That flies in the face of all reason. A system only gets a 10 year life cycle if its in a dominant position in the market. This occurred with the NES, PS1, and PS2. Marketshare, not technology, determines the lifespan of a console. Developers aren't going to spend extra money mastering the PS3 architeture when the potential reward is the smallest of the three consoles. In five years, the 360 successor and Wii successor will be available and most likely more powerful/easy to develop for.

Erik, I'm quite familiar with the book as it's on my shelf.

I think you've misinterpreted my meaning. Casual gaming is up for interpretation as it is but I'm not referring to Jewel Quest and the like. I'm talking about Nintendogs, Brain Age, Wii Sports, etc... These games have broaden the range of players in the market. From the marketing, to the system design, everything about it is created with the mind set to appeal to a far greater audience than has been before.

Xbox 360 sales dropping off in Europe? What? Source?

Most (all?) console generation cycles are determined by the end of year 1. At that point, 3rd party developers decide which system they will mainly support, which one they will normally port to, and which one gets the boot. This is based on the size of the userbase.

The Wii's userbase is huge, rivaling the X360's across all regions ('cept for Japan where it mops the 360.) And this was with Microsoft's 1-year head start (good job MS.) Devs are going to make games for the Wii until the next generation, no doubt about that.

Tech needs rarely drive gaming. If that were true no one would touch a console after about 2 years; PCs easily catch up and exceed them in that time. The "ooo, shiny graphics!" claims are a marketing ploy to attract early adopters so a console can build a large userbase before the year ends.

Only the Wii has a chance of staying in business for more than 5 years. The next systems from MS and Sony will try to play catch-up, while Nintendo can sit back and take their time working on the next system while riding their profits from the Wii. I mean, that's what Sony did with the PS3. While MS hoped and raved about how awesome the all-new X360 was, Sony leaned back and grinned "the PS2 is STILL outselling you, lol."

yeah darc requiem is right. sony loves to say how ps3 is a ten year cycle but i don't really understand why people believe this because thats only possible if your console dominates the market so much that people will still be buying games for it well into the next generation. this is only possible for wii in this generation. the ps3 will be dead as soon as the next gen systems come out in about 5 years cuz its gonna have either the lowest user base or be only barely in front of 360. and mr wibbly even if the wii did magically slow down in 2 years while the other systems sped up sales the wii would already have about a 20 million unit lead on 360 and probably 25 million on ps3, in two years it'll be impossible for either of the other systems to catch up this gen even if the wii starts sell next to nothing like the ps3 is now.

and this whole future proof thing is just laughable. as someone already said the power of the system has nothing to do with how long it will last. success is what makes a system last. the ps3/360 won't even be close to successful when compared to the wii. i mean the xbox lasted 4 years but it was the most powerful system... according to your idea of future proof shouldn't the xbox still be selling well an not the ps2 since the ps2 was the least powerful system last gen?

also i don't know why people think saturation of hdtv's is directly proportional to sales of 360/ps3 systems. its not like people actually think "oh well now that i have a hd tv i have to buy one of the hd systems and not the wii simply because they are hd." ya know the wii still plays on hdtv's, its not like it doesn't work on them. people are gonna buy the system they want, not just buy whatever system corresponds to whatever type of tv they have.

as long as wii keeps getting good games and 3rd parties actually start putting effort into wii games instead of just throwing crap onto the system the wii is gonna dominate on the level of ps2 or close to it.

I don know MR W. I have to agree with Darc b/c sony just recently announced that they were going to be driven the Ps2 harder then they have b/c it still a top selling machine---

Viper1 said:
Erik, I'm quite familiar with the book as it's on my shelf.

I think you've misinterpreted my meaning. Casual gaming is up for interpretation as it is but I'm not referring to Jewel Quest and the like. I'm talking about Nintendogs, Brain Age, Wii Sports, etc... These games have broaden the range of players in the market. From the marketing, to the system design, everything about it is created with the mind set to appeal to a far greater audience than has been before.





Zelda: PH, Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy are all designed to appeal to a greater audience than ever before too. Games like NSMB, WoW and GTAIII have all already succeeded in expanding the market in recent years. But these titles are all aimed at the "small niche market," and Jewel Quest is, like it or not, aimed squarely at the "far larger casual market."

The "far larger casual market" is not the point. You can market at them all you like, but until you surprise them with a new experience and remove the barriers keeping them from playing, they won't play. And the same thing goes for the existing audience, too.

 the last part is why wiisports were such a huge success with the launch of the wii cause no matter wht age u are u can play it without even knowing how.

good 1st post... you make some valid points but by 2012, PS4 will be out and xbox 3 will be out... just because they have gr8 gfx now and wii doesn't, it don't mean wii will last 5 yrs and the other 2 10 years... they will all be replaced in the next 4/5 yrs...

The Blue Ocean strategy is moving into a market where there is no competition (Blue Ocean) rather than fighting in a market where there is a lot of competition (Red Ocean).

The reality is that it can be applied to 'core' games as well as 'casual' games. Consider what would have happened had a publisher realized that there was no high quality 'Mature' videogames for the Wii at launch and choose to produced a high quality 'Mature' launch game; with (almost) no comptition it would have easily sold well and created a (well known) IP.