europe-asia-hate-usa on 24 December 2007
| Garcian Smith said: Seconding/thirding/whatevering "neither." The closest analogy to the Wii is the PS1, but even that doesn't afford a full comparison. Like the PS1, the Wii is being, and will be, deluged by low-quality shovelware aimed at the class of people buying the system. It ended up taking the PS1 a couple of years to work up a decent library of games, because few developers trusted in its longevity. Once it proved to be a phenomenon, though, it picked up the vast majority of major franchises and paved the way for the PS2's near-monopoly on third-party exclusives. Now, what the Wii has that the PS1 didn't have is one of the best software development and publishing houses in the world backing it from the outset. As a result, while it took the PS1 a year or two before it found its first true "killer aps," Nintendo already has several: Wii Sports, Wii Play, Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Party, and (in Japan and soon worldwide) Wii Fit. These titles are generating a userbase which will allow for a handful of millions-selling casual titles, a whole bunch of junky shovelware, and an eventually-huge library of more "gamery" titles." Contrast that with the DS (which has a good offering of casual and party games, but little else) and the PS1 (which wasn't able to expand the market nearly as much as the Wii). |
I agree with everything except the last line.
The PS is the single console that has expanded the market in never before seen proportions. It sold 40 million more than the NES, the second biggest selling console at the time, made console gaming mainstreal and "cool" not just a nerd kids passtime. Once the Wii outsells the PS2 we can talk about market expansion but til then it has only shifted the market.
