robjoh said: mrstickball said: PS3 sales constantly go down, but the are bottoming out. It's held steady at 20k/wk in the US, and is around the same in Europe/Others. Japan? It's unsure of right now. It seems though, that the PS3 bottomed out around 8,500 units, but has gone up a bit since then (but no one knows if it'll plummet past the 8.5k mark). What matters is the game release schedule for Sony in Japan. It'll do well in the US/EUR regardless. However, with a major title like MGS4, it could do quite well. Not Wii-levels, but it could pull ~750k in 2 months or so in Japan. The game might pull 750 k, but I doubt that it will sell another 650k PS3:s. Looking at past performance for MGS makes me doubt that it will sell to many systems. We have to count that a lot of the sales will go to the existing PS3 crowd. Name Console Publisher Japan America Others Total Metal Gear Solid Konami 0.78 2.81 2.00 5.59 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Konami 0.85 2.29 2.42 5.56 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Konami 0.86 1.42 1.68 3.96 I mean MGS has never sold more than 1 million consols, the game might move another 200 k consols, but a 750k? No way. The hard and bitter truth is that Wii Sport will probarbly sell more than both MGS (that one is quit clear) and Final Fantasy in Japan. I actualy think sony is in the same situation that the Gamecube was in last time, doing better than the xbox in japan, but not enough to pass the xboxs strong sales in USA. Of course Europe might help PS3 something that GameCube failed to do.

 I know about 30 guys who dont own a PS3 that all said they are buying a PS3 for MGS so I think it will sell a ton of consoles.

So do you think Warhawk, Heavenly Sword and Uncharted are all going to be huge new franchises? Maybe if they can all do 5-million + copies, it will matter. Sony already have Gran Turismo, which can do over 10-million copies, Final Fantasy, which can do 8 million copies, plus MGS and GTA which can both do 5-million copies. Add three more games in that range and you get...

Name	Console	Publisher	Japan	America	Others	Total
	Super Mario 64	Nintendo	1.92	6.87	3.10	11.89
	Mario Kart 64	Nintendo	2.24	5.52	2.11	9.87
	GoldenEye 007	Nintendo	0.13	5.77	2.19	8.09
	The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time	Nintendo	1.46	4.08	2.06	7.60
	Pokemon Stadium	Nintendo	1.37	3.16	1.35	5.88
	Super Smash Bros	Nintendo	1.97	2.93	0.65	5.55
	Donkey Kong 64	Nintendo	1.10	3.31	0.86	5.27

...damn.

I don't mean to be an ass, but hopefully this highlights the absurdity of a PS3 comeback on the back of just a few games. N64 had 4 games on roughly the scale of Halo 2, and only sold 8 million more consoles than XBox.

It's time for me to get a job as an analyst and put these jabronis out of business.

John Lucas 

What I'm always surprised by is the notion that if your console isn't in first place it's a failure. Who came up with this rule? There are so many other factors that play into whether or not you can consider a product a success or not.

Believe it or not, the Xbox was quite successful. MS entered the console race and they came in second against the strongest competition ever (Sony's PS2) and a formidable powerhouse (Nintendo's software). I don't think MS ever thought that they would sell more units than anyone else. So while they may have lost some money on the deal, they created a strong brand and a solid network infrastructure in place for their second effort which continues to rival anything else out there.

And while the GC came in a close second (and even Nintendo stated that they felt the machine was a 'failure'), Nintendo made money from the GameCube and its games. And that's more than other companies who have since exited the console race can say (i.e. NEC/Hudson, Sega, Atari).

And so here we are in the newest console race, and it's mostly Sony's to 'lose' -- the strength of the PS1 and the dominance of the PS2 are unparalleled. And the series of missteps by Sony have been staggering... removal of rumble, delayed launches, high price point, lack of games, etc. In the end, that may mean Sony will only sell 60M versus 120M consoles and put them in a close race for second place. But is that so bad? While I'm sure Sont isn't gunning for number two, if they make it out of this generation with some profits I'm sure they'll at least be somewhat happy.

As to the future, at this point it's obvious that this generation will not mirror the last and will probably be unique unto itself. It's definitely too early to call, but as time passes trends and events will play out that will allow us to be able to more clearly determine the future of the systems. Nintendo can't seem to capitalize on their success and make enough consoles. MS flies in the face of convention and refuses to drop the price of their machine. (Heck they even raised it with the launch of the Elite.) And Sony is quickly becoming the underdog and getting very little respect these days. The summer will be slow; it often is -- amazing how that piece of history continues to play itself out. And we're all waiting for the fall and holidays for most of the games and sales to create a solid picture. In the meantime, maybe you should go outside and enjoy the nice weather... :P

(And we're all allowed to critique another's opinion. I don't care if they're paid or not. But keep it civil and try to back it up with some logic...)

@Steve
It's a bit tricky to define success as not being an insider, but still you can say some console isn't a success if a) it doesn't sell as predicted, b) it makes a lot of (non-intentional) loss, c) makes you drop from a leading market position to last.

Let's look at GC, which really was a failure, it was supposed to sell 50M, but it finally sold half of that. At the time of GC launch, Nintendo had done a lot of work to get 3rd parties back to develop for N, it had 3rd parties at the time of its launch, and therefore they seemed to be pretty secure with the GC, since technically nothing was standing in the way of GC:s success.

Also Xbox was a failure because of how much money M$ lost with it. Even that they say that it was just an investment for future, their goal was to get atleast even with it, but because of couple stupid contracts with suppliers, they made a big loss.

PS3 seems to be a failure, because it will lose the market position, what previous PS:s had gained, it will also lose Sonys money.

But even a console can be considered as a failure, it doesn't mean that it would be a complete failure.

To me, the only failures are the ones that prevent you from coming back next gen. For example, the Dreamcast, the Jaguar. THOSE were failures. If the company can still come back to fight in the next war, then I would say that they were succesful.

Why do analyst always talk about the slow pace of ps1/2 as compared to ps3. I think the situations are completely different For one the ps1 was the first time sony created a game machine. Of course it was a little slow out the gates. By the time the real competitor N64 showed up, the ps1 had a substantial lead.

The PS2 was first out the gates and did not have that slow of a start. It's WW numbers were more like Wii's now, obviously greater than PS3 or PS1.

All you can do is have your best guesses. Mine are below and as far as WW end of gen stuff, I kinda agree with Source's mostly.

 Plus PS2 had a staggered launch for all three territories, first Japan, then NA, then Europe, PS3 was released in japan and NA at around the same time, and then staggered for Europe

@Superchunk: PS2 wasn't first out of the gate of its generation, the Dreamcast was.

Its not going to happen chief. No offense to your mates but journalists are completely untrustworthy. Killzone will never be a Halo. I was a tester for both the original and the PSP version and they are just dull. As far as I know about 50% of FPS fans hated Killzone but again this is just within my own circle but only 1 person has ever said they hated Halo (again im only looking at FPS gamers). Heck Im not a FPS fan and even I like Halo granted it was only because I though the vehicles were cool (played on a PC so controls were excellent).

Uncharted is ironically just that. Unless it does something revolutionary to the world of gaming it will not make a dent in hardware sales. Comparing it to Tomb Raider is silly. Tomb Raider was one of 1st true 3d games to ever hit the gaming market and will always be remembered as such and not because it was an outstanding game (most people thought it was boring as well). Halo, as popular as it was, didnt push the XBox very far and I would argue that Halo 2 didnt sell any additional consoles at all because all the FPS fans already had one thus they were just selling to established customers and not making any new ones. Uncharted as good as it may be, will not make a difference and I would be surprised if it sold 1mil copies given its somewhat Tomb Raider-ish genre which is really more attuned to a Nintendo fan base.