| etuoyo said: Another thing people fail to take into account when they say PS3 is selling at the same rate as 360 when 360 was released is the fact that in the 1 year 360 was the only console on the market it had the gorilla sized shadow of the PS3 hanging over it. Tons of people would have decided not to buy a 360 because they were waiting for PS3. However, now that PS3 is out alot of people that had been waiting for a PS3 would have decided it's too expensive and/or not all that great and decided to go for a 360 instead. So it's very possible that the sales gap between 360 and PS3 will increase rather than decrease. |
I agree with this statement, and also think it's faulty logic to assume that 1st year sales for consoles released in the same generation, but non-concurrently are directly comparable. The fact is, what 3rd party developers see when they look at the two consoles is the fact that they're fairly similar in terms of power, and the 360 has more than 200% of the userbase and 25 million-selling games (most of which are third party) vs. 2 million-selling games (both first/second party). They see flagging sales and a bad media image. They don't pull up charts and compare how the first years did, respectively, and your average consumer will flock to the system that has the most games that appeal to them - and the fact is, no matter how you cut it, the 360 has a one-year advantage on the ps3 in that respect.
Before anyone brings up the huge libraries and install bases of significantly older consoles, remember that a) most gamers who want those systems have them, and b) the sense of newness about current-gen vs. past-gen consoles sells a lot of games.
