| Killiana1a said: Sony will do just fine entering the market a year or two late. An extra year or two will give them an accurate read of the market and allow them to penetrate niche areas of the market underserved by either Nintendo or Microsoft. My only concern is a repeat of the PS3 where Sony waits a year later because they are building the PS4 to be a behemoth of a gaming machine very few can afford. The only major downside I can see for Sony entering the market late is a lack of quality 3rd party games because if you are reading the tea leaves with the 3DS, Nintendo is pushing hard to get back into the "hardcore" market which had been an almost exclusive niche of Sony's during the PS1 era until Microsoft entered and split the "hardcore" market in half during the Gamecube, PS2, and Xbox era. Nintendo getting serious and back to it's "hardcore" roots will present a hurdle for both Sony and Microsoft, but moreso for Sony because Sony has no brand comparable to Halo or Gears of War. |
Sony’s greatest successes in the videogame market were the Playstation and PS2 which both launched 18 months before their competition; and were able to build a library, user-base, and relationships with third party publishers in the absence of strong competition.
Throughout the (short) history of the videogame market, any system that launched after consumers and publishers settled on the generation’s market leading console have done very poorly. If Nintendo produces a follow-up system to the Wii which is as popular launching a year or more after it would be suicide; and if the next XBox sees a similar increase in popularity as the XBox 360 saw over the XBox, giving them a year or more to build momentum would be a very big mistake.
This isn't to say that launching late dooms the PS4, but unless Nintendo and Microsoft both screw up it really puts the PS4 at a significant disadvantage; and if either console manufacturer can capitalize on the first-mover-advantage it could doom the PS4.
