Mr Khan said:
Malstrom's more than a little nutso in some cases (why i stopped reading him like 3 years ago), but here's something from an earlier age from him, indicating that while overall console ownership is up, the rate of "household penetration" is down, or was 5 years ago
http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/email-comic-book-industry-and-the-end-of-the-core/
The notion that Sony grew gaming because it made it more "mature" is, simply, bunk. It's based on Sony's ability to have a bigger presence in Europe and developing countries, as well as population growth and the rise of multi-console ownership as the NES generation "matured" and got more disposable income.
Sony does certainly get credit for becoming the industry standard, which is due to their vigorous efforts to engage third parties from day one. That's what helped them out of the PS3 jam, because third parties were still making PS3 games (even if no more exclusives) even when the console was in the sales toilet. You can't get support like that all in a day. But their ability to "grow" the industry is largely due to the fact that they were a truly global corporation entering a playing field dominated by much smaller players. Their ability to dominate the competition (not just win, but dominate. This is the point i'm trying to make against the thread's thesis) is due to the multifarious mistakes their competitors have made in all gens but the 7th.
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Look at the increase in the size of gamers in the gaming industry once Sony joined. Gaming before Sony was considered to be something for children when Nintendo was on top. I remember the 90's. I was very young, but I remember it very well.
-Sony turned the videogame console into a viable threat to the PC market. Before Sony's entrance, the PC realm laughed at Nintendo and Sega even though they had plenty of great games on their consoles.
-Its multimedia features changed the way we looked at a home console. They led us out of the cartridge age and into the age where discs held up their end of the weight and not just the internal space of the console itself. Nintendo was skeptical of the idea of using CD's after their plans with Sony fell through because of piracy. It followed them through to the GC era. If Sony hadn't succeeded in bringing multimedia into the gaming industry on a personal computer-like console, Microsoft would not have even thought about joining.
-Before Sony, Sega marketed itself as the "cool" console while Nintendo was the console for kids. Sony didnt need to do all of that. Once they got ahold of the device people just percieved the industry as now being open to people of all ages. It was serious tech for its time no different than the 3DO.
