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HappySqurriel on 12 July 2010
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After Sony’s recent comments about Microsoft and Nintendo’s next home consoles beating the PS4 to the market (and the discussion following about whether that was a good strategy) I began thinking about what were some of the characteristics of market leading systems. I focused my attention on the modern (post crash) console market, at here are some of my observations:

  1. Of the 8 market leading systems (NES, SNES, Playstation, PS2, Wii, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS) 4 were successors to the market leading system.
  2. Of the 8 market leading consoles only 2 (SNES and Wii) were released a year or more after a system that survived the entire generation; and these are also the only 2 generations where the market leading console did not dominate third party support
  3. Of the 8 market leading consoles, only 2 (Wii and Nintendo DS) were online capable out of the box; and no system market leading system has had online functionality at launch.
  4. None of the market leading home consoles launched for more than $300 (US).
  5. While you could argue that the Playstation’s CD playback counts, only one system (the PS2) had significant multimedia functionality.
  6. Only one home console (the Wii) supported 4 controllers by default
  7. All 8 systems were more powerful than the previous market leading console
  8. None of the 8 market leading systems were the most powerful systems of their generation; and some (Wii, Gameboy Advance, and Playstation) could be argued to be not dramatically more impressive than the most advanced system of the previous generation. 
  9. None of the 8 market leading consoles had superior screen resolutions to their competition

Now, I’m certain other people have significant observations about the market leading systems.

While I fully admit that there will always be some wildcards, the picture I have started to see emerge indicates that you don’t want to release a system a year or more after the market leading console especially if you believe that processing power, media functionality or multiplayer game play will help your system sell well.