Sal.Paradise on 13 April 2012
| binary solo said: Where did the adjustments happen, because 2011 sales look very similar today compared to when I last checked them? I thought as at 1 Jan 2011 the VGC LTD sales totals looked pretty reasonable in comparison to each company's LTD shipped totals. Personally I hope next gen sees all 3 consoles taking around 33% market share. If the home console market is around say 240 million then I think each of the big 3 getting around 80 million in sales is fantastic. I think Nintendo fans are fortunate that PS3 and 360 is dogging Wii's tail more than any 2nd and 3rd placed consoles have in past generations. It's put Nintendo on notice that it can't take its market for granted, a lesson hard learned by Nintendo and Sony in the past. MS has hopefully learned that first to market is only a winning advantage if you have a durable product, who knows how much RROD hurt 360's fortunes, but I think MS squandered much of its 1 year head start because of RROD. It doesn't really matter what the final install base is. The fact of the matter is Sony managed to get PS3 to take off and be a globally competitive console just in time for it to have a significant role to play in the generation. A year later and it would have been too late. A year sooner would have been better obviously. Who knows how much 2008's financial meltdown affected PS3 and Sony, being the most expensive console on the market at the time. Is it coincidence that Sony was profitable up to 2008 and then has had losses every year since? I think the GFC was a big problem for Sony and they failed to move with the times? PS3 was coming close to making inroads into the console market in 2008, it wasn't timely for them to do much with PS3, but with everything else they make and do there should have been re-evaluations of how their brand could stay relevant in a world where wallets were being shut. Will PS3 end up out-selling / out-shipping 360? Yes, especially if PS3 stays on the market for the same amount of time as 360, but probably it will even being on the market for 1 year less than 360. 360 will widen the gap again at Christmas, where Kinect moves a lot of consoles and USA's importance to console sales has its biggest effect. It's a significant achievement for PS3 to have started where it did, and eventually end up reigning in that lead, particularly after it ballooned to 9 million, and for it to be outselling Wii more weeks than not for the last year, and certainly all the way up to the launch of the Wii U (or until Wii's price drops to clearance sales levels). Well done Wii for rehabilitating Nintendo in the home console market. Well done 360 for doubling (soon enough) the sales of Xbox. Well done PS3 for being a qualified success, staying relevant and giving PS4 a fighting chance. Well done gamers, it's been a great generation for us. |
Haha.
