HappySqurriel said: For consumers the Wii is a dramatically less expensive piece of hardware, with less expensive games and is (overall) a very affordable. For developers the Wii is dramatically less expensive to develop games for which means for the same investment in gaming you can produce more games. The overall result of this means that once the Wii gets a solid lead it will become nearly impossible to take it away from it; why would a gamer spend $100 or $200 more for a system which has less games, and why would a developer spend 2 to 4 times as much to develop a game for a system that has a smaller userbase. |
Exactly.
It's funny how we got to this point in time, in regards to the video game market.
The performance of the Gamecube caused game publishers to just not care about any future Nintendo home game systems. And the performance of the PS2 caused game publishers to think that the PS3 would repeat the success of the PS2.
Of course, no one expected the Wii-mote, the price of the PS3 and the cost of developing software for the Wii and PS3. Nintendo did just about everything to come back on top. Sony did just about everything to throw away their gaming business.
My prediction is that the PS3 will die a slow death-- I know that still sounds impossible to say but the Wii has not lost any momentum since its launch, and is in fact gaining more momentum as AAA titles appear on the console. Game publishers are going to develop on the console with the hype, momentum and installed base. Gamers will buy the console that has the hype, momentum and AAA titles. Its a self-fullfiling prophecy. The gamers bring the publishers. The publishers bring the gamers. And the gamers and publishers are both leaving the PS3. The PS3 will be this generation's Gamecube-- or even worse because its so expensive and time consuming to develop for the PS3. At least the Gamecube was cheaper and easier to develop games for.
The Wii has started a loop that is not going to get stopped-- no hype, just reality. Sony made too many tactical mistakes. Gamers want it cheap and they want something new to the gaming experience. The PS3 is too expensive and it has the same-old, same-old.
