I am not sure it has been rediculously hard to predict this generation for the 360 at least. To predict you needed to throw out some misconceptions mostly around the PS3 being able to crush the competition (The price should of helped here), you needed to believe in the longer term plan (Most didnt and were predicting we would already be using the next box) and you needed to understand that the 360 could evolve during its lifecycle (Social, media, platform and kinect as examples) again most did not grasp this design change.
Most people predicting the low end figures even at that time had the evidence to suggest that this was never going to happy. I think most others simply decided it would have dissapeared after 5 or 7 years and lastly a fair number focused on how previous generations declined whilst ignoring the fact that both the PS3 and 360 declared 10 year cycles (Maybe it will not make it to 10 but it certainly is going guns still). However I think the biggest thing they ignored is the internet and how it affected the platforms ability to evolve, this has given them the ability to keep the systems fresh certainly it has been the case for the PS3 and 360.
I was using the simexchange site a lot around this time and the short sightedness was frankly pretty scary, so no real suprise to find it happening here as well.
Hindsight of course is a wonderful thing.
W.L.B.B. Member, Portsmouth Branch.
(Welsh(Folk) Living Beyond Borders)
Winner of the 2010 VGC Holiday sales prediction thread with an Average 1.6% accuracy rating. I am indeed awesome.
Kinect as seen by PS3 owners ...if you can pick at it ...post it ... Did I mention the 360 was black and Shinny? Keeping Sigs obscure since 2007, Passed by the Sig police 5July10.
