By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Stever89 on 28 January 2008
Edit Thread
fkusumot said:
Stever89 said:

My interest is centered around Japan because of it's decreasing market size in the console market, and I was thinking it might be interesting to see if the handheld market has increased (by more, less, or the same amount as the console market has shrunk) to see if there's any basis for a "handheld x can take away sales from console y" arguement. Which is a valid arguement, but without much data to support it. And that's where I come in. ;)


Oh, so something like "PS3 is doomed because of PSP/DS sales" type of argument? Is the demographic argument going to come into play also?


I can't tell if you are joking or not, but I'll answer the question either way. No. Since handhelds obviously don't equal consoles, you dont know which consoles someone would have bought if they hadn't bought a handheld, which works both ways. Just because handhelds don't equal consoles, doesn't mean they can't replace them, especially for those who can't afford even the $250 Wii.

Also, I don't cover demographic, because sales trends really should take that into account, as long as when you say demographics, you mean "hardcore, casual, etc." Sales trends should take that into account, same as how sales trends should take into account price cuts and major releases of games. Over a few months of sales trends, obviously price cuts and such would make a big factor, but over a course of a year or more, they kind of get blended in.

See PS2 sales over 350 weeks. Besides the christmas boosts (which sales trends would take into account as well), the non-holiday sales are very flat over the course of a year and many years. The difference between PS2 Total Others between launch and it's first christmas and the last non holiday period on the graph is a mere 10 to 15 thousand (the average for the first time period being approx 75,000, and the average for the last being around approx 60,000).

Lastly, the point of these analysis are hardly to say that any one console will "win" or "lose." Obviously it may look that way when I have sales trends for the Wii over the next 5 years closely tracking the PS2, and ending it's 6th year at 106 million compared to 100 million for the PS2 at the end of the 6th year, but that's only because I'm simply applying past trends to current sales. But these anaylsis are simply to show how past trends can be used to predict future sales. Right now there's not quite data on the PS3 and Wii to say how each will do in the long run, so it's still very open to interpretation and discussion, which is why it pops up so often here on the forums. I don't really want this to become another PS3 will/will not beat the Wii, etc, etc. That wasn't the point of this thread.

And like I said, I can't even tell if you are being sarcastic, and yet I wrote half a book in reply...