|
jarrod said: [...] Last year PS3 has a $100 pricecut (bringing it to just 50% of launch price), a slim remodel and it's biggest game ever in Japan. I think it's rather safe to say both platforms will be down Y-O-Y in Q4. :P I don't think they need to match NSMB really, because also, the Wii still has that game, and it'll probably still outsell most new games this holiday again anyway. Wii's already hit it's critical mass, and it's more at a point where few new games can really push hardware sales, rather it's the overall library that brings the new buyers at this point. Basically like PS2 in 2004 and on. I also wouldn't undercount Wii Party though, by taking the Wii Play route and doing a controller bundle, Nintendo's basically setting the game up as an "extra" purchase alongside every new Wii this Q4. Wii also has some other surefire JP/EU sellers in the fall like Kirby and Just Dance 2. You're right though, we'll have a better idea at Gamescom (and TGS). |
Or maybe, if their plans about Move and Kinect go how they wish, they could be both up.
And Wii just needs some of its most waited games to be up too.
I'm not sure, but maybe all three of them could need a price cut at the right moment to meet their highest sales goals, XB360 and PS3 almost surely at least on entry level units, to make the cost of entry level Move and Kinect bundles not too high, Wii then should just need a modest reduction to keep the distances in price/value ratio. Surely Wii has still the power to reach lower income users before its competitors without losing money on HW, and it will keep this advantage until the end of this gen. Next gen, though, about costs, Sony will gather the fruits of having invested so much in the Cell and BD, as scaling it up and offering the most powerful CPU as its users expect will cost a lot less than developing it from scratch like it did this gen, BD is becoming affordable too, HDDs and RAM are dirt cheap, keeping the Cell architecture PS3 BC on PS4 will be almost automatic and PS4 dev tools will become mature and more productive earlier, so offering new things for casuals and enough power increase to keep hardcores won't make costs go out of control anymore. Time will tell, but Wii already won this gen anyway, nobody can deny it.
