Power On: The Story of Xbox [Documentary 6 Parts]

[Nesh]

very very strong fan base tbh,

Well yes. And why not? Playstation consoles were known for specific franchises and their exclusives that people want to play.
We know for a fact that a strong fan base isnt always enough. Lets take Nintendo for example.
NES sold 62 million units (they were practically a monopoly)
SNES sold 49 million
N64 sold 33 million
Gamecube sold 22 million
Wii sold 102 million
WiiU sold 14 million
Switch sold 93 million.

If your console is good enough they will buy it. If it sucks they will give up. You cant always fool people for 7 years just because its called "Playstation". If the PS3 sucked balls, it would have sold far less than it did.

and many people bought ps3 later because they already played almost everything they wanted on x360.

That doesnt make much sense. Did you do a gallop? Games were being released all the time. So when did they decide that there were no games on 360 and bought a PS3?
Actually this sounds more like a problem with the 360 because it sounds more like people moved on to the PS3 because there were more games to play there.
Otherwise why not stay with the 360 if it was good enough?
Your statement is partly valid for people who went on the 360 because there was literally no PS3 sold in the market and then after the PS3 was released they bought it.

 

[see colon]

IIRC that disc read error issue also happen on ps2 slim. The solution was by installing a modchip on it that have build in laser power limiter.

Oh they definitely do. Not only do the lasers die, the ribbon cables often rub on the discs, scratching up the disc and ruining the ribbon cable. They also have 2 switches to let the system know the door is closed, and they often go bad, or the lid will wear in a way (or the hinge loosens up) that prevents the back switch from being pressed all the way down.

very very strong fan base tbh, and many people bought ps3 later because they already played almost everything they wanted on x360.

Sony also moved from being the expensive premium console to the budget friendly one in that generation. Once they cost reduced to match 360 pricing, they were an extremely cheap Bluray player. Plus, PSN was free while it cost money for Live. And this was in the days that Live was required for things like Netflix.

Ironic and totally lost on some posters, apparently X360 was a huge success and PS3 was the worst failure ever. The lowest selling PlayStation sold more than the highest selling XBox.

Again, who is talking about Vita. Original Xbox (The worst selling Xbox) sold 50% more units than Vita.

 

[eastmen]

MS has a huge advantage though. They have an gargantuan monopoly in the PC market, that neither Sony or Nintendo have. Its vast and brings billions of profits to subsidize and experiment with products and services, Even failed ones until they succeed. Like the original XBOX.

Sony is a huge company with a huge portion of the music and movie industry. Those entertainment portions make money hand over fist. Nintendo and Sega had nothing like that . So Sony was able to come in and out spend its competition.

My org white one died after 3-4 years but it wasn't heavy used. The newer version (back one) works to this day, i still use it from time to time when my brother in law kids come by.
He also have black x360 with kinect wich we still use. The org x360 were defective for sure but newer versions were very solid. I know personally a lot of people who still have their 360 and are fully functional without any problems.

We still have my original launch day one in a box some where. Got daily use for 5 years or so and then became a media center box.

Ironic and totally lost on some posters, apparently X360 was a huge success and PS3 was the worst failure ever. The lowest selling PlayStation sold more than the highest selling XBox.


Mate of mine says the same thing…I think the only original part is the case! Lol

Xbox 360 greatly increased Microsofts market share. Bringing them from roughly 20/25m units to 85m units. It brought Xbox live subscribers to record heights and of course MS made a ton off game sales. Not to mention it also kinect which I believe is still the best selling add on accessory.
The playstation brand when from a 150-155m selling console to one that shiped roughly 88m units. They lost $200-300 on each unit sold at the begining. Selling only half the devices you sold in the previous generation while taking large losses on each unit sold for a portion of the generation isn't successful.

1) again, an established Sega with head start vs a first console
2) just up to 8 months then - whatever, it’s enough…can you imagine what would happen this gen with a 6 month head start?
3) lol poor old MS - not even sure what you’re saying …it was true David and Goliath lol
4) yes, but US is the biggest market and WW is a better gauge of a ‘whole’ success vs you using just one territory


Do you even read what you write? What math makes 87 one third 155!? Did you forget that PS2 launched at £300, came quickly down to £200 and ended at £100? Did you forget PS2 had no real competition (as in selling in any decent numbers)? Looking at that PS3 sold around 15% of the hugely successful PS1!

1) again what head start they were launched within months of each other
2) your realize that sega saturn was widely outselling the playstation in japan. It was only the playstation doing well outside of japan that allowed them to over take the saturn.
3) What I am saying is simple. Sega designed a poor system coming off a wet fart of a product launch the 32x. Nintendo was 18 months late to the party with expensive carts. Sony got very lucky in when they launched. If Sega launched a better system or if nintendo launched earlier or with cd it would have been much harder for sony to be successful if they ever were. Remember FF7 a big title for Sony was going to be nintendo exclusive but was not due to the carts.
4)if you say so

I think you’re totally miss reading - no-one is saying it was a success, likewise I’m not sure you can say ‘went from 24m to 84m’ in such a black and white comparison.

Also, no-one is saying X360 was a failure, more that it didn’t take advantage and didn’t do as well as one might expect. Think of it this way, if you broke down the launches and put everything on a bit of paper - with no knowledge of the outcome- you’d be hard pressed to suggest anything other than a clear MS victory.

I like football analogies, Liverpool had a really pants first half against Arsenal and gave them a 3-0 lead by half time, the match ended 3-3. Arsenal wouldn’t have expected any points, so a draw is considered a good result, but really, with the half time lead people would have expected Arsenal to see them off.

Here’s another thing, if MS hadn’t had Kinect they would have sold even less - that thing sold lots of h/w.

Going back to the PS3 era - that generation had the Wii to contend with too, that was a total unknown, so you had;
Worst console launch
Highest price
Arrogance (get 2 jobs)
The mess with the controller (boomerang and then no rumble)
Vs
2 strong cheaper alternatives
1 with a head start so good selection of games and ‘friends already have one’
Better online
etc

That PS3 sold as well as it did is a miracle really.

Sony spent a lot of time making it into a product people would want. It went from being one of the largest consoles ever made to a decently sized machine. It also spent a portion of its life as a cheap bluray player vs competition. Oh and they also lost a lot of money per unit.

The ps4 got lucky in terms of the mis steps that MS made coming from the xbox 360. I think just adding the $100 with kinect 2 inside the xbox one gave sony the advantage it needed early on and the xbox couldn't recover dispite making the fantastic xbox series s , which like the revisions to the ps3 took a large console and made it much smaller .

We will have to see the end results of this generation in a few years. It looks like this holiday season in NA at least having the series s is helping MS sell a lot of units. Will this be another neck and neck generation ? and if so who will make the bigger mistakes going into the next generation ?

 

[Nesh]

Sony is a huge company with a huge portion of the music and movie industry. Those entertainment portions make money hand over fist. Nintendo and Sega had nothing like that . So Sony was able to come in and out spend its competition.

Sony isnt a monopoly giant. They barely had any clue on gaming software and the gaming industry and they got the product perfect from the first try, they rocked the market.
They did everything great. Everyone else who tried failed including MS.
XBOX was a commercial failure despite that MS is a monopoly giant in the PC space and own Direct 3D. MS always makes more money than Sony ever will.

Microsoft has a market cap of around $1.89 trillion and cash on hand of $134 billion.
Sony has a market cap of $125 billion and cash on hand is $44.6 billion.

I mean.....FUCK. Do you even compare?

 

[eastmen]

Sony isnt a monopoly giant. They barely had any clue on gaming software and the gaming industry and they got the product perfect from the first try, they rocked the market.
They did everything great.
XBOX was a commercial failure despite that MS is a monopoly giant in the PC space and own Direct 3D. MS always makes more money than Sony ever will.

Microsoft has a market cap of around $1.89 trillion and cash on hand of $134 billion.
Sony has a market cap of $125 billion and cash on hand is $44.6 billion.

and microsoft isn't a monopoly giant either and had just as little experiance in gaming as sony.

I'd disagree with everything they did being great. They paid to make a lot of games exclusive instead of developing their own.

 

[Nesh]

and microsoft isn't a monopoly giant either and had just as little experiance in gaming as sony.

I'd disagree with everything they did being great. They paid to make a lot of games exclusive instead of developing their own.

If that makes you sleep better at night....

 

[mr magoo]

That doesnt make much sense. Did you do a gallop? Games were being released all the time. So when did they decide that there were no games on 360 and bought a PS3?
Actually this sounds more like a problem with the 360 because it sounds more like people moved on to the PS3 because there were more games to play there.
Otherwise why not stay with the 360 if it was good enough?
Your statement is partly valid for people who went on the 360 because there was literally no PS3 sold in the market and then after the PS3 was released they bought it.

Yes sure but when you already played gears 1 and 2 and what was called the third one something that start with I. Forza 2 and 3 and all halos etc etc why not? The problem is not that there are no games available, maybe as a gamer you want to try something new, you still have access to all multiplat titles and big catalog of exclusive titles that you havent play before. Few of my friends did that during the x360 era.
I bought ps4 like 1.5 year before ps5 not becouse i didnt have anything to play on pc or i was unsatisfied with the platform. I wanted to play RC wipeout and uncharted so why not. I will probably get ps5 in few years, not becouse i dont like xsx i have some spare time and money is not the issue.

 

[see colon]

Sony isnt a monopoly giant. They barely had any clue on gaming software and the gaming industry and they got the product perfect from the first try, they rocked the market.

Was it their first try, though? They had fully working hardware collaborating with Nintendo and at least prototype hardware when they got Sega of America on board to collaborate before Sega of Japan shut that down. They also owned video game development studio Imagesoft since the late 1980s and Psygnosis since the early 90s, and had produced games for most platforms including the NES and up. It's not like they were completely clueless about the market.

Microsoft though, if you watch Power On they talk about how they never intended to make the hardware, but no one would do it for them because hardware is where you lose all the money. But they never considered that. They were pretty clueless.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Was it their first try, though? They had fully working hardware collaborating with Nintendo and at least prototype hardware when they got Sega of America on board to collaborate before Sega of Japan shut that down. They also owned video game development studio Imagesoft since the late 1980s and Psygnosis since the early 90s, and had produced games for most platforms including the NES and up. It's not like they were completely clueless about the market.

Microsoft though, if you watch Power On they talk about how they never intended to make the hardware, but no one would do it for them because hardware is where you lose all the money. But they never considered that. They were pretty clueless.

Add to that, that unlike Sony which had extensive experience making quality electronics products and media products, Microsoft's experience with hardware consisted of keyboards, mice, a few joysticks, and a driving wheel for PC.

Considering their lack of hardware experience compared to Sony, it's a miracle that MS was even able to make a console that did as well as the Xbox did (~24 million sold). Consider for a second the Atari Jaguar that sold less than 250k units with rumors of 350-500k being produced. The SEGA dreamcast sold ~8.2 million units before they pulled out of the console hardware market. Heck the only Sega console that sold more units than the Xbox was the Sega Genesis. The Nintendo Gamecube sold less at ~21.74 million units. The aforementioned PS VITA at ~10-15 million units sold. We won't even mention the Wii-U.

So, considering that plenty of consoles by hardware console makers with decades of experience in the console business sometimes struggled to make a successful console that sold even as much as the Xbox did, MS didn't do too badly for their first effort at not only a console, but their first real hardware electronics product. Obviously not PS1 good, but not bad for a first effort. Especially considering they had zero experience with not only consumer electronics but also the console market like Sony did (years of collaboration with Nintendo and SEGA prior to making the PS1).

Now, this isn't to sugarcoat things either as Xbox didn't do great by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't a failure either.

Regards,
SB

 

[Nesh]

Yes sure but when you already played gears 1 and 2 and what was called the third one something that start with I. Forza 2 and 3 and all halos etc etc why not? The problem is not that there are no games available, maybe as a gamer you want to try something new, you still have access to all multiplat titles and big catalog of exclusive titles that you havent play before. Few of my friends did that during the x360 era.
I bought ps4 like 1.5 year before ps5 not becouse i didnt have anything to play on pc or i was unsatisfied with the platform. I wanted to play RC wipeout and uncharted so why not. I will probably get ps5 in few years, not becouse i dont like xsx i have some spare time and money is not the issue.

"Why not" and "maybe" is not a strong argument. It is an assumption. You can assume and find all kinds of examples in pretty much every generation that dont explain the bigger image of the market share. You can pretty much use the same "maybe" for every single generation and it means nothing.

Was it their first try, though? They had fully working hardware collaborating with Nintendo and at least prototype hardware when they got Sega of America on board to collaborate before Sega of Japan shut that down. They also owned video game development studio Imagesoft since the late 1980s and Psygnosis since the early 90s, and had produced games for most platforms including the NES and up. It's not like they were completely clueless about the market.

Yes Playstation was the first try. Everyone knows Playstation was Sony's first console.
Prototypes are just prototypes. Components and chips are just components and chips. A real product is a finished released one.
Sumsung isnt a console seller just because they provide SSDs and memory modules to console platform manufacturers.
Imagesoft was mainly a game publisher, not a producer with two games developed only and defunct in 1995. Psygnosis was purchased in 1993 as part of the Playstation development which was released in1994.

Microsoft though, if you watch Power On they talk about how they never intended to make the hardware, but no one would do it for them because hardware is where you lose all the money. But they never considered that. They were pretty clueless.

In he very documentary MS says that they knew what they were doing in terms of games because they were already developing and publishing on Windows. edit: Oh and also DirectX. And it also says in the doc that they also had the hardware expertise.
Of course they never intended to do the hardware initially. They approached the console manufacturers directly and were rejected. But that doesnt matter.
A company like MS having literally the creme of the crop of businessmen and not only in its staff, never considering and being completely clueless is an exaggeration. They took the risk and the product survived long enough because they had the money to burn and the long term vision to keep it going.

 

[see colon]

Yes Playstation was the first try. Everyone knows Playstation was Sony's first console.
Prototypes are just prototypes. Components and chips are just components and chips. A real product is a finished released one.
Sumsung isnt a console seller just because they provide SSDs and memory modules to console platform manufacturers.

This is getting into semantics, but "first try" to me means they hadn't tried before. They tried before, twice. You can't fail to bring something to market if you don't try to bring it to market in the first place. The console we know as Playstaion famously isn't even the first play station Sony tried to make.

Regarding Samsung, does the SamsungSaturn not count?

 

[Nesh]

This is getting into semantics, but "first try" to me means they hadn't tried before. They tried before, twice. You can't fail to bring something to market if you don't try to bring it to market in the first place. The console we know as Playstaion famously isn't even the first play station Sony tried to make.

Ok then.
Show me someone who owns that Nintendo Play Station. Show me the games. Show me how well it did in the market.

Regarding Samsung, does the SamsungSaturn not count?

No. But even if they did, can you still consider them a console platform owner because they provide memory chips an drives to Sony Playstation?

 

[goonergaz]

Again, who is talking about Vita. Original Xbox (The worst selling Xbox) sold 50% more units than Vita.

? Vita has nothing to do with X360 vs PS3 or any other straight comparisons in this bizarre universe where X360 is seen as a 'success' for selling less than the 'complete failure' of PS3.

Sony is a huge company with a huge portion of the music and movie industry. Those entertainment portions make money hand over fist. Nintendo and Sega had nothing like that . So Sony was able to come in and out spend its competition.

Again, so unlike MS which is like only a little bit bigger and has only a tad more money that Sony.

Xbox 360 greatly increased Microsofts market share. Bringing them from roughly 20/25m units to 85m units. It brought Xbox live subscribers to record heights and of course MS made a ton off game sales. Not to mention it also kinect which I believe is still the best selling add on accessory.
The playstation brand when from a 150-155m selling console to one that shiped roughly 88m units. They lost $200-300 on each unit sold at the begining. Selling only half the devices you sold in the previous generation while taking large losses on each unit sold for a portion of the generation isn't successful.

Again, you seem to be misreading - no-one is calling PS3 a success or X360 a failure...only you seem to be saying that.

1) again what head start they were launched within months of each other
2) your realize that sega saturn was widely outselling the playstation in japan. It was only the playstation doing well outside of japan that allowed them to over take the saturn.
3) What I am saying is simple. Sega designed a poor system coming off a wet fart of a product launch the 32x. Nintendo was 18 months late to the party with expensive carts. Sony got very lucky in when they launched. If Sega launched a better system or if nintendo launched earlier or with cd it would have been much harder for sony to be successful if they ever were. Remember FF7 a big title for Sony was going to be nintendo exclusive but was not due to the carts.
4)if you say so

1) 8mths in the US and 10mths in EU (which, being from the UK is why I said a year). That's a significant chance to get a foothold in the market and if you think otherwise then please explain why MS and Sony work extremely hard to release in the same window!?
2) Not sure of the relevance of this? Saturn was a well established and launched just before Christmas in Japan
3) And again, if Sony were 'lucky' then how lucky were MS? The PS3 was an even bigger car crash. PS1 @ $300 vs Saturn @ £400 against X360 @ $300 vs PS3 @ $500. As for Nintendo, they had the chance to go with CDs but chose not to.
4) Yes I do, because it's true.

The ps4 got lucky in terms of the mis steps that MS made coming from the xbox 360. I think just adding the $100 with kinect 2 inside the xbox one gave sony the advantage it needed early on and the xbox couldn't recover dispite making the fantastic xbox series s , which like the revisions to the ps3 took a large console and made it much smaller .

We will have to see the end results of this generation in a few years. It looks like this holiday season in NA at least having the series s is helping MS sell a lot of units. Will this be another neck and neck generation ? and if so who will make the bigger mistakes going into the next generation ?

OMG man, yeah - totally, this kind of explains your delusion and weird PoV on reality. All of Sonys success is down to everyone else fucking up but MSs is purely down to their brilliance...with the cherry that 'let's see what happens come end of the generation'...it's really looking like it'll be neck and neck at the moment with those specs on!

This is getting into semantics, but "first try" to me means they hadn't tried before. They tried before, twice. You can't fail to bring something to market if you don't try to bring it to market in the first place. The console we know as Playstaion famously isn't even the first play station Sony tried to make.

It was the first console they brought to market no? If we want to start including prototypes then we should include ideas and drawing boards etc lol
But you are right, anyone can have 'failures' etc, and no-one is criticising failures from what I can see...at least by failing you have tried.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Was it their first try, though? They had fully working hardware collaborating with Nintendo and at least prototype hardware when they got Sega of America on board to collaborate before Sega of Japan shut that down.

Are you counting hardware that nobody could buy as a first (and second) try? That's a bit mental, mate and it ignores the established R&D cycle of new technologies and products. We know the final specification of the Xbox that Microsoft sold was not among the first two designs proposed because there was two teams with very different ideas for what Xbox should be. Is the original Xbox Microsoft's third attempt? What about MSX?

Add to that, that unlike Sony which had extensive experience making quality electronics products and media products, Microsoft's experience with hardware consisted of keyboards, mice, a few joysticks, and a driving wheel for PC.

Microsoft partnered with Intel, ATI (now AMD) and Nvidia on Xbox's hardware. That's quite a lot of expertise to get hardware into a box, which consumers had been doing themselves since the late 1980s. And you're forgetting quite a few Microsoft hardware products over the years (which is fair enough because half I had not heard of!) but remember the Microsoft cordless phone, SideWinder game controllers. Z-80 co-processor cards for Apple II, ActiMates (yeah.. WTF), DSS80.

Importantly, Microsoft had the three biggest PC components hardware designs as partners and had a huge amount of experience with products where the ergonomics were incredibly important, e.g. keyboards, mice and game controllers.

Two different companies are going to bring different things to their products, but it's not like Microsoft was three high school kids working out of a garage. They were (and still are) one of the biggest technology companies in the world.

 

[eastmen]

? Vita has nothing to do with X360 vs PS3 or any other straight comparisons in this bizarre universe where X360 is seen as a 'success' for selling less than the 'complete failure' of PS3.


Again, so unlike MS which is like only a little bit bigger and has only a tad more money that Sony.


Again, you seem to be misreading - no-one is calling PS3 a success or X360 a failure...only you seem to be saying that.


1) 8mths in the US and 10mths in EU (which, being from the UK is why I said a year). That's a significant chance to get a foothold in the market and if you think otherwise then please explain why MS and Sony work extremely hard to release in the same window!?
2) Not sure of the relevance of this? Saturn was a well established and launched just before Christmas in Japan
3) And again, if Sony were 'lucky' then how lucky were MS? The PS3 was an even bigger car crash. PS1 @ $300 vs Saturn @ £400 against X360 @ $300 vs PS3 @ $500. As for Nintendo, they had the chance to go with CDs but chose not to.
4) Yes I do, because it's true.


OMG man, yeah - totally, this kind of explains your delusion and weird PoV on reality. All of Sonys success is down to everyone else fucking up but MSs is purely down to their brilliance...with the cherry that 'let's see what happens come end of the generation'...it's really looking like it'll be neck and neck at the moment with those specs on!


It was the first console they brought to market no? If we want to start including prototypes then we should include ideas and drawing boards etc lol
But you are right, anyone can have 'failures' etc, and no-one is criticising failures from what I can see...at least by failing you have tried.

When sony entered the market they were much bigger than any one else in the market at the time. They were able to leverage their expertise in consumer electronics . Yes Microsoft was bigger than sony when they entered the market. But unlike sega who was a small company with one successful console and nintendo who came in 18 months late with their console , microsoft had to compete with sony who didn't have those issues. You know unlike the other companies Sony was one of the companies that developed cd rom , dvd rom and bluray . Some might say a large portion of the success of two of their consoles have to do with the ability to play those advanced formats at extremely low prices upon launch compared to dedicated players.
"Sony attracted many third-party developers to the PlayStation with a liberal $10 licensing fee, excellent development tools, and the introduction of a 7- to 10-day order system that allowed publishers to meet demand more efficiently than the 10- to 12-week lead times for cartridges that had previously been standard in the Japanese video game industry.[43][44]" You know being a mega corp and being able to leverage their cd manufacturing division at the time really helped out with the playstation and having a huge stream of money from the music and consumer electronics markets allowed them to under cut licensing fees.


1) who are we talking about ?

Sega Saturn

• JP: November 22, 1994
• NA: May 11, 1995
• EU: July 8, 1995

Sony playstation

• JP: 3 December 1994[2]
• NA: 9 September 1995[1]
• EU: 29 September 1995[3]

It's what two weeks for the japanese launch , 5 months for North America and 3 months for EU. Let's not forget that the market the Sega did best in with the Saturn was Japan which had no real advantage in release and the surprise movement of the NA launch is touted as one of the issues that cause sega to fail in North America. Not only was the software not ready for NA but it was way to close to the 32x launch.

"In March 1995, Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske announced that the Saturn would be released in the U.S. on "Saturnday" (Saturday) September 2, 1995.[45][46] However, Sega of Japan mandated an early launch to give the Saturn an advantage over the PlayStation.[47] At the first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles on May 11, 1995, Kalinske gave a keynote presentation in which he revealed the release price of US$399 (including a copy of Virtua Fighter[48]), and described the features of the console. Kalinske also revealed that, due to "high consumer demand",[49] Sega had already shipped 30,000 Saturns to Toys "R" Us, Babbage's, Electronics Boutique, and Software Etc. for immediate release.[45] The announcement upset retailers who were not informed of the surprise release, including Best Buy and Walmart;[20][50][51] KB Toys responded by dropping Sega from its lineup.[45] Sony subsequently unveiled the retail price for the PlayStation: Olaf Olafsson, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), summoned Steve Race to the stage, who said "$299", and then walked away to applause.[20][52][53][54][55] The Saturn's release in Europe also came before the previously announced North American date, on July 8, 1995, at a price of £399.99.[10] European retailers and press did not have time to promote the system or its games, harming sales.[56] The PlayStation launched in Europe on September 29, 1995; by November, it had already outsold the Saturn by a factor of three in the United Kingdom, where Sony had allocated £20 million of marketing during the holiday season compared to Sega's £4 million.[57][58]"

The early launch doomed the saturn. Remember they had just launched the 32x in Nov of 1994

2) both systems were launched before christmas in japan. The Saturn continued to outsell the playstation in japan for a very long time through most of 1995

3) again read my first post in this thread. Of course MS was lucky I never said they weren't. Every company with success in the market has been very lucky. Nintendo was extremely lucky with the nes and launching an new console into a dead North American retail market and it paid off big time for them. Sega was extremely lucky that Nintendo was late to the party with the Snes and it allowed them time to gain a foot hold into the industry. Guess what Sony was extremely lucky also for all of the reasons mentioned.

There are great things about all of Sony's consoles and some not so great things. The first two playstations were notorious for having disc drive issues with people tilting systems or playing games upside down. The original controllers were terrible and basicly modified snes controllers. The ps2 required expensive add ons online play with only a hand full of games supporting it and that was even though its competition a year before shipped with a modem and its own isp platform. The original xbox was really big and had a terrible controller. The 360 had rrod.

I am fine pointing out issues with all the consoles since I have almost every console mass produced in NA

 

[see colon]

? Vita has nothing to do with X360 vs PS3 or any other straight comparisons in this bizarre universe where X360 is seen as a 'success' for selling less than the 'complete failure' of PS3.

It's "Playstation's biggest failure" or the "lowest selling Playstation". I was simply bringing up Vita every time someone referred to PS3 in those terms, because it isn't close in numbers to the lowest selling Playstation nor their biggest failure.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

My key takeaway from all of this stuff - arrogance is the root of future failure. It gives opportunities for competitors to exploit. MS, Sony, and Nintendo are all guilty of this.

 

[eastmen]

It's "Playstation's biggest failure" or the "lowest selling Playstation". I was simply bringing up Vita every time someone referred to PS3 in those terms, because it isn't close in numbers to the lowest selling Playstation nor their biggest failure.

well i think the ps vita did better than the ps go. Or did it not count because its technically a revision , tho it might have been the worse revision to any console in history ?

 

[BRiT]

There was also PS Vita TV...

 

[goonergaz]

When sony entered the market they were much bigger than any one else in the market at the time. They were able to leverage their expertise in consumer electronics . Yes Microsoft was bigger than sony when they entered the market. But unlike sega who was a small company with one successful console and nintendo who came in 18 months late with their console , microsoft had to compete with sony who didn't have those issues. You know unlike the other companies Sony was one of the companies that developed cd rom , dvd rom and bluray . Some might say a large portion of the success of two of their consoles have to do with the ability to play those advanced formats at extremely low prices upon launch compared to dedicated players.
"Sony attracted many third-party developers to the PlayStation with a liberal $10 licensing fee, excellent development tools, and the introduction of a 7- to 10-day order system that allowed publishers to meet demand more efficiently than the 10- to 12-week lead times for cartridges that had previously been standard in the Japanese video game industry.[43][44]" You know being a mega corp and being able to leverage their cd manufacturing division at the time really helped out with the playstation and having a huge stream of money from the music and consumer electronics markets allowed them to under cut licensing fees.

I can't argue much with this, altho your bias is clear, for example the issues against Saturn (which was selling well in Japan as you point out) seem at odds with what a 'mess' you keep saying it was. Regardless of size of Company, an established and popular product will always have a certain sector who will hang around and support it...this is part the reason why Nintendo still exist. [/QUOTE]

1) who are we talking about ?

Sega Saturn

• JP: November 22, 1994
• NA: May 11, 1995
• EU: July 8, 1995

Sony playstation

• JP: 3 December 1994[2]
• NA: 9 September 1995[1]
• EU: 29 September 1995[3]

Sorry, yeah - I got the years mixed up, it certainly felt a lot longer at the time! lol

IThe early launch doomed the saturn. Remember they had just launched the 32x in Nov of 1994

Yet it still sold well in Japan...

2) both systems were launched before christmas in japan. The Saturn continued to outsell the playstation in japan for a very long time through most of 1995

...as you agree

3) again read my first post in this thread. Of course MS was lucky I never said they weren't.

hhhmmm...no - what you did was say Sony were lucky;

"Seems to me the only reason the playstation exists is because sega fucked up with the saturn
Seems to me the only reason playstation still exists is because Microsoft fucked up with xbox one
Seems to me the only reason penicillin exists is because Alexander Fleming fucked up."

Then you kind of make a bank-handed attempt imply there was some luck whilst (see bold);

"Microsoft became sucessfull because sony who was established in the video game market made mess ups , not because the xbox 360 was one of the best executed consoles ever made with the perfect blending of online and single player content at a time when the competition was fumbling around in the dark (nintendo is still in the dark) when it comes to online."

However the true colours are then shown;

"Xbox 360 was such a sucess that sony struggled to stay competitive even having a year longer to launch their over priced george foreman grill."

Which is funny, because launches aligned, PS3 always outsold X360 - even being late, significantly more expensive and have no games.

And more, this is priceless;

"I dunno I think MS has improved each generation. The x360 was the benchmark and the one surpased it."

You are very much in a minority - improved the h/w but lost ground - went from level with the competitor being handed a spanking...as above, good job you're not sitting around any important tables at MS.

There are great things about all of Sony's consoles and some not so great things. The first two playstations were notorious for having disc drive issues with people tilting systems or playing games upside down. The original controllers were terrible and basicly modified snes controllers. The ps2 required expensive add ons online play with only a hand full of games supporting it and that was even though its competition a year before shipped with a modem and its own isp platform. The original xbox was really big and had a terrible controller. The 360 had rrod.

It's funny, 'so many great things' but none you want to speak about, just concentrate on how bad Sony are and their competition was whenever they 'won' a generation and ignore the positives...but you're open to talk about the Xbox positives I see.

The PlayStation was the perfect product at the perfect time, it brought console gaming into the 3D era and made gaming cool, for once consoles were aimed at people who made money and weren't geeky kids. But let's ignore all the positives. And the fact you keep using things like 'lucky it had a CD/lucky it had a DVD/lucky it had BR' - it's not luck, they made decisions that paid off.

Clearly you will never concede that there were reasons the PS1 did so well, I mean, you can't just release a crap product and sell well because there's no better choice...people will just not buy or stick with what they have until something better comes along, you seem to think consoles either do well (or don't) due to a single point of reference (failure of competitor) which is frankly ridiculous.

I am fine pointing out issues with all the consoles since I have almost every console mass produced in NA

And now we're waving dicks around? I can ensure you mine is bigger - I've owned just about every one ever made...and mostly purchased at launch...not sure what it means, but you brought it up.

Anyway, I'm done with this - for my sanity, I'm out...I look forward to coming back in a couple years and seeing how wrong you are about this gen too.

It's "Playstation's biggest failure" or the "lowest selling Playstation". I was simply bringing up Vita every time someone referred to PS3 in those terms, because it isn't close in numbers to the lowest selling Playstation nor their biggest failure.

But it's not part of the same sales discussion - we're talking about a particular comparison and trying to understand the PS1 vs Saturn launch vs PS3 vs X360 launches.