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For some people -- they know who they are -- one question looms above all this year. These folks are up nights, fevered, shivering and lost in a fog of indecision. Their big question is not How will we win the war against terrorism? or When will the economy rebound? Rather, it's this: XBox or GameCube?
This holiday season, Microsoft and Nintendo have released video game systems that are, by themselves, not bad: Both Microsoft's XBox and Nintendo's GameCube offer spectacular graphics and sound, and many of their games will keep you playing for hours on end.
But none of that matters. Since these launches have been described, in the media and by gamers, as a clash of titans, people want to know which titan will emerge victorious: the moneyed software giant shouldering its way into the gaming world for the first time, or the old-school console veteran trying to make a comeback in the business it once dominated.
And the answer is: neither.
After testing each console for a couple weeks, Wired News' advice is: Don't get out your credit card just yet. Wait a few months before you make your decision. The Box and the Cube -- two names so similar it makes you wonder whether the companies share a marketing department -- each have their plusses and minuses, and neither system trumps the other.
One hates to be so wishy-washy in a review of products that ought to be easy to figure out. These are video game systems, after all, not literature; they're each identified by a list of specs that, through a simple line-by-line comparison, should tell you all you need to know.
If you just analyze the numbers, the XBox seems to crush the Cube.
It's got a 733-MHz processor, beating the Cube's 485-MHz chip. It has a bigger "memory bandwidth," which is supposed to make the system faster, and it can display more "polygons per second" (116.5 million vs. the Cube's 6 million to 12 million). The XBox also has a built-in 8-GB hard drive and an ethernet port that allows for a high-speed Internet connection, and -- if you purchase a $30 remote control -- you can also use the Box to play DVDs.
But the numbers seem to lie. For one thing, in many of the games tested, there were few appreciable graphical differences between the systems. For all of XBox's numerical superiority, a few games loaded faster and looked better on the Cube.
And another thing about graphics: Though both the Cube and the Box offer amazing images, neither has anything truly unprecedented. The Playstation2, which was released last year, offers pictures just as pretty. And so did Sega's now-discontinued Dreamcast.
It seems that in these early days of blazingly fast chips, the systems have more power than game developers know what to do with.
It's hard to see how, but perhaps someday there will be a game that takes advantage of every last drop of power the XBox has to offer, and it will look it. But at the moment, GameCube games look as good as XBox games, and they all bear a passing resemblance to Playstation games.
And that's the most frustrating thing about choosing one of these systems: There's so much talk about how many polygons per second the machines can deliver, it overshadows the fact that many of those polygons are trapped in games that are, at best, old ideas given a new shine for this holiday season.
Halo, the most anticipated game for the XBox, is a first-person shooter. Although game reviewers have called it one of the best shooter games ever released -- and while there's no reason not to believe them -- it's still just a shooter, which is not the type of game enjoyed by everyone. (But that statement is made with a slight bit of reservation; Wired News could not, alas, get hold of Halo, and it just might be that Halo is so good it makes XBox head-and-shoulders better than Cube. While this is doubtful from what others have said, it's nevertheless possible.)
The best games Wired News tested for the XBox were Madden NFL 2002 and Nascar Thunder 2002, both from EA Sports. Each offers as realistic a view of the sport as you'll get while sitting on your couch. And if you're into one of these sports, it'll likely be difficult to tear you away from the game version. The NASCAR game, especially, is thrilling, because it incorporates the real physics of car racing, pushing and plunging your vehicle into walls, other cars, and so on -- real wreckage and real fun.
But neither game is a reason to buy XBox, since each title is also available for Playstation2.
Activision's Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2X, for the XBox, is another fun game. But it is hard to settle for that when there's also Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, which -- for now -- is only available for the Cube and Playstation2. It was by far the best game Wired News tested for either system.
The world is not, thankfully, composed mainly of people who are into skateboarding, and many folks probably aren't too knowledgeable about the pastime. Pro Skater 3 will change that. More than its predecessors, which are available on many systems, this game paints skating as a sport that is unimaginably difficult, dangerous (there's real-looking blood) and, if you're good at it, the coolest thing in the world.
And Hawk 3, like the best games, is addictive. Even a stodgy old Wired News reporter, who couldn't board his way down a ramp, found himself thumbing through the game till the wee hours.
Were it not for Hawk 3, there might have been time to play many of the other Cube games that were sent to Wired News. Sega's Super Monkey Ball, a GameCube-only version of the old arcade game, is a spectacular three-dimensional puzzler that looked cute but was a bit too difficult to really get into. Wave Race: Blue Storm, Nintendo's jet ski race game, is also worth a try; like Hawk, it provides a realistic view of a sport many people haven't tried.
But none of these games offers a reason to choose the Cube over the Box. Activision is scheduled to release Hawk 3 for the XBox next year, so it's not a Cube exclusive.
None of this, remember, is meant to suggest that either of these systems has any real pitfalls. The XBox, at $300, is $100 more than the Cube. But if it's price you're concerned about, buy a Sega Dreamcast, which was reduced to $50 this week.
It's hard to guess that many people will think twice about the C-note difference between the systems. Instead, to continue the war analogy, this fight can shape up in one of two ways: It could be a war of attrition, a pitched battle of near-equals, which continues for years with neither side giving in. Or, through mere luck and marketing savvy, one side could suddenly get the upper hand, and then trounce the other. (Think of VHS vs. Beta.)
Either way, there will be casualties: The thousands of people who buy the "wrong" system, the one that, like that Dreamcast, nobody cares about anymore. For that reason, if you're itching for a system at the moment, the wisest choice might be a Playstation, which has the largest library of available games.
Otherwise, take a deep breath, put your hundreds in the bank, and check back here in March.
