hard drive eliminates the need for memory cards and a broadband
adapter brings gamers online.
