| dunno001 said: Hrm... sorry, but I don't think it's going to be. I'll start off by stating that each company has its dedicated fans that won't waffle away, but that's a relatively small group for each of them. I'll break down the systems, though- PS4: I've heard people ask why it costs so much, even recently, among some in the non-gaming public. Sony, in 1 gen, has gotten the Playstation brand to be considered an overpowered brand that is overpriced to boot. Continuing this trend will keep the cost prohibitively expensive. Conversely, if they drop the power, they'd be too dependant on Microsoft not going for power, lest they (Sony) lose their powerful edge to those who got it for being a powerful system. Plus, they've lost the benefit of being the leader from the prior gen, so those who get the system expecting it to take off will be less likely to consider it; this includes some 3rd party developers. And with less games being made, it'll just make getting first that much tougher. PSP2: The biggest problem I think Sony is having here, and is still having, is the portable part. Rather than making things better suited for a portable gaming experience, it's being touted as a mini-Playstation, with full games to take on the go. Sounds good on paper, but the technophiles would rather have the game on their huge setup, and a fair amount of the portable market needs to be able to play a bit and stop. The PSP is more competition than Nintendo has had to the portables in over 15 years. But until they understand that there is a different market, they won't have a chance at taking first here. If they do, it'll come closer than the PSP did, but it will be too late, and a fair bit of 3rd party support will already be in 3DS mode... |
This may be the case in the West, but I don't believe this will be the case in Japan. If anything, this gen has probably ensured third party support for Sony's future consoles.
Sony enjoyed the lion's share of Japanese third party support in the past thanks to the success of the ps1/2. Because those consoles enjoyed such incredible sales, every Japanese developer of note was working with that hardware, for the most part exclusively.
But they only bothered with those platforms because they were such far and away successes. When the ps3 arrived, its rocky start scared most publishers away. The developers that so vigorously supported the ps1/2 either made their games multiplat or straight up switched platforms. All this did was split up the incredibly centralized and unified market Japan once enjoyed. The hardcore gamers that were all buying games for ps1/2 were suddenly being drawn to three different consoles, whether it was for Monster Hunter 3, Tales of Vesperia, or Final Fantasy XIII. Yet despite this - despite the ps3's weak initial sales, the Wii's incredible install base, and a confused marketplace compared to last generation - the ps3 is still the clear and away winner in third party sales. The sales of Tales of Vesperia and Sengoku Basara 3 show this to be the case.
I don't think Japanese publishers will be so quick to take risks on non-Sony consoles next-gen, unless they're aiming for the Western market, in which case they'll simply make their titles multiplat.
I agree with much of what you've said about the PSP2. I actually made a thread about that awhile back. The PSP suffers from having too many console ports and too few legitimite handheld games. I'm a PSP owner, and I'd much rather play God of War II or God of War III with a normal controller on my tv than play Chains of Olympus on that tiny little screen with one analog nub. On the other hand, Nintendo really gets handheld gaming, and even when they bring a console franchise to their handheld, they rework such games heavily to better fit the handheld's capabilities. The Legend of Zelda is probably the most notable example here.
