Last Gen vs Current Gen; A SuperChunky Analysis.

[goddog]

superchunk said:

@goddog

I think your wrong on the after 2012 idea for the simple reason as my table shows above.

MS will realize two very important things from this gen:
1. They only really beat Sony due to their year head start. That gave them the edge in numbers and allowed them to reduce their costs quicker and have leverage when approaching 3rd parties.

2. They believe Wii's success is totally due to the casual audience.

MS will want to combine Nintendo's success in #2 with their proven success in #1 and beat everyone to the punch. Plus, by then the 360 will begin to naturally trail off as all consoles have done in their 4/5th years.

MS will bring a new system out by fall of 2011. The only question is if Sony decides to ditch the PS3 early to ensure #1 doesn't happen to them again.

I feel your betting too much on the past this current generation will be longer as a sign of a maturing market mixed with the economic down turn. launching new consoles is an expensive and risky business. the money in making consoles comes from the licenses (unless your nintendo) and fees. this will lend to a longer console generation especially since microsoft has, and sony will stop taking hits on selling units.

It makes no business sense to force a new generation early unless you are losing money on hardware, and not making enough up in licensing. 

that is the key. and right now all of the players are headed for profit. and lengthening this generation will also help game studios in their  profitability. being able to reuse assets and refine code and not having to spend money developing code from scratch. it benefits every one to keep this generation going in the business side.

now we are already seeing this generation taking a different turn year 4 will see growth for all consoles and year 5 should too, most of this will be due to higher start costs that translate into a longer term ability to cut costs. 

even the wii has defied these normal gen traditions by avoiding price cut in the first 3 years and continuing to grow. I see them as the one group that could launch early if they wanted to based on a tradition of selling hardware at profit. 

all of this excludes what an early launch might do to the mind of a consumer which still sees these as new goods and an untimely replacement could cause backlash

 

I had a cool chart of what MS and sony could do this year made up sometime last fall i look for it after i get back and post it in here