Success is a relative concept, success is an absolute concept and success is whatever criteria you want to use to define somethings success.
So the questions are:
- How do you define whether or not a current generation console is successful?
- Is there a generally accepted definition of success which can be used?
Some people define success by:
- How much enjoyment their console(s) bring to them, successful delivery of services.
- How much enjoyment a console brings to others, sales of games/consoles.
- How much money the console manufacturer makes.
- How far a console manufacturer has overcome adversity or improved/fallen between generations.
Some people define the success of consoles relative to each other using many of the above concepts and others. For example, using Metacritic and sales numbers to compare consoles relatively based on the enjoyment they bring to people.
People using different metrics of success can call something a failure or success relative to the values and criteria they use. If you asked someone the time and he told you the weather report because he didn't like the time it is right now, its not a useful conversation, and you're just talking over each other. Does the same apply here? If someone called a console a failure in terms of creating profit for the console manufacturer, does it make sense to answer that the console has produced many games which you enjoy or is it better to merely accept that by that metric the console is a failure?
Tease.
