thermal7 said:
I think this far into the console race the market share picture has been more or less painted. The Wii is the clear winner with the PS3 and the XBOX360 battling it out for 2nd place. Obviously there is a lot that can change from now until the next gen, but I don't see any major shifts happening. The question is what have the respective companies learned from this round and how to you expect them respond in the next? I'm Sorry but you are totally way off base. If you think the picture for who wins this gen has already been painted then I'll assume you're either too young to remember much of the history of the gaming industry or just a little mislead. The race is a very long one and has hardly even started. Mark my words and save them for quote later in 2012 if you like cause I know I'm not wrong at all. Here's likely whats goin to happen: By 2009 the wii is start to see significant slow down. It'll start leeking oil massively and Ninty will try and replicate the revigorization of the DS via the release of the DS lite by bringing out a "wii lite" but it wont help much. By 2010/2011 The wii will be limping, sratching and clawing it's way to the finish line. It wont really matter for Nintendo cause they would have succeded in what they wanted to do which is to stop the massive slid in home console sales since the SNES was released and they would have done so with the wii selling about 30-40 Million units WW.
PS4: I think Sony thought with the immense strength of the playstation brand coupled with arguably the most powerful hardware they could retain if not increase upon the PS2 fanbase. I also think they are seriously ....
XBOX3: I think generally Microsoft's plan worked well. They, like almost everyone else, were beaten but the unexpected change in the market to accommodate such a unique device as the Wii. Otherwise though they have successfully increased the quality of their product and their market share nicely. I expect them to stay the course for the XBOX3 but like Sony attempt to expand into the casual gamer market. I think they will also do they alternate controller thing. If you think MSs plan has worked well then I'd assume you don't know a train wreck when you see one. They won't be cstaying the course for an Xbox3. Unless initial hardware investments get shared with someone else MS will be moving to software development and dropping their hardwae division. Oh yes, they'll most likely come out with an annoucement in 2009/2010 about the xbox3 and taunt it as the uber gaming machine with all the bells and whistles and it'll leave the gaming community in awe but that would just be a gimmick to get people confident in the future of the product thus making people feel comfortable to still go out and buy more Xbox products. By 2011/2012 MS will annouce it's no longer developing hardware for the next generation.
Wii2: I expect Nintendo to go crazy. Before this generation they were trying a new concept in uncertain conditions. Now that the concept has been validated I expect them to go all out with the Wii2. Expect all kinds of family and non-traditional games. I think they will try and continue to expand the market and make Nintendo synonymous with games with all these new first time gamers they are getting. They won't abandon their marios and so forth, in fact I expect them to expand upon them with newer franchises. Also now that they are looking in a very good position I think they will invest in a awesome and huge online network with Wii2. I expect the online nature to be highly integrated into the console simply because this is awesome, nintendo is acting very smart these days and they pretty much have the guaranteed market share for the Wii2 to make such an investment worth while.
For the Wii 2, Nintendo will do excatly what they've been doing from the begining of the console battle which is lay out a plan to just keep surviving. The Wii 2 will have the processing power of what the 360 has now. They will promote heavyly 1st party family friendly games and it's onine feature will possibly resemble Xbox live of 2002... but still weaker. But it's fanbase won't really care as long as Mario, Zelda, Brawl & Metriod are coming out for the system. Nintendo is still not totally convince on online features yet. Sorry but Sony comes top dog in this one too. Though they may take longer than usual to bring out the PS4, they're already set for that 90-100 million units by 2011/2012 and although this is a nintendo heavy site and ofcourse people are going to throw that generic VG nerdy slogan my way (fanboy) I beg of you, save my quotes and make absolute fun of me in 2012 if I'm way off base. I'm possitive, if all remains equal, this is obviously what's shaping up to happen for this gen. | 
