Unless he's on a different pit-stop strategy.
NPD Nov. You know you want it!
- Thread starter RobertR1
- Start date
Unless he's on a different pit-stop strategy.
I wasn't using it as an example of what'll happen, only the folly of looking at the current situation and basing opinions of strategies on the current state of affairs. Another example would be a war in which a country is clearly getting whipped in an on-going battle, only to find they were manoeuvring forces elsewhere for a decisive strike. The outcome of this generation of consoles is dependent on changes which no-one can forecast, to a degree no other generation or entertainment device has had. Reference to past generations isn't applicable. It's a whole new situation developing with no precedent or reference points and no basis for extrapolated predictions.
There's not any suitable real-world analogy, because the market being aimed for doesn't exist, but is hoped to appear. It's like entering a long distance race with the slowest person by far, and the rest of the pack pulling away, with the expectation that in the middle of the race bicycles will be made available to the runners and that's when your plan of entering a cyclist will really pay off.
Well, at least its better than another Car analogy, so full marks for originality Shifty!
The problem I have with the arguments for the Sony strategy is that they tend to look at the Sony value proposition in a vacuum rather than in the context of competition.
To me, they always seem to have this implication of static competition, rather than evolving competition. People make it seem that "if Blu-Ray catches on, its a major advantage for the PS3" (for example) when the reality is that MS could just as easily drop a BR drive in the 360.
"If HOME turns out to be decent then the PS3 will be more worth the sticker price" but that doesnt take into account what the 360 and Wii will be offering and what they will cost at the time HOME finally goes live.
While the PS3 improves its library and services the others arent sitting around waiting for SOny to catch up. They are adding features and functions, delivering game content, and dropping the price as well.
How can you say the outcome its dependent on changes which no one can forecast?
If nothing changes, the Wii whoops everybodys ass. Why does anything have to change drastically? The best prediction of the future in this situation is the present. Its been a year, and right now the PS3 needs to outsell the 360 by 250k per month until 2010 in order to reach equlibrium in marketshare in the US. By that time, the 360 will be going into its 5th year as a console and who knows? The next xbox may allready be out..
I dont really see how you can say its so extremely hard to predict this kind of stuff, its certainly not harder to predict console trends than a lot of other entertainment devices out there. (mobile mp3 players are extremely hard to predict price\demand for example Of course big games will impact sales, and marketing campaigns but there isn't really anything suggesting that the PS3 will have more big hitters than the other platforms.
For the Wii and the X360, its harder to predict, since we dont have enough sales data from price cuts (and no for the Wii).
I also dont get how people can be expeting the PS3 to somehow gain superiority in terms of a average costumers percieved value. Every console is constantly updated and gets better and better games, more and more features and lower and lower price (and redesigns, value packs etc), its not like MS and Nintendo are sitting there and let sony catch up, they are going to try as hard as Sony to keep earning money, there is nothing suggesting that they will be worse at them at doing this.
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Has there ever been a turn within a single generation in this industry? I don't really know about past consoles, but I don't think that we could see any big changes here. Wii and 360 have large installed bases, a lot of momentum, and great content. All of these lead to even better content, which - evidently - result in even better sales. Not that the Wii would need to sell any better 
but the 360 is also moving more units, compared to last year.
The only thing in Sony's favor is that they're selling very well in Europe, catching up to or taking over the 360's user base in all the larger countries except the UK. It's still to early to tell how far this can get them, but one thing is pretty much decided by now - Sony's 10-year hegemony has been broken.
but the 360 is also moving more units, compared to last year.The only thing in Sony's favor is that they're selling very well in Europe, catching up to or taking over the 360's user base in all the larger countries except the UK. It's still to early to tell how far this can get them, but one thing is pretty much decided by now - Sony's 10-year hegemony has been broken.
DUALDISASTER
Newcomer
He's right, nobody knows what's going to happen and i don't care what it looks like right now. No one saw wii doing what it's doing now right? Have you guys ever thought about how people feel about the incenvenice of sending your console back every year? People are pissed right now because of that. There's some anecdotes out there. And what if Nintendo and MS fail to act because of the position Sony's in? Sony fell in that same arrogant trap. Most of you so-called intelligent, analytical posters depend too much on numbers. This is THE only generation i've seen where a company tries so hard to win people over, it wido you think for a second that it will go unrewarded? MS has two advantages left:time in the game and userbase. They've already exhausted their exclusives that matter while sony, rather timed or not, has mgs4, home, FF, KZ, GOW, SOCOM, SF, and many more. But even then, i just don't know what can happen. Sell for the 360 could decline when those games arrive for all i know.
Do we have to go through this every time? MS has plenty of exclusives in the pipe, Fable2, Gears2, Alan Wake, Banjoe, new Bungie game, and so on, who knows how many titles they're going to anounce in the next 6 months leading up to E3.
All in all, your point of view seems pretty skewed to me...
All in all, your point of view seems pretty skewed to me...
DUALDISASTER
Newcomer
We know what to expect from those games, excluding Alan Wake. Ms has showed to not be so innovative when it comes to their titles. Play it safe so to speak. Mgs4 has changed in a lot of ways, so we don't know much on that title. Same goes for FF and KZ2. I for one don't care that much for the graphics. I want to learn more about the weather in the game and how it will change the gameplay for KZ. There are claims made by the developer that if done right could change FPS genre as a whole. Banjo is a platform, so i wouldn't expect much in sells. Especially how RARE has performed lately...Fable2 seems to be like whow Halo 3 was, a minor upgrade in the gameplay department. Gears2 could be a special one i'll give you that. And that new bungie game, please. After Halo3...All and all, none of those games are as hyped as the ones i've mention and with those titles and Sony's position, there's no place to go but up.
What are the combined global installed base or sell-through figures for the 3 consoles?
Are they even 50% of the PS2 achieved, some 110 million?
When the consoles hit $200, you would think all those PS2 owners would upgrade.
Not saying they would upgrade to the PS3.
How is X360 or Wii doing compared to PS2 at a comparable point in its life?
Are they even 50% of the PS2 achieved, some 110 million?
When the consoles hit $200, you would think all those PS2 owners would upgrade.
Not saying they would upgrade to the PS3.
How is X360 or Wii doing compared to PS2 at a comparable point in its life?
Well apparently we do need to go through it every time because you left out Ninja Gaiden 2 and the game everyone loves to hate, Too Human!
What about Project Offset and Huxley? Were those MS exclusive?
Since the launches for all four machines (PS3, 360, PS2 and Wii) were not really worldwide it's hard to put a point and say "compare them to the same point in their life". Having said that, here's some info depending on how much you trust the dreaded VGChartz
http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=Wii®1=All&cons2=PS2®2=All&cons3=X360®3=All&weeks=156
(Wii sales + 360 sales) > PS2 sales at the same point in its life, however PS2 launched in Japan only, with a long delay to the US launch, and another one to PAL IIRC.
We know what to expect from those games, excluding Alan Wake. Ms has showed to not be so innovative when it comes to their titles. Play it safe so to speak. Mgs4 has changed in a lot of ways, so we don't know much on that title. Same goes for FF and KZ2. I for one don't care that much for the graphics. I want to learn more about the weather in the game and how it will change the gameplay for KZ. There are claims made by the developer that if done right could change FPS genre as a whole. Banjo is a platform, so i wouldn't expect much in sells. Especially how RARE has performed lately...Fable2 seems to be like whow Halo 3 was, a minor upgrade in the gameplay department. Gears2 could be a special one i'll give you that. And that new bungie game, please. After Halo3...All and all, none of those games are as hyped as the ones i've mention and with those titles and Sony's position, there's no place to go but up.
So basically what you think is that ps3 games have a chance to change the landscape of gaming, while the 360 ones will just be more of the same? Funny stuff.
Wait till the next game...
We know what to expect from those games, excluding Alan Wake. Ms has showed to not be so innovative when it comes to their titles. Play it safe so to speak. Mgs4 has changed in a lot of ways, so we don't know much on that title. Same goes for FF and KZ2. I for one don't care that much for the graphics. I want to learn more about the weather in the game and how it will change the gameplay for KZ. There are claims made by the developer that if done right could change FPS genre as a whole. Banjo is a platform, so i wouldn't expect much in sells. Especially how RARE has performed lately...Fable2 seems to be like whow Halo 3 was, a minor upgrade in the gameplay department. Gears2 could be a special one i'll give you that. And that new bungie game, please. After Halo3...All and all, none of those games are as hyped as the ones i've mention and with those titles and Sony's position, there's no place to go but up.
The same problem exists in the movie industry...sequels sell. When customer go into a store and see a game that they're familiar with, it's more likely they'll pickup.
You say Halo 3 was a minor "upgrade" in the gameplay department, but that's assuming there's anything wrong with Halo's gameplay. Minor tweaks instead of radical changes to what is considered sublime is considered smart move.
For KZ, a minor upgrade in the gameplay, would be problem. So the onus is on KZ 2 to change what people think as failure already.
So you think FF is going to different? I hope not!!!
We don't know much about Fable 2 yet I think and on a general not why fix something tht don't need fixing with the risk of breaking it...
Final Fantasy games are far from innovative - and this comes from someone who loves them. The only innovative thing I've seen in the long MGS4 trailer was the innovative application to farting and bare buttocks in what I thought was a rather serious game with ambitions for political commentary mumbo-jumbo. Sure, the graphics was amazing when the trailer came out, they had mastered the gritty/realistic lighting like no one at the time, but everyone else has caught up with them.
The "Sony has games" argument always boils down to MGS4, GT5 and FF13, with a second tier of KZ2, Home and LBP. I think MGS4 will be neutralized by GTA and the rest of the multiplat catalog of 2008, coupled possibly with a price drop for MS, that FF13 will arrive too late to matter (2009 in the West), that LBP is hopelessly niche and is a vanity project for Sony, much like Crysis for EA, and that the purpose of Home is not to gain new users for Sony, but to increase the hours the existing users spend with their PS3 (which is all fine and dandy and a good goal, but it's not what we're talking about here). The only one of the bunch I don't know what to think about is KZ2 - some of the material shown so far looks fantastic, but if the same marketing department that did wonders for Uncharted handles it...
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As long as some fool or other keeps posting the NPD numbers each month with exactly the same 1:2:3 Wii:XB360
S3 situation, I guess we do
I agree with Shifty though, that it's still early days. But early conclusions we can draw is that the Wii isn't going to go away soon now - it will definitely reach the 20 million required to be supported at least to some extent. For now it also benefits from being close enough to PS2 and PSP for multi-platform development. When this drops, the question will be whether or not developers see enough margin to make the investment required to make titles that compete with Nintendo. The popularity of the DS isn't hurting the Wii at all either. The biggest worry there is whether not it will become a Nintendo machine again, and to a smaller extent whether or not it will suffer from HD tvs (I don't think so, not so much anyway). Also, when the 360 and PS3 are getting the bigger multi-platform titles, the Wii will suffer from not being nearly the same hardware, and so will need unique titles. If the PS3 and 360 end up having a bigger install-base together, that may be to the Wii's disadvantage. The Wii will also within 2 years lose any price advantage it has left. Of course, for Nintendo it doesn't matter because anything from here is all pure profit.
The 360 is going to stick around as well. It's close enough to the PS3 (and vice versa) to ensure that multi-platform games will typically be released on both of these systems, and this won't change very soon either, especially not in the US, but it's doing well in the UK also, which is an important European market. Right now, the 360 is benefitting a lot from Live and being closer to PCs in terms of development environment and tools, and this helps the 360 maintain a good reputation in terms of mostly having the better performing multi-platform titles, as did the Xbox. As PCs move on, the question will be how long before the 360 games become very weak versions of their PC counterparts, as happened last year. Another genuine risk is, I keep saying it because I don't think it has changed yet, the DVD drive, and Sony's Home project.
For the PS3, it won't go away soon either. In the last few months its gaming library expanded rapidly with some great exclusive titles that make the platform stand out again for its broad range of titles. Online support is becoming surprisingly robust. Home is nearing completion, and if it works, it could mean a big change in this area. All sorts of other features (like integration of XMB features in games) are seeing the light of day as we speak, and BluRay for games is starting to pay off visibly in its exclusive titles. Also, early adapters are more into checking out new developments, but the next wave of consumers tend to be a little bit more conservative and brand-minded. The biggest risk for Sony is in the US, as this is Microsoft country where the Xbox was already coming up strong (where it also had strong software sales), and where Wii is also very successful. It is very important for them to keep up working on and improving software support, both in terms of XMB features and SDK features, and if developers won't change to more Burnout-like development strategies, that may keep them from getting that 'best performing hardware' status. Also, if they won't get BC back in in some form or other, that might hurt drawing in the current PS2 crowd. Finally, they'll have a tough battle in getting the cost down. It's obvious that the PS3 has most to lose, and looking at where they have been coming from, they also seem very likely to lose the most. But they have a good long-term strategy that is very likely to pay off.
The 360 is going to stick around as well. It's close enough to the PS3 (and vice versa) to ensure that multi-platform games will typically be released on both of these systems, and this won't change very soon either, especially not in the US, but it's doing well in the UK also, which is an important European market. Right now, the 360 is benefitting a lot from Live and being closer to PCs in terms of development environment and tools, and this helps the 360 maintain a good reputation in terms of mostly having the better performing multi-platform titles, as did the Xbox. As PCs move on, the question will be how long before the 360 games become very weak versions of their PC counterparts, as happened last year. Another genuine risk is, I keep saying it because I don't think it has changed yet
, the DVD drive, and Sony's Home project. For the PS3, it won't go away soon either. In the last few months its gaming library expanded rapidly with some great exclusive titles that make the platform stand out again for its broad range of titles. Online support is becoming surprisingly robust. Home is nearing completion, and if it works, it could mean a big change in this area. All sorts of other features (like integration of XMB features in games) are seeing the light of day as we speak, and BluRay for games is starting to pay off visibly in its exclusive titles. Also, early adapters are more into checking out new developments, but the next wave of consumers tend to be a little bit more conservative and brand-minded. The biggest risk for Sony is in the US, as this is Microsoft country where the Xbox was already coming up strong (where it also had strong software sales), and where Wii is also very successful. It is very important for them to keep up working on and improving software support, both in terms of XMB features and SDK features, and if developers won't change to more Burnout-like development strategies, that may keep them from getting that 'best performing hardware' status. Also, if they won't get BC back in in some form or other, that might hurt drawing in the current PS2 crowd. Finally, they'll have a tough battle in getting the cost down. It's obvious that the PS3 has most to lose, and looking at where they have been coming from, they also seem very likely to lose the most. But they have a good long-term strategy that is very likely to pay off.
