As ever i am here posing a question that i hope will spark interesting debate and some intellectual thinking. As the title suggests, do forums (like this) effect sales of consoles, games, in general the industry. I hypothesise that they do. My logic works like this;
1) Forums spark either fanboy wars or genuine intellectual debate on these topics. This debate is global and highly reactive. Rumours and news drive the forums 24/7.
2) Forums then represent a plentiful data source for analytical companies that are interested in how financially successful video game companies may or may not be. Not only that, but the video game companies themselves can utilise the internet resources to trend public opinion almost instantly to see what woks, what doesn't, whats hot, whats not, etc.
3) These "analysts" then publish their "findings" which influences investments and may make it into the news. Once the media gets a hold of it the news becomes sensationalised and thus public opinion en masse is influenced. However if the media doesn't get a hold of it then it cycles back into the internet and internet forums which then just generates more debate and more posts which then go full circle. The same is true about media reports.
4) Thus the circle of life is complete. With the final outcome being self fulfilling prophecy. Media Attention drives sales up or down, return to step one. The same is true about internet forums/blogs as people come more and more to rely on the internet as a news and information source, in terms of it being able to drive public opinion in a certain direction.
For anyone that has seen word of mouth business advertising at work i'm essentially outlining this on a bigger scale. But on the smaller scale, one persons opinion of how good a game is or isn't, through word of mouth, will directly effect a person who is as yet undecided whether or not to buy that game.
Out of interest i have been following the general trends of fanboy discussion / industry debate just through google. Essentially i have googled PS3, Wii and XBox360 on and off for the past couple of months to see a bit of trend (although this is very generalised) The trend is that the google results for Ps3 are up to 60% negative forum debate, Wii upto 80% positive forum debate and XBox360 Esentially 50/50. Looking at sales growth aligning to this it seems at face value that the sales trends follow the blog / forum debates in terms of initial expected growth. Personally i didn't think the Wii would do as well as it has so far, PS3 would be doing better and X360 would keep trucking, but sales numbers speak for themselves, and i am glad for Ninty and the industry as a whole. Inovation is what keeps things interesting. Revolution, not evolution is what breathes life into new areas.
Now i'd be interested to see what other people think on this? Do you think that your internet forum posts have an effect on sales (when viewed as a collective of information). My final comment on this would be - HYPE. I have personally seen a lot of negative press in Australia about PS3, and limited, but postive press about Wii in the past couple of months. I also feel that this press has been directly effected by the internet buzz for and against Wii and PS3 which has appropriately effected the hype surrounding the launches and games sales. As much as i love my Wii and wouldn't personally buy a PS3 i do feel that the PS3 has had a significant amount of bad press surrounding it heavily based on the chinese whispers that have come out of the internet, which could be seen to be unfair. But the internet is part of the modern age now, so i'm not sure it's really unfair.
Thoughts?
Essay Pro