Why I don't believe in "System Sellers"

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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.

The gaping hole in this argument and all similar arguments is that there is not specific definition of "system seller".  The halo series has moved a lot of consoles.  Halo 3 will move some consoles.  Hot Shot Golf in Japan most certainly moved some consoles.  If the new PS3 FF game hit today, it would move some consoles.  The problem is that "some" is relative...  You can't argue that some of the titles over the years did nothing to move consoles... VF on the Saturn and VF2 on the Dreamcast moved consoles.  Period.  The flip side to that argument is that no one game will ever propel a console into PS2-like sales numbers.  That's just not reality...