TheBardsSong said:
1. It took SEGA a combination of like 4 consecutive "failed" products before they left the hardware business. 2. I don't think the PS3 is anywhere close to being a failure. If current sales are any indication, I think it could last well into the next generation of consoles. |
1. It took two generations technically (Saturn and Dreamcast), the 32X and Mega-CD were addons and not sperate hardware products. The PS3 could be seen as similar to the Saturn in it's decline of market share, difficulty to develop for, dislike by 3rd parties, etc, etc. Lets see how the PS4 turns out now as I said. If it doesn't gather a lot of interest quickly then its on dangerous ground. I would also hardly call the PSP or Vita big money spinners for Sony so there is potentially 3 "failed" products already. I only include the PSP because it's clear they didn't make much money off the hardware and software sales were poor (I realise its successful if you only consider hardware shipped).
2. That is where we vastly differ in opinion then. What is the measure of success because it's losing in every single metric going from a business perspective. It lost profit, it lost market share, it's damaged the company image (PSN debacle), it didn't meet Sony's expected shipment projections or their financial targets. In fact I don't think they've hit a single financial target since the PS3 has been on sale. Current sales aren't that great either as they've been down yoy for most of the year. It will continue to sell of course into the next gen but well below the numbers currently sold, probably to the region of sub 5 million a year within 2 years which means it's still way down on marketshare. It's taken 6 years to get the sales it has now, it's not going to ecplode and gain 80 million sales in the next few years.
