| c0rd said: The Xbox was already popular in NA, so when its successor released, the sales weren't bad. Being the only next-gen system out probably offset the fact that it wasn't released with a big game. Still, due to lack of games it tracked slightly under the original Xbox. Fast forward to the PS3 launch - it was a disaster. Bad shortages, pricing, and few games to play. On the other hand, the X360 already had over 3 million sold, more than half of what the PS3 has now. The established userbase does help, as friends want to be able to play online with each other (word of mouth helps as well). RRoD probably affected America as much as it did everywhere else - people will just tolerate it if they must. If the PS3 had an RRoD equivalent, I bet it'd still handily outsell the 360 in EU/Jap. More importantly, the PS3 was met with the launch of Gears of War - this game absolutely destroyed the PS3. It kept 360 sales far above the PS3, and the PS3 had nothing of its own to answer back. The 360 just continued to pile on more games that appeal to NA than the PS3 ever did. In NA, Halo 3 actually outsells the top 5 PS3 exclusives (Motorstorm, MGS4, Resistance, Uncharted, R&C) COMBINED. The best selling Sony franchises in NA - SOCOM, God of War, Gran Turismo, are nowhere to be found. IMO, the HD war in America was finished before it started - Sony had too little support for its own system. They probably couldn't afford it due to the system's outrageous costs.. Thanks to the slow start, the 360 will never let the PS3 see the light in NA. It has picked up far too much momentum, and most people will not buy both HD consoles, especially now that the economy is looking bad. I just wonder how much worse it may have been if more games (FF13) were announced multiplatform earlier. |
Nice post.
