Media Create Week Ending March 5th

[M.U.G.E.N]

RolStoppable said:

M.U.G.E.N said:

:P it's surprising me how anyone can dispute something simple as market leader...it's a pretty clear cut situation this gen

It's anything but clear cut this gen. The previous generations saw dominant market leaders, they had the most sales and got the most games, including the majority of big games of the respective generation. NES, SNES, PS1 and PS2 all share these similarities, but this trend was bucked this generation. Not only is the Wii less dominant in overall sales and marketshare, but it's also seeing worse third party support than the almost irrelevant Xbox 360.

The previous generations also had a clear distinction between home console and handheld gaming, something (as jarrod has repeatedly pointed out) that doesn't and won't hold up from the seventh generation onwards. SNES vs. GB (color vs. no color and smaller scope for games), PS1 vs. GBC (3D vs. 2D), PS2 vs. GBA (again 3D vs. 2D). The lines got blurred this gen with handhelds being capable of 3D graphics and it's obvious that the Japanese don't see home console gaming as first class entertainment and handheld gaming as second rate gaming like large parts of the West do. In general they view them as equal and if anything, handheld gaming is seen as the superior form, because you can take the system with you.

What this means is that the only justifications for home consoles in Japan at this point are:

1) Offer something that can't be done on a handheld. In previous gens home consoles by default had this advantage due to technological reasons as it wasn't possible to build affordable and long lasting portable systems that could play similar games to the home consoles of any given time. That automatical advantage is gone now. If the Wii didn't have games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit which absolutely can't be done on a handheld, then the total home console sales this gen in Japan would be much worse (and they are already bad to begin with).

2) Make big games exclusive to home consoles. That's the main reason how the PS3 got to where it is today. If sequels to all the big series of the PS2 era had launched simultaneously on PS3 and PSP, you can be sure that PS3 sales would be much worse than they are today.

If point 1 is well executed, then home consoles will have a future in Japan. Point 2 is troublesome, because publishers have to ask themselves why they should bother to keep home consoles alive with Japanese gamers being very open to playing pretty much anything on portable systems which also have the benefit of lower development costs for their games.

If the home consoles of the eighth generation fail on point 1 and third party publishers continue to shift more towards handhelds, then we will be definitely looking at a Japanese marketplace where all home consoles combined fail to sell more than 15 million units in their lifetime. They possibly won't even make 10 million should this happen.

I'll give you that. it definitely isn't as clear cut as last gens for sure. I agree

You're two points made are also good. As of now both points stand true yeah? I mentioned the first point but your second point about game support is good as well. Home consoles are getting some good titles that can be experienced only on them. It seems to be continuing too, even with some big name titles coming up such as FFvs, FF 13-2, Zelda and DQ./ And the it's obvious without such a thing the market will almost die out 100%. That hasn't happened and I doubt it will happen next gen either.

I expect in the 8th gen the home consoles to offer even more than now comfortably, I wouldn't be too worried about that. Game support, well it's something we will see with time I guess.