Will Wii offer more of what the Ps2 did or more of the DS?

[Avinash_Tyagi]

Picko said:

Avinash_Tyagi said:

europe-asia-hate-usa said:

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.

Actually look at the hardware shipments for NES and PS1 and you'll see why PS1 sold more than NES, it had nothing to do with making gaming cool or anything about expanding the market

PS Sony Mar-2007 0.00 / 21.59 0.00 / 40.78 0.00 / 40.12 0.00 / 102.49

NES Nintendo Mar-2007 0.00 / 19.23 0.00 / 34.00 0.00 / 8.56 0.00 / 61.79

 

Notice something? The shipments for Japan and NA are pretty much the same, the only difference being population growth but the numbers for the PAL regions are where you see the big gains for PS over NES, the reason isn't any expansion of the market demographics, but merely because Nintendo never tried to push the NES in the PAL regions to any great degree and it shows, while playstation was truly a global console

PS clearly expanded the market. What you have failed to consider is that the NES essentially had a monopoly, whereas the PS operated in a duopoly market. The industry grew far larger in all markets during the PS/N64 era, and it seems reasonable to suggest that a large reason for this was the PS.

The PS sold more units in both the Americas and Japan, whilst competing against the N64, which managed to sell approximately 33m units itself. Unambiguously, the PS drove a significant expansion of the market in the America's and Japan, in addition to the expansion that occurred in the PAL region.

 

 No I haven't forgotten that, what you've forgotten is multiple console ownership, population growth between 1985 and 1995, PS didn't expand the market it took advantage of the fact that it was pushed further into global markets than any console before it, the fact that N64 sold 30 odd million as well has nothing to do with an expanded market, just a larger market thanks to more global coverage and more people alive, and the fact that adjusted for inflation console prices were lower and more people could afford multiple consoles