| Sevengen said: @padib ..... yes, certainly there's some gaps in there and examples where lesser consoles kept their momentum against a technically superior rival but, generally speaking, which is exactly what I was doing, the game industry and the technology that supports it keep moving forward and we as gamers follow right along. We move with it... I stated that earlier in an overall sense, just sort of a wide-ranging comment devoid of specifics. Play4fun, for some reason, felt the need to try and correct me and do so in a rather condescending way, which I 'aint having. There's roughly 40 years of home console history that more than support my statement. Is there a significant number of people still rocking the Fairchild F, the Magnavox Odyssesy II or the Bally Astrocade? Early adopters and reluctant bystanders notwithstanding, the most powerful console of any generation, which normally serves as the most innovative, moves the entire industry forward. Eventually everybody comes around. Everybody gravitates towards that. Whether it's that console individually, or a competitor's release that was influenced by it. The 3DO for example, the first dedicated cd console to release, failed miserably, but paved the way for all the optical-based machines that followed. The original Xbox.... and 24 million is a huge number by the way, especially considering MS was a first time player and had to overcome an immense amount of negativity ascribed to it by resentful tech-heads and bandwagon haters, pushed the industry into harddrive equipped, connected, HD gaming.... Are there examples where the most powerful console didnt' succeed against it's rivals?.... sure. Are there examples where the most powerful console didn't have an impact/influence on the industry as a whole and move it forward? ...None. |
Which is why the NES, SNES, Gameboy, Playstation, PS2, Nintendo DS, and Wii all struggled to sell systems and games in the face of their more powerful competition?
There has only been 2 switches in who produced the market leading console from one generation to another, and there has only been two particularly close generations. The first switch was people moving from Nintendo with the SNES to Sony with the Playstation, and a large portion of that success was that Sony was able to release their console earlier than the N64; and even though the N64 was dramatically more powerful the lead Sony built helped them dominate in that generation. The second time the market leader has switched was people moving from the PS2 to the Wii, and this was driven by the higher price-tag of the PS3 driving away gamers while the more unique Wii attracted a larger userbase. The two close generations were the SNES/Genesis and this current generation, and in both cases strong competition entered the market (Genesis and XBox 360) prior to the successor of the market leading console being released.
As anyone can see, the factors which have been demonstrated to be the most important to becoming the dominant console are releasing ahead of the competition, being the successor to a dominant console, and having an attractive price. The strategy that many seem to be claiming that Sony and Microsoft should/will follow, releasing a system 12 to 18 months later probably at a higher price to be more technically advanced, has an awful track-record of producing the most one-sided generations due to the poor sales performance of these systems.
The claim that "most gamers aren't ready" is always true, as most gamers will not buy into a system until it is (at least) a couple years old. You convert these gamers to a new generation by showing them what is possible and they will buy in when the library becomes substantial enough and the system falls to a reasonable price. Giving Nintendo a long lead-time only translates to them hitting this price/library point earlier, and potentially before you've even released your system.
