marconelly! said:
Very valid. Like in the past PS1 kept outselling any new consoles for quite some time
If you want to go into history - was PS1
really outseling PS2 at any point? I don't quite remember what was going on back then.
Other than the very beginning with choked supplies, I don't think so. The PS2 sold about 10 million worldwide in its first year and it was only available in Japan for the majority of that first year. The PS1 sold under 10 million in that same timeframe (though not by much), which is still impressive but not "kept outselling." (Even in the first half-year with the PS2 not outside of Japan it sold ~3.5 million and the PS1 sold 3 million worldwide.)
In GC/Xbox's timeframe, the PS1 sold approximately 6 million units in their first year (I don't remember how GC/X did in that same span offhand, if someone wants to help me with that), but it also lowered from $99 to $49 (with price halvings elsewhere as well) halfway through that period.
Still looks good by comparison, but it's also a $50-100 machine compared to $200-300 machines and carrying lower tie-in ratios for those spans. (Though that's not something I can pull exact numbers for right now either. I just remember it from reference in other articles.)
Not only that but the biggest companies like EA have already said PS2 has reached market saturation
Actually, EA has lately been a very vocal advocate of the
slow transition to next gen consoles, for the fact that 'old' market (that would be PS2 among others) will not be nearly taped out at the time next gen machines appear.[/quote]
Last month, EA said that they were very angry to have left ps1 boat so soon and that they plan to support the ps2 much longer. Of course, you'll see some devs leaving the boat, hoping to sell their games on "visual" merits on the first next gen consoles out.
Support will certainly be there, but EA is a mass-market publisher and will always offer food to the biggest installed bases. Excitement and sales thrive on key titles, though--and the developers who love making those ALSO love making those better, so they tend to move to new platforms as soon as they can.
We'll still see plenty of games for the PS2 for a long while (even the PS1 has had about 50% new games as the GameCube and Xbox so far), but that doesn't mean the market will be thriving on them. And it certainly doesn't say we haven't hit a summit now or soon--it just adjusts how slow the decline will be. No one is suggesting sales will just stop happening.
The only thing I see changing this is, say, the EyeToy growing even more popular and useful and appealing to more people than would normally pay attention to these systems, or similar types of peripherals lending broader mass-market appeal. I've seen plenty of people who still laugh at "video games" not think twice about picking up DDR and Karaoke Revolution and EyeToy for themselves and their kids, so that can certainly have an impact. (Consoles as "single-game machines" and "party games" become easier to accept as it all gets cheaper. And dual-use as a DVD player lends extra appeal as well. My brother and his wife, who I would label as "negative" on the gamer scale [in that they make fun of most gaming and the people who play them] still picked up a PS2 for their own appeal.)
Keep in mind, though, that this still won't point to "more profit"--just enhance sales. The profit on hardware, software, and the tie-in ratios will all likely still be in much decline, so while it still may be a nice chunk of change, how it would compare to the next generation--and the developer and gamers' push for bigger and better--is how you measure things up.
