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scottie on 17 June 2011
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postofficebuddy said:
scottie said:
Marks said:
Well it's already been almost 5 years, so saying it'll last 5 more years isn't unreasonable. It's got at least a couple more years till the PS4 comes, and it'll last a couple years alongside the PS4 before it dies. Just like the PS2 is doing right now.


Apart from the name, and the name of the manufacturer, name a similarity between PS2 and PS3


Actually you're right, there is a pretty big difference between them. Here's one of the bigger differences. PS2 peaked in its 2nd year, PS3 is peaking in its 5th.

http://www.vgchartz.com/hw_annual_summary.php

 

I'm not sure how you're working things out, are you taking the launch date as the start of the year, as opposed to looking at calendar years?

 

Anyway, going off calendar years, the PS2 peaked in its 3rd year, and the PS3 peaked in its 5th year and has started the downwards slope

http://www.vgchartz.com/hwtable.php?cons%5B%5D=PS3&reg%5B%5D=Total&start=40552&end=40706

http://www.vgchartz.com/hwtable.php?cons%5B%5D=PS3&reg%5B%5D=Total&start=40188&end=40342

 

So quibbling aside, this is a much better argument than all others in this thread. However, I still think that it is incorrect. The main reason for this is that it looks at the trends in the way a statistician would, whilst ignoring the real world effects behind them. 

 

As an example, the 3DS had a mediocre launch lineup, but has an incredible lineup for the last few months of the year. If, on December 25th, 2011, we take a look at 3DS sales compared to other consoles using just analysis of trends, the inescapable conclusion will be that the 3DS 's sales started off bad, but dramatically increased over time. This method of analysis would overestimate the end of life sales of the 3DS, because the effect noted is caused by the release of games.

 

In order to predict a console's sales, you must predict it's games. The PS3 had shit sales for the first little while because it has few popular games. It took longer for the PS3 to get good games, due to a combination of longer development times, and a bit of disorganisation of 1st parties. This is why the PS3 peaked later. Not because it's 5th year was particularly strong, but because it's 3rd year was particularly weak.

 

If the PS3 is to last as long as the PS2, it needs the same support from third parties after the start of the next generation that the PS2 enjoyed. I doubt this will happen, because the PS3's userbase is so much lower, and it is much more difficicult to program for than its competition.