Why I don't believe in "System Sellers"

[Lost tears of Kain]

HappySqurriel said:

I thought I should take a moment to comment on why I think people’s faith in ‘System Sellers’ is so misplaced; in particular the faith that Sony fans seem to have that certain games will save the PS3.

For (pretty much) the entire past 2 generations I have been a geek who has enjoyed arguing on the internet (and bulletin boards before that) about videogames; this has given me the opportunity to see the same flawed arguments rehashed generation after generation. At the same time I have had many friends who were interested in videogames and liked playing or discussing them as a group.

What I have seen time and time again is people who have exclaimed “Wait until -=Supposed system seller=- is released, then -=Struggling Console=- will gain momentum” only to see the game released and fail to really improve the console’s situation.

The reason for this is simple, in discussions I have had with people in every generation the I have heard “I would love to play -=Supposed System Seller=- but I can’t really justify paying $100/$200 to buy a -=Struggling Console=- for 1 game when I already own -=Competition Console=-“

The reason I see this as being a far more dramatic problem for the Xbox 360 and PS3 is because people were unwilling to spend $100 to $200 in previous generations to play some of the best games of the generation so I can’t see someone spending more than $300 for similar games this generation.

While i agree that effects are not as large as people see them, some games of course can be system sellers. If i have a friend who wants to buy a xbox ONLY for halo 3 its considered a system seller isnt it?

I think that people do see games pushing systems but maybe pushing to many and maybe to many games doing it. I rarely see single games pushing a system, i usually believe its a group.