Media Create Week Ending March 5th

[M.U.G.E.N]

jarrod said:

M.U.G.E.N said:

again not sure why you are stuck in this delusion where there are no seperation of markets. It's a simple idea really. Going by your 'concept' even the WW market home console leader is DS! lol

Listen, people still buy home consoles in Japan right? Just because one item gains traction and popularity doesn't mean people see both products the 'same'. They ARE different if not we won't have anyone buying consoles in JP anymore.

and just wow DS has been considered de-facto successor to ps2? who in the hell said that? or is that also one of your own ideas?

As long as the two products 'target' different audiences, and until there is at least ONE person buying consoles weekly, there will be no 'combining' of markets. It's a simple concept in marketing and markets. Just because one product sells shit load doesn't mean it's the market leader for every product even remotely close to it. It IS about growing and shrinking markets. Both markets have 'differen't priorities they look for in gaming. The one approaching this with a rather odd approach here is you I'm sorry to say.

and btw coming to think of it. If I use your logic here then smart phones are the market leader now!!!!! Both handheld AND home consoles!!!! :P pleasssseee spare me

Why are you applying a worldwide lens to this?  We're talking about Japan... this is exactly the problem with your viewpoint, you can't seem to help but apply a worldview to this that frankly bears no meaning.  The Japanese don't care what Americans or Europeans think about the console/handheld dynamic and apply that to their own market, so why are you?

People do still buy home consoles in Japan, but most people don't buy them for the same reasons they (largely) bought their Famicoms or PlayStation 2s. The needs previous consoles filled are largely filled by DS and PSP today.  A lot of Wii were sold to new or lapsed markets (Wii Fit, NSMB, etc), a lot of PS3s were sold to technophiles (Blu-ray, Torne, etc), but the majority of the "gaming" market, the people who had a PS2, instead this generation bought a handheld as their primary gaming platform.  

That's I think what really at issue... if you want to segregate down, then you should do it by "prime" and "supplementary" machines.  Game Boy, despite having an absolutely gigantic userbase, larger even than any PlayStation ever has by a significant degree, was never considered the prime gaming platform, or the market leader.  And there are reasons for that, in terms of what sort of needs it filled, it's capabilities, the sorts of games it had.  That continued to GBA, which usually even outsold PS2 on a weekly basis in Japan.  DS though, turned this dynamic on it's head, both by attracting new gamers and servicing established ones... and it was successful at it to such a degree it actually filled the void left by PS2 to become the dominant games platform in way GB or GBA never would've been able to.  Over time, DS literally did target the same market FC/SFC/PS1/PS2 did in Japan, it had similar priorities and similar influence.  It's the market leader in every sense of the word.

I'd also argue that (part) of the Wii problem and decline in Japan in exactly that it didn't do enough to really differentiate itself.  It very much feels redundant overall next to DS/PSP in terms of reach or audience (all home consoles do, they've effectively been replaced)... now part of that's due to DS basically eating the sort of games market that went for home consoles in the past, and part of that is also probably due to Wii not pushing hard enough to try and find new consumers to replace that.  But at the end of the day, the result's the same... most Japanese gamers simply graduated from PS2 to DS, rather than PS2 to Wii (or PS2 to PS3 for that matter).  In the Japanese psyche, it's not about handheld vs console, it's about which platform gives them what they want.  For most, PS2 gave them what they wanted, then DS gave them what they wanted.... that's why they're the market leaders.  Simple really.

wow :D where you start and where you end with your arguments.

you say handhelds are 'blurring' markets because they sell way more, basically. Which is utter nonsense.

Blurring doesn't mean merging or being viewed the same. It means blurring. A lot of devices blurr the lines all the time, doesn't mean anything. smart phones are blurring a lot of lines too, doesn't mean anything. they are not the market leader for gaming as a whole by any means.

Market leader isn't a philosophical question or anything. What sold the most in it's relative market = market leader.You make something simple so complex in your mind. It really isn't.

What's this nonsense about ds gave what they wanted and ps2 gave what they wanted? PS3 also gives what they wanted! lol great games, great hardware, great accessories like torne etc. People won't by them if they didn't 'want' them as you say.

and why are you going on as if you are an expert of Japanese Psyche? :P didn't know you were such an expert on the matter. What other research have you seen on the subject saying this is how they view this and that? would LOVE to see them

again, simple concept for ya, may it be Japan, may it be Mongolia, May it be mars....one products decline in poularity doesn't mean merging of markets. that's rather false and misguided claim to make. the day handhelds can do everything consoles can, and until the day Japanese don't buy home consoles for what they offer, there will be different markets with different target audiences. It's not 'Japanese' logic, it's logic.

man feel like this is never gonna end. Just because wii is struggling in hw and sw sales in Japan doesn't change the fact that it's the market leader for home consoles. It just shows that unlike the ps2 before it, it's a rather weak leader.