PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii: New Franchises or Old Sequels? Which one wins?

While checking N4G forums I came upon a topic about "who is Sony's mascot?" Nintendo has Mario and Zelda while Xbox has Halo's Master Chief but what about Sony? While having a lot of great games and franchises, Playstation consoles usually lack a single big mascot but is it really a disadvantage? Or could this do more good to then than harm. While reading this great blog post ( http://www.n4g.com/up/13438/BlogPost-60462.aspx ) by Taker_129, it came to me that lack of a single mascot could be Playstation family's key to success. Relying on new IPs / mascots and franchises for each round of conso may be a true blessing.

Nintendo and Sega have always followed the sequel method with their new consoles and have mostly relied on their biggest franchises. With PS2, Sony could follow the Nintendo/Sega trend mentioned and make as many sequels to PSone classics like Medieval, Fear Effet, Crash, Spyro and others as possible BUT they chose to take PSone approach with new IPs and thus masterpieces like Ico, Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Primal and God Of War were born and from 3rd party came superb new franchises like DMC and Onimusha.
Microsoft also followed Sony for it's first console the Xbox but they nothing from a previous gen and had to go for new IPs. They eventually established their own franchises and made an insanely popular series known as Halo.

Now with next-gen, Nintendo went straight for the old and known franchises, releasing new Zelda as their launch title for Wii while MS went with Perfect Dark's sequel, PGR4, DOA4 and Call of Duty 2, all which are sequels. Wii's game list is followed by Mario Party 8, Metroid Prime 3 and Mario Galaxy and so far it has had the least amount of good new IPs. Red Steel and few others were abysmal and Rayman Rabbids was good but went multi and is not from Nintendo itself; Microsoft followed the sequel/franchise trend after launch with Halo 3 and Fable 2 but at least they made Gears of War and got the chaotic but amazing Dead Rising from Capcom and Kameo + Viva Pinata from Rare.

Sony In the other hand followed its old approach and started with a big new IP: Resistance followed with MotorStorm. The biggest upcoming games from Sony are all new IPs: Heavenly Sword, Uncharted and Lair. Naughy Dog could have started next gen with a new Jak (& Daxter) game but they went the original way. Same goes for Insomniac and Ratchet & Clank franchise who chose it as their second next-gen title. Games like InFamous are also new and interesting.
There are also true innovative games like Little Big Planet, Echochrome, PAIN and more. Echochrome stunned everyone with its unique and special look & feel and combined with LBP's style and innovations, made Nintendo's WiiFit look more lame than it was. LBP won most of E3 awards along with COD4 and now is among most anticipaded next-gen titles for any system.

Remember the days of PSone? It was good but not that great until two little big games came and changed everything. PSone was selling alright but so was N64 thanks to Mario 64 and later The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time but then Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid entered the ring and face of gaming was changed forever and Playstation crushed the competition. Fast forward to PS2 and the battle with DreamCast. Things were ok with Sega having Sonic Adventure games until MGS2 and images FFX came. Release of MGS2 marked one of the biggest hardware sales jumps in PS2 history followed by other great PS2 games.

Now, Sony has started the next generation with all new titles and while it's not selling as hot as Wii these days, it's selling well enough solely based on new IPs. Nintendo already used the power of Zelda with Wii's launch title The Twilight Princess. MS will release Halo 3 soon and will get a huge momentum. In the mean while Sony uses all new franchises like Heavenly Sword, Lair and Uncharted against Halo 3, Metroid Prime 3 and Mario Galaxy plus two new IPs for 360: BioShock and Mass Effect. Both Wii and 360 are expected to do better than PS3 thanks to their old and known franchises but those new Sony games should sell well enought despite the great competition.

The huge war of 2007 will end with the clash of Halo, Mario, Samus and new characters of Sony like Nariko and Drake. 2008 begins and 360/Wii are out of their biggest hitters until Halo 4, Gears 2, Zelda Wii and new Mario are released and none of them can be released before 2010 (Thanks to long developement costs and times which we all saw with original Gears & Zelda TP). 360 and Wii have revealed all their cards and have used their special rage attacks.
In this very year (2008) that these 2 consoles are out of new Halos and Marios, Sony unleashes the true monsters, two games that have seriously helped PS consoles before and have critically damaged rival its consoles: Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII. The bonus is that both of them have a nice spin-off for PS3: Metal Gear Online and Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

In the days of PSone, MGS and FF killed rival N64 and Saturn. Helping PS2, the deadly duo of MGS and FF killed DreamCast and made PS2 absolute winner of last gen. Now PS3 has two great rivals: Xbox 360 and Wii. Can MGS and FF save the day one more time for Sony and kill its competition? No one knows but this time, Sony has another big weapon: Killzone 2.
Final Verdict: The Next-Gen Wars haven't even started properly... yet.

Thanks for reading my blog, this is Red signing out.