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Dr.Grass on 22 December 2011
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TWRoO said:

True, I just wanted to say Sega always loses (something I hadn't actually noticed before, possibly because the MegaDrive beat the SNES in PAL regions)

I would say up until the Wii, a big factor in the weak console winning scenario is that they usually come out before any major competitors (bar Sega) in the generation. NES brought video gaming back after the crash, and thus it became popular before most of it's competitors even launched (and they will naturally be more advanced tech if they release 2-3  years later) the SNES gen once again disproves me as the TG16 and MegaDrive released first, but one of them is a Sega console, even if it was the best one, and it was still a much more difficult win for SNES considering the market share the NES had (which was higher than even the PS2 managed). PS1 also released after everything but N64, but Amiga, 3DO and Atari Jaguar were not exactly competition, so they only had to crush Sega (albeit with some rather dodgy price altering) and therefore Sony managed to get a foothold in the market for over a year before Nintendo. And finally PS2 once again just had Sega to crush, and once again over a year before Nintendo came and MS muscled their way in.

Yes I know there are still other factors, but many of them would have been less effective without the earlier release. For example PS1 rapid price reduction for the USA launch, plus Sony's worldwide position in the walkman electronics market might not have helped enough had the N64 launched at the same time.

This generation would have been quite different had launches been moved around.... I think had the X360 not had a year headstart, it wouldn't have been able to compete against the PS3 because it wouldn't have got the initial support, but this would not mean the PS3 wins, instead I think it would have favoured the Wii more, as Wii could have crushed the PS3 when they weren't focusing on battling X360 for supreme HD console (I think Sony would have been fine with a victory over X360, and assumed their "future-proof" console would outlast the Wii, perhaps selling on more of a PS1 curve (slow at first).
Alternately, had the PS3 released 1 year earlier than Wii60, I think it would have been a much closer battle between PS3 and Wii, Wii probably catching up early on, but probably ultimately falling behind like it is now (but X360 would probably have struggled to maybe 30 million)
And if Wii had released early, then there would have been at least a dozen third party games in development with effort put into them before the PS360 launch, and it's rise would probably be even more meteoric.

Now I am fully satisfied