Alby_da_Wolf said:
Yes, a possible sales rise will be short-lived, but the effect of delaying the decline will last longer, extending their life. Wii is already cheap, so there's not much anymore that a price cut can do for it, particularly if there are too few new games and too few 1st party classic budget priced, but PS3 is still quite expensive, and XB360 too, if bundled with kinect and/or if the buyer wants a version with a HDD, price drops can still expand their audiences a little bit if games keep on coming. We won't see PS2 or DS numbers, but they can both reach a 9 years or more market life and 90M or more lifetime sales. And both XB360 and PS3 will need another price drop after the next one to have a chance to sell more than 100M lifetime, they'll both need to unlock another part of their potrential market. Also, to avoid possible cannibalizing damages to PS4 and XB720, current gen consoles will have to be positioned very far away from them on the market, both in price and HW power, and on this issue a Q4 2013 or later launch should help MS and Sony a lot. |
About the extending the life cycle... i really don`t know about that.
The thing about price helping expand audiences is that although we have seen that in past generations, this generation has been abnormal, in a way. By this time everyone would have new consoles on the market and the last generation would be 99$ or less on the market. But what we see is that none of that happen and isn`t even close to happen. So the question is: that normal 99$ market is still there and how big is it?
Prices have remained so high for so long that there`s a risk that people just gave up on waiting (a fraction of it, that is). I think Wii, this holiday season will be the proof of how big that market is. Last holiday Wii sold very well but Nintendo probably has Walmart to thank with it`s 99$ promotion. This year pretty much everyone will be using that price if there`s no official price cut.
The same goes for the HD twins who saw not only discounts but packed in games to go with the discount. If all we see this year, in official price drops ends up being a repetition of last year´s holiday prices', i don`t really know how lasting or how broading can the effects of a price cut be seeing as a portion of that market was eaten last year.
A 99$ price tag doesn`t garantee "everlasting" sales even if at a slow pace.
What i have been seeing since the N64 days is that only PS1 and PS2 have seen support by retailers mainly because there were a lot of games available and they were the market choices of their generation. And if you remember only one of each generation survived at 99$; the other two ended their lifes shortly after their successors arrived on the market.
In this generation, Wii is the market choice and will also be 99$ very soon, i think, and that might just be it`s strong point: establishing itself soon as the cheap console of choice at 99$ (or less) which might even help sustain a good software market for a few years seeing as developing for Wii isn`t expensive.
Of course, this is what i believe it will happen.
Xbox 360 and PS3 at 99$ will eat into each other`s market... as usual.
That`s why i believe they will both be short lived at 99$. That and the fact that none of them dominate both markets: US belongs to Xbox 360 and Europe to PS3. While in the time of PS1 and PS2, both consoles dominated both markets which helped sales after their respective successors arrived. In a way there were more people to sell them to.
The market hasn`t seen two consoles, who go after the same market, be alive at the same time after they become old-gen... at least i can`t remember a case of that happening.
