That's right people! Only 46 days til that magical day we call Christmas
That's 46 days to shop for the ones we love... Or for us males, 44 days to think about it and 2 days to grab whatever's left
This Christmas is going to be a very big event for the gaming industry as it now has 3 'Next-Gen' consoles that will have been out for at least a year (Well maybe not quite is the PS3's case, in Europe anyway...). That means the industry's 3 big guns will be fighting for your cash, and a lot is at stake...
It's been well documented that Sony haven't sold nearly enough PS3's to compete with the Wii and 360. It's also been well documented that the Wii is once again in very high demand with the supply just not meeting it. So Nintendo can be confident that it will be a good Christmas for them in terms of hardware sales, but they may also lose potential customers to either Sony or Microsoft if they can't sort out the supply issues in time for the big day. But that's not what this blog is about. This blog is about the games that are going to be available for the consoles this Xmas. I.E what people who already own the consoles can expect to receive in their stockings
and, more importantly, which console has the best offerings. To determine this, I've gone through all the games that are going to be released for each console between now and Christmas, I've then picked the ones that have got people talking and are most likely to be the big sellers.
So, where to start? At the top? No, I think I'm going to go in reverse order and start at the bottom (In sales
).
The PS3
November
9th
Call of Duty 4
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction
16th
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway
Half Life 2: The Orange Box
Unreal Tournament 3
Assassin's Creed
23rd
Haze
30th
Guitar Hero III
Time Crisis 4
Time Shift
December
7th
Medal of Honor: Airbourne
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
14th
Burnout Paradise
Total Games: 14 Of which are Exclusive: 4
Considering the trouble Sony are in, it's not exactly the most scintillating line-up of games and I would be surprised if this Christmas will change their fortunes at all. Also, with only 4 exclusive titles being released, they are not tempting people to buy their console to be able to play certain games.
Onto the next contender and with an extra years worth of games over the other 2, can it have much more to offer for this Chirstmas?...
The Xbox 360
November
9th
Call of Duty 4
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
16th
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway
Mass Effect
23rd
Guitar Hero III
December
7th
Soldier of Fortune: Payback
14th
Burnout Paradise
Total Games: 7 Of which are exclusive: 1
At first glance it may look like the 360 has the least to offer gamers this Xmas, but you have to remember that recently they have released the likes of Halo 3, Half Life 2, Bioshock and Project Gotham 4. So you can expect those to be on many people's lists. However, it does still remain that the 360 has the least to offer it's owners in the way of releases up to Xmas.
And finally how is the console with the most units sold going to be tempting us this Christmas?...
The Wii
November
9th
Endless Ocean
Lego Starwars: The Complete Saga
16th
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2
Mario Galaxy
23rd
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
NIGHTS: Journey of Dreams
30th
Geometry Wars
Guitar Hero III
Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (There is some debate about this one being released on time)
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles
December
7th
Brothers in Arms: Double Time
Ghost Squad
Pokemon Battle Revolution
14th
The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night
Tomb Raider Anniversary
Total Games: 15 Of which are exclusive: 10
And there you have it. With the Wii offering more game releases than other other console and significantly more exclusive releases, it's set to be a very merry Christmas for Nintendo. The fact that they have so many exclusive big name titles such as Mario Galaxy, Pokémon, Ghost Squad and Resi Evil will surely boost sales of the Wii... If they can supply that demand!
So it's the same old story for the Wii, I can't personally see the supply issues being resolved so that everybody who wants a Wii for Christmas will get one, so the question is whether people will be prepared to wait or just simply chose either the PS3 or 360.
But for us it's only good news as all these great games are going to be released in time for Christmas.
The only hard part is deciding what ones to go for...
Thanks for reading and sorry it's such a long one!
If you think I've missed out any games, please let me know and I'm dying to hear your thoughts on this!