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HappySqurriel on 17 September 2012
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osed125 said:
HappySqurriel said:

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.

 

I agreed that Sony is in a really bad situation, but I don't think MS is.

MS can easily afford a big loss with the next Xbox which means they can make a powerful system with a more advance Kinect, which could potentially mean the new xbox could become the next big system for the casuals (the Kinect may not have sold like the Wii but the casuals still loved that thing), there's also the fact that MS seems to be focusing more on media entertainment, something that the casuals also loved. If MS plays the cards right they could attract both the casuals and the hardcores.

Sony on the other hand is in big trouble. With all of their recent financial losses they can't afford a big loss in hardware without taking a major risk, that means no powerful machine this time. The problem here it's that Sony made themselves a staple by being "the most powerful console this gen" something that attracted a lot of people, so if they make a console that's just slightly more powerful than the Wii U then Sony could potentially lose all those people who buy the most powerful console (this may seemed weird, but I know a lot of people who bought a PS3 over the 360 because the PS3 is more powerful, not knowing anything about the Sony's first party games).

 


This really isn't about being in a good position though ...

Almost all systems have problems when launched, and it usually takes 6 to 18 months to correct these problems. The system that launches first has the opportunity to correct their own problems before the competition enters the market, build up a large userbase, and then benefit from any mistakes their competition makes.

Microsoft can be in a great financial position and still screw up. In theory they could be designing a highly powerful system (like the XBox 360 was) with a controller that has a touch-screen (like Wii U) and has built in Kinect. While this looks great on paper, the system would need to retail for $500 even with Microsoft losing a significant amount per system sold and sales would be slow because of this. A completely different mistake they could make would be producing a system that was modestly more powerful than the XBox 360 with built in Kinect and, while the system would be very affordable, it may not produce enough of a benefit over what the XBox 360 already is to convince people to buy into it. Finally, Microsoft could produce an overall very appealing piece of hardware and sell it for a reasonable price but may not have given third party publishers enough notice to compensate for longer development cycles and the system could have a massive gaming drought for the first 12 to 18 months.

What I'm trying to say is there are hundreds of mistakes Microsoft can make that are completely unrelated to their current financial position ...