If the Wii never existed, what would the market look like?

[Avinash_Tyagi]

misterd said:

HappySqurriel said:

People who bought a Wii at $250 either own a PS3/XBox 360, or they wouldn't have considered a $400 gaming system ...

Rather than having news stories about how amazingly popular the Wii was this year, we would be discussing the death (and eventual collapse) of the home console market due to the slow sales of the PS3 and XBox 360.

Nonsense. The Wii proves the console market is still healthy. Historically, consoles sell well in the sub-$300 price range (with $200 being the sweet spot), and those that with higher price tags struggled at best, mocked for generations at worst (looking at you 3DO). What the struggles of the 360 and PS3* reflect is not the state of the market, but the arrogance of MS and Sony in designing and pricing consoles based on their own need to dominate the home entertainment market, rather than the gamers' need to play good games at reasonable prices.

 

*And I must emphaize this is much more of a struggle for the PS3; the 360 seems on pace to do far better than the XBox. 

 Without the Wii the console market would be dying as costs are exceeding revenue especially as games get more expensive to make and likely to go higher in the future, you can't sustain a money losing market