HappySqurriel on 23 February 2007
Christopher_G2 said:
People who claim Sony is dieing or out of the console battle are really out of touch with reality. Think about who really decides the console war. Is it the hardcore fanbase who buys consoles in the first year of a system's launch? Well if that was true the N64 would have beat the PS1. The fact is the console race is a marathon not a sprint. I'm saying this as an unbiased analysis, the 360 has at least as much to be worried about as the PS3. Sony's brand name in video games is still far more healthy than Microsofts, as can be seen when the PS2 still outselling the 360.
Who really decides this race? It's the casual gamer that makes up a bigger share of the market than the real hardcore, who almost exclusively went to the PS2 last gen, and who don't start buying consoles until a few years into the generation. The 360 will have a hard time with that casual market. It's a system built almost exclusively for the hardcore. Right now the PS3 is not a great system for the casual gamer, but once Blue Ray gets more interest and maybe the price comes down a bit in a couple of years it will definetly pick up steam.
You're correct in saying that the causal gamers decide the outcome of the "Console War" but, I hate to break it to you, the console war is a sprint to reach critical mass before your competition.
One of the main reasons Sony was successful with the Playstation and Playstation 2 was that they had a dramatic headstart on Nintendo's platforms (both: 81 weeks in Japan, 13 Months in North America) which gave them a strong sales lead; when you combine this with some of Nintendo's Mistakes, the "war" was over before it even began.
