SlorgNet said:
Microsoft is doing a fine job of destroying itself, thank you very much. For all of 2007, Sony's total market share is about 40%, Nintendo's share is 40%, and Microsoft is trundling along slightly above 20%. The PS3 was launched at a price tag to differentiate itself from the PS2. Now that the PS2's lifespan is drawing to a close, the PS3 will pick up the slack - in fact, the PS3 is already practically equalling sales of the 360, and this is before the blockbuster games come out.
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A disingenuous and factually untrue post. Sony and Nintendo each have multiple consoles on the market which bump their numbers up. Since MS is out of this market, it's misleading to try and fold these numbers into a debate on current home console sales.If we look ONLY at the current generation of home consoles (which is the focus of this thread)...
http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=Wii®1=All&cons2=PS3®2=All&cons3=X360®3=All&start=39082&end=39418
the PS3 and 360 have tracked very closely, with a brief uptick for Sony thanks to the EU launch, and a smaller bump for the 360 with Halo3. All along, the Wii has been selling 50-100% higher than either console, so the more accurate statistic would be roughly 50% Nintendo and 25% Sony and MS.
Now, if we examine the sales of the GBS, PSP, and PS2 ...
http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=DS®1=All&cons2=PSP®2=All&cons3=PS2®3=All&start=39082&end=39418
we'll find that the DS alone sells roughly what the PS2 and PSP combined put out. So even if we look at total sales for all consoles - past gen, current gen, home and portable, Nintendo still leads Sony by a considerable margin (while the GBA, GC and XBox are still technically on the market, their sales don't do much to affect the overall numbers).
And I think it's flatly wrong to say that the PS3's price was determined by the PS2 still being on the market. While the PS2 has sold some for Sony this past year, it's not nearly significant enough to warrant a $600 price tag that was guaranteed to put it in a hole for a year or two. The simple fact is that was as cheap as Sony could afford to sell the console for, as it was losing nearly $200 on each one sold. Were they able to sell it for less, they would have (a $400-500 PS3 wouldn't have been competing with a PS2 anyway).
