| Darth Tigris said: Can someone please explain to me why the 1 year head start makes a difference? I'm doing several things at once right now and just can't wrap my head around it. I thought I remember reading that the ratio is supposed to go down as a console gets older (I think that was a VGC article if I'm not mistaken). |
Oops, forgot to address your second point.
The ration will keep going up so long as people keep buying games at about the same rate. It will go down if the rate of buying games goes down. As only new game sales get measured there are several possible reasons for this:
1) used game sales
2) piracy (rampant on the PS1)
3) gamers get bored and no longer buy games for the console (typically when a new console comes out, tie ratios for the older ones drop)
4) when the price of a console gets low enough to purchase it for a single game. For example, there's lots of new PS2's being bought only for Singstar.
5) hardware failures, when a new console is bought to replace a bricked older one.
Remember it is all done with averages, so it is generally only late in a console's life that the ratio will take a significant dip unless it is particuarly vulnerable to piracy or failure or there is a very active second-hand market.
Piracy on its own is probably not a significant factor, as if you get a game for nothing it doesn't dip into your disposable income for buying new games as well. You just play more games but you probably buy new ones at about the same rate. Except in places where the games market is almost wholly pirated.
