Has any console ever made a big comeback from a bad launch?

[mike_intellivision]

kjj4t9rdad said:

this is nothing but crap and personal opinion. Have you seen the exclusive coming for next year? Sony's is much more impressive than the 360's.

The wii's sales are higher than the HD consoles because it's cheap. Dev's like it because it is the same as a PS2.

You say it is impossible for the PS3 to pass the 360. It has outsold the 360 by almost 2 million this year alone. It is far more likely that 'impossible' should be replaced with Inevitable. And it is doing that at a higher price point.

Talk about old songs.

I know this is off topic -- but it sounds like standard pablum.

First, this is a forum so people give their takes and opinions. Rez-Hazard tried to back it up with analysis, which is more than many people do.

Second, the Xbox 360 Arcade has been less expensive than the Wii in Europe for months and that has not helped sales. It will soon be lower in Japan and it is expected to be lower in the US. The anticipated sales boost is minimal. Related to this, the PS2 was not not as powerful as the Gamecube and the Wii, which has been called derisively two GameCubes taped together, is more powerful than the GC.

Third, at the current rate of advancement, the earliest the PS3 would catch the Xbox 360 is 2010. And what the market looks like in 2010 is anyone's guess. Especially since it appears that one HD console (Xbox 360) is readying price reductions for the holiday season while the other (PS3) says it will not lower prices.

Back to the original topics -- most "bad" starts that had to be overcome have had more to do with differences in release dates than anything else. Genesis/MegaDrive gets to market before SNES/SFC and builds a lead but is eventually headed. Saturn gets to market before PSX and builds a small lead and stays competitive for a year or so in Japan (with Red Label games no doubt) but is headed. Dreamcast leads off a generation but no one else is playing so Sega goes away.

Note that other than a few early spikes, the PSP did not outsell the DS head-to-head, despite predictions it would push Nintendo out of the handheld business (so much for customers wanting multi-functionality in their devices) -- according to VGChartz data.

So the question that the OP really wanted to be answered was whether or not the PS3 could recover this generation. Can it catch the Xbox 360? Tthat is possible since its lead was built primarily on release time.  Price, services, and software will make that call. Can it catch the Wii? No. Because that was built on merit as the two consoles were released at essentially the same time in two markets (JP and NA) and the Wii only had a slight head start in the other (three months or so in EU).

Thus, I disagree with some of the comments, the premise that the PS3 will catch the Xbox 360 is not unfounded, in my opinion -- which is all I can give in a forum.

 

Mike from Morgantown