Games industry legend John Carmack of id Software came out with an interesting quote this week. He declared that the PlayStation 4 will be the first next-generation machine to hit the market. Here is exactly what he said:
“The whole jockeying for who's going to release the first next-gen console is very interesting and pretty divorced from the technical side of things. Whether Sony wants to jump the gun to prevent the same sort of 360 lag from happening to them again seems likely. As developers, we would really like to see this generation stretch as long as possible. We'd like to see it be quite a few more years before the next-gen consoles come out, but I suspect one will end up shipping something earlier rather than later.”
Does he know something we don’t? Probably not, but it does offer an insight into what the games industry believe to be the key reason why the PlayStation 3 has failed to match its predecessor’s marketplace domination: it simply gave the competition too much of a head-start. Carmack’s statement goes against Sony’s persistent claims that the PS3 will last 10 years (even with the consideration of an overlap), but you can see his point. The Xbox was a distant second to the PS2, but the benefits of a twelve month head-start, and what that meant for install base at the time the PS3 launched, and thus third-party support and software quality, is tangible.
That said, his comments are contradicted by the success of the Wii. The Wii came out a year after the Xbox 360 and at the same time as the PS3, but it is rapidly reaching a point where it will have doubled the former, and tripled the latter’s sales. It now has the install-base and sway to demand plenty of third-party support, despite being relatively expensive and arriving late on the scene.
This would suggest that it ultimately comes down to the quality of the product in relation to its price. For our money the PS3 was and is just too darn expensive. Here’s an interesting consideration: to simplify, the PS3 has sold two thirds of the Xbox 360’s numbers while costing a third more, and being out two thirds as long. With that in mind, if the PS3 had debuted at the same price as the Xbox 360 – even a year late - it could very well have been punching at about the same install base right now of its competitor if not be ahead. Its feature-set is superior, and it would have lapped up the love during the RROD debacle.
We don’t believe Sony need to rush out the PS4 just to beat Microsoft to the marketplace: it just needs to be a bit more humble with the way it goes about selling it and to show Xbox the respect it now rightly deserves.
But this is not the reality...
The reality is, however, that neither side will give an inch next time around and risk release timing affecting third-party performance and install base. The Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 will debut in quick succession of each other and go head-to-head. And if Microsoft wants to compete at that moment it should seriously consider opening more 1st-party studios and making some Blu-ray related handshakes. On the flip-side, Sony needs to find a way of matching Xbox Live.
As for the Wii, we’re beginning to wonder whether there will even be a Wii 2. We’d expect Nintendo to continually refine the Wii over the foreseeable future with alternate versions along the lines of their extremely successful GameBoy and DS business models. Whether they decide to enter the hardcore gamer market with an all new third console SKU that competes directly with Sony and Microsoft remains to be seen, but seems unlikely. There would be little to compel the Nintendo suits from rocking the boat: they have a fair chunk of the market sown up, and there will always be a new generation of kids looking for a Mario adventure.
Make sure you check out Danger for the Xbox 720 and PS4 before you leave.
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