| ChronotriggerJM said: @Mad, yeah you have a bunch of great reasons :P I like the "Man space" XD friggin awesome. Do you really think the PS3 won't catch the 360 though? Even with the other markets factored in? |
Dude, the Man Space ain't NO JOKE. If you ever come to New Mexico, holla and you will see for yourself. It's a lil boy's dream. My 4-year-old loves hanging out and watching movies and playing games at 10.'
On topic, I am 34 years old and can remember the days of Pong, Colecovision, the 2600, Intellivision and the like. Folks back then said Atari was the king - and they were - but look at them now. Hurting financially, with a landfill not too far from here filled with E.T. games. Nintendo came on the scene and made the rest bow down. And Sega tried their best to seat them, but couldn't. Then, Sony hit and took the wheel from Ninny.
I can give you 4-5 reasons why Sony won't win this generation - in laymen's terms.
1. The price point. Sure, as far as value, the PS3 is a bargain. You can choose between a regular BR player vs. the Sony PS3. Oh, it's the best BR player money can buy. But what I see it is - Sony sacrificing the gaming division to win the BR market. Why? Sony will make a lot more on BR software than gaming. They can mass produce the movies - sell them and keep making them. Why settle for 250K a week games when you can have even more market share with BR?
2. The lack of exclusives. This is really the main reason the PS3 won't rebound. GTA, GT and FF were huge franchises for the PS brand. And having GTA on the PS2 really buried the Xbox. Had the PS3 secured GTA, it would be a repeat. However, they didn't - and the extra content is coming for the game. Plus, several PS3 only games are heading to the 360. Assassin's Creed - Virtua Fighters 5 - Devil May Cry - Mercenaries - and others - are a few games that were exclusives. You know what happened? Market share - and the 360 was easier to design for and would give them the kind of return the companies need. It costs money to develop games - it cost money to pay the bills to keep computers up and running and a company running. They will gladly include 360 in the mix because they know from Halo 3, COD4 and GH III numbers that the system has the base and it's a great chance they will buy their wares.
3. The late start. Had the PS3 been released alongside the 360, we wouldn't be having this convo. The 360 made it to the market first - and gave devs a year to get the kinks worked out of the system. Now, the devs know the 360 like the back of their hand, can develop killer games for the system and it will be much, much easier to design for than the PS3 and its Cell. Had they come out at the same time, the PS3 would have rode the street cred wave to success. Now, the PS3 is begging for devs.
4. The year of changes. I have stated this over and over - the deleted skus (20gb and 60gb), the price cuts, the new models - all within a year. I can't think of any products, except iPods, that change that often in a year. Sony was looking for a winning combo and falling short. Any other product doing that would have the board of directors calling for its head. And yet, MS, even though it wasn't making a profit on the 360 yet, didn't cut prices for nearly 2 years. The Wii won't have to cut price unless it starts losing to MS when they go lower than the Wii.
5. Street cred. Sony and the PS3 were living off the PS2's success. They were sure 5-6 million folks would buy the PS3 because of it being a PS system. And yet - some are buying it, but not as many as Sony wants. They thought "Hay, here's a new PS" and folks would line up and buy it. Heck, even the folks at Game Informer said it would be like the 360 and impossible to find for months, whereas the Wii will be easily available. Wow - what a difference a year makes! Sony was so intoxicated by the weed they said 'Hay, let's release our console a year later' and ride the tide to easy street. Not so. The 360 is proving brand name has little to do with success this gen. Even with RROD, the disk scratching and the like, the 360 is still selling. The PS3 needed a deeper price cut just to stay in the race. And it's still not profitable.
