osed125 said:
That isn't necessarily true, the 360 had a 1 year head start and the Wii still won this gen. |
A year head start may not determine the outcome of the "console war" but it certainly is a huge advantage ...
Taking the Wii out of consideration for a moment, consider what would have happened between the PS3 and XBox 360 had the PS3 launched a year earlier (all else being equal). Essentially the mistakes that Sony made that Microsoft capitalized on (high initial price tag and difficulty to develop for) would have been addressed around the time the XBox 360 had launched, and the problems that Microsoft corrected before the PS3 launched (poor launch availability and the RROD) would have easily been capitalized on by Sony.
To put numbers to the effect, Sony would have probably had an 8 million unit lead and every year there would be 2 million PS3 systems sold at the expense of the XBox 360. The result would be (something like) the PS3 having sold 85 to 90 million units today while the XBox 360 would have only sold 45 to 50 million units.
While it is difficult to really predict these things, between the Wii U being (reasonably) affordable, having what looks like a pretty strong launch library, being (likely) a very high build quality that probably won't be prone to over-heating, and being conventional enough technology that it can probably be manufactured in high volumes, it does seem like the Wii U will have a fairly clean launch; and be free of any serious errors. In my opinion this puts massive pressure on Sony and Microsoft to not screw up because any mistake they make could put them very far behind.
