Console Life-Cycles

[dobwal]

I'm going to stick my neck out and make some bold predictions. Check back a few years later to see if they are correct.

1) The format war between HD-DVD and Blue-ray ends next year with HD-DVD fading out. By gambling their whole console business on Blue-ray, PS3 provides a ready market for Blue-ray content which has a positive feedback loop with the amount of content available for it.

You think companies that invest billions of dollars in HD-DVD is going to let it die in 2 or 3 years. BetaMax was introduced in 1975 and lasted well into the 80s. In fact, the last betamax player was produced in 2002.

2) Blue-ray, once dominant, becomes an important feature that adds value to PS3.

Dominant over what? HD-DVD? Once this HD format war is over, the winner has to take on DVD. DVD is not going to give up its dominance within the next couple of years especially when the new HD format requires the consumer to upgrade the player as well as their TV. Its going to take years for HDTVs to even outnumber SDTVs in the market.

3) Wii sales will stall within 2-3 years and Nintendo will release a new console with comparable processing power with Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2010.

Even if your guess is true, sales for a market leader console typically peak at about 3 or 4 years (PSone at 4, PS2 at 3). The Wii has the added benefit launching in all major regions within a one month window. If the Wii continues to outpace the PS2 (like its currently doing) for the next 3 years it will be north of 50+ million before it hits a "stall".

4) In the next few years, Wii owners will be looking to buy a graphically more impressive console, at a time when PS3's technical advantage over Xbox 360 is beginning to show as developers get to grips with the Cell.

I can understand why this general belief (graphics is king) persists but it does so in the face of strong evidence to the contrary. Consoles and its game sales trump PC vcards and its game sales. The PS2 console and game sales trump the Xbox/GC consoles and games sales. The highest selling franchise of the last decade (GTA) is probably one of the ugliest (in terms of visual quality) top franchises over the last generation. You can generally sell more games with a blockbuster movie tie ins then showing a title with just high quality graphics. The hottest selling console this generation is graphically the weakest.

5) Installed base of PS3 overtake Xbox 360 by 2010.

The PS3 has to turn around within the next 6 months for that to happen.

6) Neither MS nor Sony have a strong urge to release a new console even though Nintendo is selling one. They'll both make money and sit on their current hardware until 2013-14

And they will find themselves playing second and third fiddle to Nintendo.

7) Nintendo completely distinguish their consoles as "something else" in this business and no longer release new consoles in any degree of synchrony with MS or Sony. In other words, there will be clearly different cycles for different segments of the market.

Since all console garner most of their sales from the same segment (general or casual), I doubt that Nintendo will break away from Sony or MS in terms of release cycle.

8) Phantom will launch in 2016 to great success.

Nope, It will drop the same year as Duke Nukem Forever

 

[NovemberMike]

Here are my predictions.

Wii:
If it can keep on performing even close to this well (at least 2x any other console) until 2009 then it has won this gen. Japan will stand fully behind it, and the major western dev teams will be putting major money its way. It will be the go to console for sports games, JRPGs, quirky Japanese games (Katamari style), movie games and indie games. It will also have perfectly suitable FPS, action and adventure games as well.

Xbox 360:
It seems to be in a position to take second place. There are certain genres that require the better tech it offers like FPS and racers, and it will recieve versions of the movie, sports and adventure games that are on the wii. As long as it has good software sales there will always be devs lining up to work on it, and with a proper pricing and advertisement strategy it could do significantly better than the xbox. They better fix the reliability issues though, or it could turn ugly.

PS3:
Its between a rock and a hard place. The market seems to segmented into HD/SD, and it seems consumers prefer the 360 in the HD market. If it continues with sub-GameCube numbers, it's days could be numbered. Despite all the talk about Sony sticking behind their consoles, this is the console I see being the first to get replaced. It will get a lot of support from Sony and some ports from the 360, but if the only major publisher is Sony it will turn into a first party box like the GCN.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Wow.

What logic is all of you "MS will abandon the X360 in 3 years, while PS3 will last 10years" using?



THE ONLY THING THAT DETERMINES CONSOLE LIFETIME IS SALES AND PROFITABILITY\(POSSIBLE MARKETGAIN SHARE BY LAUNCHING NEW CONSOLE) !!!!ONE!!!


Thats it, it has nothing to do with what a company is doing or not. It has nothing to do with Windows or Office. (Which btw, only makes you money once, thus releasing a ton of new version gains you more money )

MS, Sony and Nintendo will continoue to make whatever earns them money. The ONLY reason PS1 and PS2 was kept alive as long as they were, was because they kept earning a craploads of money on these consoles. Not because Sony is japanese and they have a sense of tradition or honor or whatever.

 

[SPM]

If anything I think it's entirely reasonable to put forth a scenario where it's actually Sony rushing PS4. There is a plausible scenario where PS3 just falls farther and farther behind (remember, it has been losing ground to 360 in America since it launched, never mind actually gaining back 360's year headstart) , and begins losing third party support, and simply cannot recover. At that point, what would Sony do? I think PS4 in 2010, well before MS next box would be eminently possible.

I think Sony would want to focus on getting the PS3 price down rather than introducing a more expensive PS4. PS3 is not selling well because of price, not because of anything else.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I think Sony would want to focus on getting the PS3 price down rather than introducing a more expensive PS4. PS3 is not selling well because of price, not because of anything else.

Lets think the following scenario:

PS3 gets 20% marketshare by 2011, Wii\X360 shares the rest.

Do you think a PS3 can compete in terms of sales with whatever sequel console Wii\X360 will have? Hell, they can price it roughly the same as the PS3, and it would still be significantly more powerful.

 

[BoardBonobo]

In ten years time there won't be any working Xbox 360's left!

 

[Platon]

Because, well there is product called Windows. And if for some reason you haven't heard of that they have this other product called Office.

"Bill Gates is a very rich man today... and do you want to know why? The answer is one word: versions." -Dave Barry

There must be some form of misunderstanding or something because that quote is really flying over my head, so there must be something I don't get. Doesn't every single software and hardware, heck, even food items come in different versions? What are we supposed to do, keep the old DOS still around or something so that Billy does not get even more rich? And I though that Apple was actually even more efficient in pumping out new versions of their OSs...

 

[Platon]

i believe ms will abandon the xb360 in 2009/10 if its still not profitable (same with ps3).
maybe, but maybes are worthless, what we can judge is the track record.
xbox 4 years
ps1 (10years), ps2 (7 years and going strong)
i know where ild stick my money on

I don't know if one time can really qualify as a track record. You mean to tell me that, if the PS3 does not sell, developers are abbandoning it and it a money for for Sony, that they will still keep it around for ten years? What for? As you said it is about profitability, not track record. Sony hasn't been were MS was, so they have no track record in that regard...

 

[Rangers]

Because that's the way MS operates? Original Xbox support died almost instantly.

So, because it happened one time, so far, it surely will happen forever that way?

It appears some of you completely glossed over my post, wich explained things in nearly inarguable terms.

MS would have almost certainly supported XBox as much as say, Nintendo supported GC, had it not been built on that bad hardware model. GC was a clear loser last time around, similar to Xbox if not a good deal worse, yet it still was somewhat supported and maintained a NPD presence much longer than Xbox.

That's because, even though the console clearly wasn't going anywhere market wise the last 2-3 years, it didn't cost Nintendo an arm and a leg to continue throwing some at least token support at it, because GC was break even or so hardware most of it's life. Xbox however, would have (and did) cost MS an arm and a leg to continue to support. Even at the final $149 price point, MS was still known to be losing a lot of money on Xbox hardware, with no prospects to further drop to match PS2.