2006 Analysis and 2007 an outlook

2006 has been a very good year for gaming news. The news started off with 360s being out of stock. The world followed posters and read numerous reports to try and find out when the Microsoft Xbox 360 would be back in stock. Finally, about March it was possible to walk in to a store and pick up a 360. Ironically, up till that point, the 360 did not have a very strong range of games and no must-have games. Then, the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion was released. This was a open ended free roaming game. It has over 100 hours of gameplay and virtually unlimited re-playability due to the shear number of choices you could make. You could even become a vampire!

At this time, everyone knew the PS3 and the Revolution were on the horizon, but did not know any details. Shockwaves were then sent around the world as Nintendo renamed their next generation console the "Wii." At first people thought this was a April fools joke, but Nintendo were deadly serious. Just when people were starting to doubt Nintendo E3 came along and Nintendos press conference blew everyone away. Starting with the legendary games designer Shigeru Miyamoto orchestrating a band playing the theme tune to Legend of Zelda and concluding with a extremely realistic game of tennis the audience were mesmerized. Sonys, however was just a collection of numbers and all Microsoft had to offer were some shots of Halo 3 and some more numbers. E3 came and went, people returned buzzing about the Wii.

In July, Sony announced that their controller would be reverting to the dual shock except with a *wait for it* tilt function *gasp*. This was clearly copying Nintendo, however, the fact that they criticized Nintendo for it is clearly hypocritical. Then, we were all shocked when announcements came that E3 was being down-sized to a much smaller event. Next came Microsoft announcing its new hardware, these included the 360 steering wheel which was later nominated as the best new hardware. Also around this time, more details were released about the upcoming Splinter Cell game. The summer was also littered with reports of PS3 delays, blu-ray malfunctions and other such negative stories for Sony.

September was big month for consoles as both Sony and Nintendo released important information. Sony announced that its console would not be coming out in time for Christmas in Europe and would be coming out in March. It also down-sized its estimated amounts of consoles in America and Japan. Nintendo, however, released the launch date and price for the Wii. £179 8th December.

Not much happened in October as it is a Games month. Amongst the releases was Medieval Total War 2, which managed to get a 16+ which is very impressive for a RTS. Sony announced that it had gone in to the red.

November the Wii and PS3 come out in America and Japan. Once again, Wii very positive and Ps3 disappointing. In Japan, the PS3 only managed to get 86 000 and it was not much better in America. Furthermore, in the America launch, someone was shot in a armed robbery because he refused to give the robbers money because he wanted a PS3. The Wii, however, managed to get 600 000 Wiis in America. This was better than both the PS3 and Xbox 360. Everyone in Europe felt down as neither console had reached us. Not so positive for Nintendo was the opening collection of reviews for the Wii with only Legend of Zelda and a American football game attaining high scores.

December was a quite month with Gamespot having to makes its own news. GS released a comparison of the Xbox 360 and the PS3 on the graphics front, and the 360 won, much to the shock of many. The month concluded with GS best and worst awards.

So what do we have to look forward for in 2007. Well, all consoles are out so now we can settle down and release some good games. News wise, we will have to see what comes of E3, the PS3 controller and the Wii Controller. It will be a good year for playing games with Halo 3, Metroid Prime and Grand Torisomo for each of the consoles.