| d21lewis said: I posted somewhere else in this site that I don't think ANY of the systems are going to experience any sustained growth. Look at what we have here: We have THREE systems that have sold very well and are 5 years old or nearing 5 years. At this point, most consoles are dying off and the next gen is kicking off. Yeah, two of them (if you only count the best models) haven't reached that magical price-point of $199 but I personally believe that for the most part, it's going to be a downhill slide from here on out. Kinect and Move may inject some new life into the 360 and the PS3 and the Wii will hold steadily declining sales but I think the ship has sailed. PC's, Smart Phones, I-Pods/I-Pads, and the V-Tech V Smile are all becoming viable options for people to satisfy their "gaming jones". All three consoles have surpassed the sales of the Gamecube's last gen run. I didn't check but I'm pretty sure the Xbox 1's sales have been eclipsed, too. How many consoles (PS2/Gamecube/Xbox) sold last gen? I'm too lazy to check. How many GBA's sold last gen? Now, compare that to the number of combined 360's, PS3's, Wii's, PSP's, and DS's. The market may just be reaching the point of saturation in the very near future. One of the Big 3 needs to swallow their pride and kick of the 8th gen (not counting the 3DS) in 2011. And even if they do, how much of a jump in quality are we expecting when games already feature graphics where you can see the pores in a character's skin or make fully destructable environments?
--Just some random thoughts by a crazy person. |
But the issue is that the next generation has to offer a better experience. However we are at the point of diminishing returns for performance and implementing 3D in an efficient way is going to be paramount to the next generation. Even if they release a console soon, it may not be enough to set the market alight. Sure the generation may be peaking now but theres nothing good to replace the current consoles with!
Well maybe Nintendo has something, but they have the console with last generation processing technology. Sony and Microsoft on the other hand are going to have a struggle to convince much of their userbase to upgrade this quickly as they cannot offer much of a significant upgrade and developers aren't set up to provide it as publishers are working on the expectation that this generation will be longer. Theres no PC market feeding high I.Q. games back into an early mover game console this time around so any upgrade will take a while before we see any meaningful result if it comes sooner rather than later.
They are better off waiting for the right technology than blindly moving into a new generation. Its like what Fast and the Furuous taught me, you don't hit the NOS too soon or Vin will just sail right past you at the finish line!
