scottie said: Ok, lets say we have 2 consoles. Core gamers are told that if they buy either console, they will be shot immediately.   Console A only has one game, it is Fire Emblem. It is advertised on Opera, in women's interest magazines, on tv. Console B has one game, it is Wii Sports. It is not advertised, and has to rely on word of mouth.   Which console will sell better to the casual market?   Marketing is not really important, if you have the right games, and the price isn't ludicrously high, word of mouth will provide better advertising than the actual advertising. True for Wii Sports, true for Halo, true for Wii, for PS2, for pretty much everything.

Not sure if you understand marketing at all...  For one, if they were to market on Oprah, it would be a game to fit the audience.  So, for your example, it would be Wii Sports, as that would hit the demographic watching more clearly(but neither title would probably advertise on such a program).  Second, word of mouth helps to sell to a point, but that is how advertising works.  If people are generally aware of the product(through advertising), they are that much more keen to talk about the product with their friends and family. 

Obviuosly, we are going to disagree on what sells the games regardless of what either of us say, but it is interesting to har your thoughts on this.

Einsam_Delphin said: teigaga said: You've missed my point though. These are consoles which people HAVE to buy at some point if they want to experience the future of gaming (FFXV, Witcher, Devision, Battlefield, Mirrors edge 2, Mass Effect, New Ips and obviously exclusives: Halo,  infamous, the order, naughty dogs title etc). Becuase informed gamers know these systems are garunteed a bright future there is less need for incentive at launch although their is still plenty of benefits if you do make the dip (exclusives :more then current gen+ superior versions of 3rd party titles+better services /OS/unique console features. They are not paying $460 for a game they can buy for $60, they are payin $400 for the future of games. Also lets not pretend that PS4/Xbox1 do not have better exclusives at  launch then their predecessors or the Wii U did in the same period.  Already they are in a better position. And of course gamers who are more tight with their wallets may wait, but that has ALWAYS been the case. This is why systems sell their most in the 3rd/4th year when developers have completely abondoned the last gen consoles, and the new consoles are normally $100/$150 cheaper then they were at launch. Neither the Xbox 1, nor the PS4 need that audience in order to have a very successfull year 1.  As for GTA, it comes out in september, the majority of people who wait till the holiday to buy it probably not the demographic who buy consoles at launch anyway.  Well first let me say that I'm not saying they wont launch well. Like all consoles, even the Wii U, they will launch well due to them hardcore gamers you're talking about. They'll no doubt sell out at launch, but that's not what this thread is about. It's on discussing how well they'll do right after launch. Thread title ask if they'll follow the Wii U's footsteps afterall. So what I'm saying is that while people will of course buy the consoles eventually, it just might not be for a while, hence a slow start for PS4/XO after launch. Like you said, people will always wait to buy, hence why this slow start has went down with every other console that isn't the PS2/Wii. I actually don't remember past launch line-ups, so I can't comment there, but I also don't remember such fierce competition from the previous gen either.

Yeah, I was refering to the whole launch window and following summer. Not just launch month.

For the same reasons above, I simply can't see them suffering the same fate. Again I think people underestimate the amount that went wrong with the Wii U:

-Its name, the poorly communicated gimmick, not even nintendo knows what to do with the pad
-who on earth was the system aimed at? If at core gamers, the fact that it couldn't demonstrate a clear leap over 7 old consoles was clearly a weak point.
-The fact that ALL the most anticipated 3rd party titles skipped it
-The fact that it had no strong support of any kind until last week (pikmin 3)
-The fact that it in early 2013, the only games that were even announced for it were Rayman, Pikmin and Wonderful 101.

Its simply not logical to think that the ps4/X1 will suffer the same fate, because they won't be presented with the same circumstances.
-Microsoft and Sony's advertising is already better,  they've put a focus on the console, not a control. Plus their names are not stupid :p
-Their initial audience is hardcore gamers, there is no confusing that.
-The only big 2014 titles not coming to next gen is Lightning returns and Dark souls 2. 
-We haven't even reached gamescon, but there are already more next gen exclusives announced for 2014 then there are current gen. 

Will their sales drop? Sure... No one is saying that they will sell wii numbers and constantly be sold out throughout 2014. But to say they will suffer the same fate of the Wii U is to suggest that they will drop to 10k in each region. Chances of that happening in North America and Europe are very slim IMO.

Absolutely not! And yes.

I have never seen anyone f--- themselves harder than Nintendo - leaving their traditional (and ever shrinking) audience to embrace casuals wholeheartedly with Wii to ditching the casuals to embrace what's left of their greatly depleted traditional audience with WiiU. But keeping a name that's not reflective of this confusing everyone over who they are trying to appeal too. Plus of course, no games.

Sony/MS simply will not have this problem. They are not in an identity crisis like Nintendo is.

Sony foremost is aiming squarely at the core gamer and will have great success there.

MS is casting a wider net and may ultimately win out due to this. But it's MS who are masters of wasted potential so we'll just have to wait and see how it turns out.

On the flip side. Wii/DS brought in a huge amount of people to console gaming who are now mostly pre-occupied with mobile gaming. Mobile gaming as it develops and systems become more powerful and home systems like Ouya/Gamepop/Razor/Gamestick/Mojo etc., get established will progressively pull more and more people from the traditional console market away.

PS4/XB1 also suffer from the smallest difference from one gen to the next. The games are prettier. So what. It will take more than that to entice a large portion of the gaming public to buy a new machine. Especially if their current one is still well support with games (especially the same games). Unless they really start to introduce gaming experiences that simply aren't possible with PS3/360 it'll be a slow transition (once the initial boom of avids have bought). In a declining market under attack from all new sources, that is not a good thing.

So in short. PS4/Xb1 will not fall off a cliff like WiiU did and will sell much better than WiiU ever will. But WiiU was always destined to fail (I predicted it long before it launched) due to Nintendo's loss of direction. PS4/Xb1 know who their market is and will always appeal to them, even if it is a market in decline. They may not reach the heights of PS3/360 but they will still be successful in their own right.

teigaga said: Einsam_Delphin said: teigaga said: Well first let me say that I'm not saying they wont launch well. Like all consoles, even the Wii U, they will launch well due to them hardcore gamers you're talking about. They'll no doubt sell out at launch, but that's not what this thread is about. It's on discussing how well they'll do right after launch. Thread title ask if they'll follow the Wii U's footsteps afterall. So what I'm saying is that while people will of course buy the consoles eventually, it just might not be for a while, hence a slow start for PS4/XO after launch. Like you said, people will always wait to buy, hence why this slow start has went down with every other console that isn't the PS2/Wii. I actually don't remember past launch line-ups, so I can't comment there, but I also don't remember such fierce competition from the previous gen either. Yeah, I was refering to the whole launch window and following summer. Not just launch month. For the same reasons above, I simply can't see them suffering the same fate. Again I think people underestimate the amount that went wrong with the Wii U: -Its name, the poorly communicated gimmick, not even nintendo knows what to do with the pad -who on earth was the system aimed at? If at core gamers, the fact that it couldn't demonstrate a clear leap over 7 old consoles was clearly a weak point. -The fact that ALL the most anticipated 3rd party titles skipped it -The fact that it had no strong support of any kind until last week (pikmin 3) -The fact that it in early 2013, the only games that were even announced for it were Rayman, Pikmin and Wonderful 101. Its simply not logical to think that the ps4/X1 will suffer the same fate, because they won't be presented with the same circumstances. -Microsoft and Sony's advertising is already better,  they've put a focus on the console, not a control. Plus their names are not stupid :p -Their initial audience is hardcore gamers, there is no confusing that. -The only big 2014 titles not coming to next gen is Lightning returns and Dark souls 2.  -We haven't even reached gamescon, but there are already more next gen exclusives announced for 2014 then there are current gen.  Will their sales drop? Sure... No one is saying that they will sell wii numbers and constantly be sold out throughout 2014. But to say they will suffer the same fate of the Wii U is to suggest that they will drop to 10k in each region. Chances of that happening in North America and Europe are very slim IMO.

Well you're debating with the wrong person then as I didn't say they'd sell exactly like the Wii U lol. That would just be absolutely terrible for the VG industry if they did! D:
All I'm saying is that they will have a slow start whicn is perfectly normal. The PS2 and Wii were the only exceptions, so unless one were to believe the PS4/XO will sell just like those two, which you agreed that they wont, then the only other possibility is to have a slow start, though it wont be as slow as Wii U.

Einsam_Delphin said: teigaga said: Yeah, I was refering to the whole launch window and following summer. Not just launch month. For the same reasons above, I simply can't see them suffering the same fate. Again I think people underestimate the amount that went wrong with the Wii U: -Its name, the poorly communicated gimmick, not even nintendo knows what to do with the pad -who on earth was the system aimed at? If at core gamers, the fact that it couldn't demonstrate a clear leap over 7 old consoles was clearly a weak point. -The fact that ALL the most anticipated 3rd party titles skipped it -The fact that it had no strong support of any kind until last week (pikmin 3) -The fact that it in early 2013, the only games that were even announced for it were Rayman, Pikmin and Wonderful 101. Its simply not logical to think that the ps4/X1 will suffer the same fate, because they won't be presented with the same circumstances. -Microsoft and Sony's advertising is already better,  they've put a focus on the console, not a control. Plus their names are not stupid :p -Their initial audience is hardcore gamers, there is no confusing that. -The only big 2014 titles not coming to next gen is Lightning returns and Dark souls 2.  -We haven't even reached gamescon, but there are already more next gen exclusives announced for 2014 then there are current gen.  Will their sales drop? Sure... No one is saying that they will sell wii numbers and constantly be sold out throughout 2014. But to say they will suffer the same fate of the Wii U is to suggest that they will drop to 10k in each region. Chances of that happening in North America and Europe are very slim IMO. Well you're debating with the wrong person then as I didn't say they'd sell exactly like the Wii U lol. That would just be absolutely terrible for the VG industry if they did! D: All I'm saying is that they will have a slow start whicn is perfectly normal. The PS2 and Wii were the only exceptions, so unless one were to believe the PS4/XO will sell just like those two, which you agreed that they wont, then the only other possibility is to have a slow start, though it wont be as slow as Wii U.

Hmm, I'd differentiate between slow and stable. I think both systems will have stable sales. The way I see it:

slow: 50k or less 

stable: 70-100k

130k + = big success

archbrix said: chapset said: Metallicube said: The industry is abolutely NOT growing, quite the opposite.. It's in a major decline and hemoraging money. There are company merges, buyouts, and bankrupcies all the time. Not sure where on earth you get that information that the industry is doing well.. Probably from the industry itself. The only thing that is growing is costs, which are skyrocketting to an unsuttainable pace. Nintendo was very aware of this, and they created the cheaper Wii essentially to prepare for and perhaps slow this massive decline, but alas, the industry foolishly shunned and ignored it, and now is headed back to its rapid decline once again. Year Video game industry revenue Source(s) Inflation (2012) [43] 2011 $65 billion Reuters $66.2 billion 2010 $62.7 billion Reuters $65.88 billion 2009 $60.4 billion [14] [15] $64.5 billion 2008 $54 billion [16] $57.46 billion 2007 $41.7 billion [17] $46.08 billion  come on man, stop making things up ''A series of new reports from DFC Intelligence forecasts that the global market for video games is expected to grow from $67 billion in 2012 to $82 billion in 2017. This forecast includes revenue from dedicated console hardware and software (both physical and online), dedicated portable hardware and software, PC games and games for mobile devices such as mobile phones, tablets, music players and other devices that can play games as a secondary feature.'' http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/07/18/new-reports-forecasts-global-video-game-industry-will-reach-82-billion-by-2017/ Wow, you really don't get it do you? What he's saying is that the industry is not sustainable under the current model.  Unless you're someone like Activision or EA it's becoming more and more apparent that many of these big games are not making enough for what they cost to make. Why do you think that SE was disappointed by the sales of Tomb Raider despite the game selling over 3m copies in its first month? Why do you think that so many Sony studios were closed recently?  Did Zipper, Psygnosis, 989 Studios, Incognito, Lightbox Interactive, SuperBot, Sony Liverpool and Sony Cambridge just decide they didn't like making video games anymore? How about THQ, Factor 5, Bizzare Creations and dozens of other devs in the last five years? http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/depressing-list-of-studios-that-have-closed-in-this-generation/ Did they just shut down for the hell of it? Perhaps you should try reading this article, also from Forbes.com, and watch the following YT video: http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2013/06/14/why-xbox-one-and-ps4-have-me-worried-for-the-future-of-games/

Sony, Microsoft, nintendo are posting profits the biggest players in the industry are making money  yet it's tha Doooooooooooooooomed ho noes!!! console gaming is now the new pc gaming doomed for eternity, This gen must have been the first gen were gaming companies closed down it's not like other new companies were made as if they Respawned

I made a thread about sales prediction of Xbox One, PS4, and Wii U's total hardware sale before the first week of April 2014, and I'm going to copy and paste my prediction of each console in this post.

I'm guessing Xbox one and PS4 can reach up to 2.6 - 3 millions sales and the Wii U will be 8 million (assuming Mario Kart and Smash release after March). Might be low for all consoles but I'm guessing the One and PS4 would have identical launch sales to the Wii U but a bit better post launch sale from Jan to March. For the Wii U, I used the year on year chart to guess how it would do if it continues it path but with a 50% increase in sales YOY from November to March if I did my math right.

Here's the graph I mentioned.

http://www.vgchartz.com/tools/hw_yoy.php?reg=Global&start_year=2012&end_year=2013&console=WiiU

If I was to specifically assign sales for the One and PS4, I predict the One will have 2.6 million sales and the PS4 will have 3 million. I believe the PS4 will have the same great holiday launch sales of Wii-U (2.25 million from 3rd week of November to end of December). I think the One's massive 500$ price tag will give it a 2 million holiday sales at the same time frame. But i predict the PS4 and One will launch at the last week of November. If not, I still think the holiday sales will be relatively the same or better and the post launch from Jan - March will be worse than I predicted.  From Jan to March, I believe the PS4 will out sell what the Wii U did by 100k only even with its steady stream of games. Again, 400$ price is high unless you're an iPad, and I'm predicit  Wii U's first  official price cut here at Jan to March 2014. I think One will have similar Jan to March sales as the Wii  because of the massive price tag, but the steady stream of game will help it not make it lower. 

So, comparing the Ps4, One and Wii's U sale for its first 4 months and a half.

PS4 = 2.95 million

Wii U= 2.85 million

One = 2.6 million

So in conclusion, I think the PS4 and One will follow Wii's relatively similar from the Jan to March. Anything beyond is harder to predict for me. Most of the ONE and PS4 games in 2014 don't have a tentative month set and it's crazy to get an accurate prediction of a new system in general. Same goes for Wii-U although I'm sure Mario Kart and Smash Bros will release in April at the latest.

Why do I think the PS4 and One will have similar Wii U sales from November to March? I think a few of the PS and xbox gamers that want better graphics have and bought their systems at 2005-2007 will have a PC already because this gen cycle was already long and PC building has become more knowledgable. Those new xbox an PS gamers from 2011 to present have been waiting for the 360 and PS3 to be cheaper and will wait for the PS4 and One to be cheap as well. 2007- 2011 gamers won't all rush in immediately as well. By that time the 360 and PS3 already had an official price cut. http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Price_cuts

Zero999 said: Cubedramirez said: Games rule. Doesn't really matter how powerful a console is. Sony and Microsoft both have ample games to meet everyone's needs early on to grab the all important early adopters. Nintendo, no matter how much I love its games failed to understand the need for a decent launch selection of games and failed to provide a console seller. PS4 and Xone's lauches have similar multiplatforms compared to wii u's launch. and they don't have a system seller either.

They offer a wider range of titles early on to the systems cycle so what you and I would not consider a system seller, others may find in some of those titles. Be it sports, shooters, action, etc. The Wii U had such a enemic lineup of games the chances of people finding 'their' system seller was quite limited. 

Gamerace said: Absolutely not! And yes. I have never seen anyone f--- themselves harder than Nintendo - leaving their traditional (and ever shrinking) audience to embrace casuals wholeheartedly with Wii to ditching the casuals to embrace what's left of their greatly depleted traditional audience with WiiU. But keeping a name that's not reflective of this confusing everyone over who they are trying to appeal too. Plus of course, no games. Sony/MS simply will not have this problem. They are not in an identity crisis like Nintendo is. Sony foremost is aiming squarely at the core gamer and will have great success there. MS is casting a wider net and may ultimately win out due to this. But it's MS who are masters of wasted potential so we'll just have to wait and see how it turns out. On the flip side. Wii/DS brought in a huge amount of people to console gaming who are now mostly pre-occupied with mobile gaming. Mobile gaming as it develops and systems become more powerful and home systems like Ouya/Gamepop/Razor/Gamestick/Mojo etc., get established will progressively pull more and more people from the traditional console market away. PS4/XB1 also suffer from the smallest difference from one gen to the next. The games are prettier. So what. It will take more than that to entice a large portion of the gaming public to buy a new machine. Especially if their current one is still well support with games (especially the same games). Unless they really start to introduce gaming experiences that simply aren't possible with PS3/360 it'll be a slow transition (once the initial boom of avids have bought). In a declining market under attack from all new sources, that is not a good thing. So in short. PS4/Xb1 will not fall off a cliff like WiiU did and will sell much better than WiiU ever will. But WiiU was always destined to fail (I predicted it long before it launched) due to Nintendo's loss of direction. PS4/Xb1 know who their market is and will always appeal to them, even if it is a market in decline. They may not reach the heights of PS3/360 but they will still be successful in their own right.

bolded: Yeah, I'm sure nintendo's audience hated those awesome games they received no the wii.

Cubedramirez said: Zero999 said: Cubedramirez said: Games rule. Doesn't really matter how powerful a console is. Sony and Microsoft both have ample games to meet everyone's needs early on to grab the all important early adopters. Nintendo, no matter how much I love its games failed to understand the need for a decent launch selection of games and failed to provide a console seller. PS4 and Xone's lauches have similar multiplatforms compared to wii u's launch. and they don't have a system seller either. They offer a wider range of titles early on to the systems cycle so what you and I would not consider a system seller, others may find in some of those titles. Be it sports, shooters, action, etc. The Wii U had such a enemic lineup of games the chances of people finding 'their' system seller was quite limited.

Nope, it's the same types of games on all 3 launches.