The PS3 has already caught up to and passed the 360 sales!

[ZenfoldorVGI]

rccsetzer said:

ZenfoldorVGI said:

M.U.G.E.N said:

360 fans and anti sony force will disagree and will ignore than year head start

'shrugs' can't really do anything about it

Bullshit. Actual sales are not hypothetical. Sony chose to release their console a year later than the 360, and that has had benefits and penalties. It was a strategy decision, NOBODY is ignoring it, it's a fact. It's also a fact that the strategy has landed their playstation brand in the shitter compared to last generation, and their console in 3rd place. Stop making excuses for a huge company that made a bad decision, they aren't your friend.

Next gen, they don't start with the brand name superiority crutch. Their brand is arguably in the worst position of the three, and if they launch late, they're screwed. Excuses or not.

Saying that "360 fans" anything is already starting your statement off with a biased tent, and imply that anyone ignores the "headstart" is an insult to everyone on this forum. It wasn't a headstart, it was a business strategy that was deliberably planned by both Microsoft and Sony, and one benefitted and one did not. The playstation brand has suffered as a result, that is inarguable, and we arne't comparing speculative "what if" numbers here, because we have the real numbers, fyi.

Must we consider from your post that USA = World? Sorry, but it appears you are lacking a systemic vision.

I don't lack anything of the sort. Instead, I think the point is irrelivant. I was speaking of the overall.

How important is America, btw, in terms of game sales and developers? I see tons of Japanese developers spending tens of millions of dollars and actually changing the core mechanics of their long standing series' trying to appeal to American audiences, like Final Fantasy...but I don't think Mass Effect is going turn based anytime soon?

Fact is, the Japanese gaming market is declining this generation, and the American market has come to power as the dominant marketplace in the world. Not only does this market garner tremendous game and console sales for a single country, it also influences developers to a greater extent than ever before. Not to mention the videogame franchises related to North America. It is arguably much harder to break into the traditionalist Japanese market and have a breakout hit, than it is to create a multimillion selling franchise in America, because we buy more shit, and we are not traditionalists on the whole.

Just look at the influence the American marketplace can bring things like The Wii. Oprah is not from Turkey.

My point is, yes, most of MS's success and Sony's failure has taken place in the Americas this generation. The paradigm shift has started here. However, the United States is now the healthiest market and argubly the most influential country for modern console and PC gaming, and that is a major reason for the rise of the Xbox and the fall of the Playstation. Where are your biggest videogame companies developing product? Who are they trying to appeal to? Which games sell the most copies? The influence of the American marketplace is most keenly felt in Others, which is to say mostly everywhere in the world but the Americas and Japan.

Furthermore, the Playstation brand has not just taken its hits from the Xbox. Even in Japan, the Wii has taken up a large share of the gaming market from the Playstation brand as well as in others and America. That is where your argument fails. If I was JUST talking about HD consoles, then you might be able to marginalize this generations failure of the playstation brand to America, but the Wii exists, and has caused the Playstation pie to shrink to miniscule proportions(compared to last gen) even in countries who historically would be downright daffy about the brand.

In any case, nitpicking country to country is just another excuse. If you are trying to pretend that the Playstation brand is in anywhere nearly as good of a position as it was before the Playstation 3 launched, then you are insulting my intelligence. Sony went from utter, undeniable, DS like dominance of the entire industry to last place within the span of a year, and years later they have still not recovered in any area, and they probably never well. They lost their advantage, and it would take a miracle to regain such a hughly dominant brand name in today's industry climate. The cards have all been played.