misterd on 13 September 2007
| BrainBoxLtd said: I'm going to take a wild guess and say these particular analysts merely looked at final tally from the 6th Generation and just predicted the same thing would happpen all over again. Â |
Pretty much. Kind of like predicting the weather- if you say today will be like tomorrow, you'll be right 90% of the time, so that's the safe bet. Had Nintendo not opted for the Wii- had they gone the traditional route that MS and Sony went (expensive, graphic pimping boxes), I wouldn't be surprised if their analysis ended up being more accurate. But the problem with analyzing past trends is that you can toss them out the window when something new comes in and succeeds. Still, that's no excuse. The writing was on the wall at E3 2006. The Wii went huge, and everyone - hardcore and casual- wanted to play one. With the low cost and Nintendo lineup, most gamers wanted one, either as a primary console, or a second one. We all remember the "Wii60" catchphrase sprung up at that time, with a few "PSWiis, but not many PS360s, because of the great overlap (or if you prefer, redundancy) in the Sony and MS consoles. You also had a massive success with the DS, Brain Age and Nintendogs, which sounded a loud warning bell that the nontraditional gamers were coming. Now, none of this means that the what the Wii has done could have been predictied - it is truly unheard of to have this high a demand for so long. But it should not have been a surprise to see the Wii if not in first, then in a very solid second or maybe third in a very close 3-way race. OTOH, let's look at what Sony did at E3. They were arrogant (we will tell the consumers what they want!), neglected the gamer for an expensive BR player, got mocked for the "Wii Too!" Sixaxis, and pretty much turned the hose on whatever interest had been percolating among the wider base. That Sony would stumble was also easy to predict (even if not to this extent).
