The console cycle of death

[Pristine20]

starcraft said:

Pristine20 said:

starcraft said:

Pristine20 said:
you could've responded to his post in that thread y'know...just saying.

I did...

This IS that post directly copied over...

Now anything relevant to say?

It was relevant albeit not to the subject of the post. I don't think 10 year plan means no new consoles released. If you view it that way, it makes more sense. This "10 year plan" thing has been beaten to death though. You'll do well to leave it be. Many of us may not even find gaming of relevance anymore when that time comes.

The focus of the thread is an explanation of the console cycle, and why it prevents a strong PS3 recovery versus the other consoles as many predict.  Not the 10 yr plan per se.

 

Fine then, I'll help you out. This gen is very different from any gen before it. Thus, using previous generations to predict may not be accurate. Ps3 looked to be dreamcasted early in it's life and that didn't happen. It's fallen behind again and the naysayers are competing for first to write an article.

In reality though, the best selling console this gen is very different form it's competition i.e it's offerings are vastly different.  Thus, the overlap between potential customers isn't as great as it was last gen. The only guaranteed shared potential customers is between the ps3 and 360. If you compare these two only, the ps3's future isn't as gloomy as it's painted.

It still makes sense to multiplat both of them and the 360 will never break away enough to make multiplats worthless without an M$ moneyhat. Thus, ps3 will not stop seeing 3rd party support. Also, ps3 is ahead of the 360 in Japan, thus, those making HD-type games that are JP-centric (think yakuza 3) would be hard pressed to ignore the ps3 regardless of what it's WW market share is in the future.

Things were a lot different last gen where the xbox, GC and ps2 were all pooling from the same customerbase (like the PS360 now). Thus, there became not much reason to buy anything other than the ps2 at this point in it's life. I don't think we can say the same about the wii. This is why it will struggle to reach 50% marketshare and I doubt it will ever reach 60%.

Granted, all this doesn't point to a "recovery" for the ps3 but if you're like me and don't believe it's dying by any metric then it doesn't need to "recover". It will sell at relevancy for the next 3/4 years in the least and continue to see software support. this is partly because of the "hardcore" nature of the ps360 crowd but these people are limited unlike casuals. This is also why I risk losing my 60% bet on the wii because casuals are potentially limitless but I do believe the wii will slowdown soon enough like it has in Japan.

In conclusion, the ps3 would be relevant for however long this gen lasts. It would see a successor in due time but would likely still be kept around for a few more years. 10 is optimistic though. Counting the ps3 out however is waaaay premature.