makingmusic476 said:
ookaze said:
Well, I'll go a little off-topic, as the OP is definitely not sth that interests me.
What I've seen with the XB360 though, has far worse implications for the console industry.
At least until the end of 2007.
All of that follows is IMHO of course.
I've seen what I'd call a disastrous turn of event in this industry, which further persuade myself that a crash was coming, faster than we thought, and may still happen. And I put most grief on the XB360 strategy, though I'm not surprised it's a MS plot.
I see this gen, that the very basics of consoles' reason to be on the market are destroyed.
Consoles are simple, inexpensive and reliable means (remember all of this is IMHO) to play games.
XB360 just destroyed all of that.. The Playstation line started destroying the reliable line, but XB360 is finishing the work. And everybody in the industry is at a loss.
I mean, everything complicated about the PC has been brought to the console world.
Now there's no more heavy QA like we saw before, now there are patches. What's worse, is that a lot of people are pushing that as a good thing.
Before this gen, you could still buy a console on day launch, and be confident you got the best configuration for all the duration of the gen. Thus inexpensive, which goes hand in hand with reliable.
Now, this is destroyed completely by the XB360, so much that it's not even funny.
I'm talking about the abysmal reliability of course, but also about all these SKU. Looking at the XB360, something is very clear : if you bought it on launch day, you got shafted all kind of ways. You got the worse SKU and most break. Loud, scratching disk, RROD, no HDMI, no HD-DVD.
Now there are at least 6 different SKU, so the simple aspect of consoles world is destroyed too. And Sony is guilty of this too. All these SKU mean huge buyers confusion, and buyers confusion means less sale.
You can't just go say you'll buy a XB360 or a PS3. When faced by all these SKU, with some in shortages to boot, confusion will ensue. Especially since the ones in shortage must be the best ones ?
The reliability and number of SKU means the inexpensive part of consoles is destroyed too.
Hardcore gamers don't seem to understand that casual buyers, the biggest part of console buyers market, are not going to go back and buy a new SKU every time a new one is out. It's not a problem for them, but that's just dragging the console into a very niche market.
As for software, devs seems to be at a complete loss on what to do.
I see a lot of people say that XB360 moves a lot of software, so all the games will come to it.
The truth is that only some kind of games makes big sales, and most of the others just bomb hard, especially harder since they cost more to make than last gen.
So if all devs were to turn to this console, that's a great pan of the console games genre that will just disappear, with a crash following, as the market will just be too crowded in a few genres.
I'll stop there for now, just saying I feel a big shift taking place, and not for the best. A shift that will leave lots of casualties behind it, at least that's how I feel it.
As for what I see instead of feeling, for now, is a very healthy market, at least in money, but this is mainly pushed by the Wii and DS, which isn't reassuring.
Now, to go back on topic, after the holiday craze, the OP makes no sense to me. At least wait for the month to end before making conclusions. |
I agree100%. And what's funny about the ps3 is that the first one released, the 60gb, is still the best one today. |
