| the_dengle said: I can see I'm being overruled here, but I stand by my opinion. Sony was riding high on the success of the PS2. Microsoft was in a hurry to start the next generation because the original XBox was a flop. Sony was in command of the industry, and they willingly gave up that command by following Microsoft's lead and releasing an overpriced console. Don't think about the competition for a moment. Sony owned the competition. The PS2 was released well over a year after the Dreamcast, and did it matter? No, Sony's marketing was so good, the Dreamcast never stood a chance. The 360 got off to a slow start, at least in part because HDTVs hadn't really taken off yet. This was a problem that plagued both HD consoles until '07 or '08, anyway. The 360 wasn't going anywhere fast. Its games were more expensive and took longer to make, it had crippling hardware failures, and it wasn't selling at all in Japan. Imagine Sony released the PS3 around the time of Holiday 2007. It truly would have appeared to be a more modern piece of hardware than the 360, even if it was the same console as the one we got. Manufacturing costs would have been lower, so it could have been cheaper. If it launched at $500 or even $450 it would have been a reasonably-priced Blu-Ray player, something the 360 was not. Hell, the PS3 as it launched could hardly be called reasonably-priced. Uncharted: Drake's Deception would have been a launch title. 360 wasn't going to steal FF, MGS, or any other major Japanese franchise from Sony with the way it was selling in Japan. Ultimately, I think the PS3 would have dropped like a hammer instead of a paperweight. Most importantly, it probably would have been more profitable for Sony in the long run. I feel the same way about PS4. Everyone expects it to be a powerhouse. I think Sony can wait three years if they want to, and release a super-powered console mid-generation. With more modern architecture, it could probably be significantly more capable than the other consoles without being much more expensive, and might even cut the Wii U & 720's lives short. Sony will continue making money from PS3 sales in the meantime, now that it's finally profitable for them. |
I think you give too much weight to brand loyalty as if people would simply ignore the 360 until the ps2's successor arrived.
The ps2's dominance was not a result of people being so in love with the playstation brand or even their 1st party titles, but more down to the the fact that most AAA 3rd party titles were ps2 exclusive or at least timed exclusives to the ps3: Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, GTA, Tekken, DMC etc. Now from the minute this gen began, a shift towards more multiplatform games was very clear. Although Metal Gear and FF remained exclusive to the sony brand, almost every other title was available on the 360, including the games which have gone on to be define this generation in terms of popularity: COD, GTA, Assassins Creed, Elderscrolls, Fifa, Madden... literally all the big 3rd party titles!
Not to mention Microsofts 1st party line up which would have destroyed anything Sony released in their 1st year including Uncharted. You must be forgetting that the 1st Uncharted game was not considered a classic, many reviews stated that although it looked pretty and combined lots of genres successfully, it did not excel in any way. The 360 would of had Gears, Halo 3, Oblivion, Bioshock, Mass Effect and ps3 would be launching with a bunch of ambitious yet mediocre titles (Uncharted, Heavenly sword, Lair).
And the PS3 has always seemed a more modern peice of hardware then the 360, launching a year later wouldn't of changed that and it wouldn't have made a difference salewise. The graphical difference between the 2 systems did not justify the $100 extra you would need to pay for a ps3 and most 3rd party games (the important games), looked better on the 360. Also Blu-ray has struggled to find relevance as DVD sales fell and streaming became the prefered options, so for alot of people it wouldn't justify the ps3's price either.
People continue to rack their brains over what Sony did wrong, but they sold a ton of units and will over take the 360 WW in a few months. But the market share they've lost to Microsoft was inevitable, the 360 was just too good of a competitor.
And I agree with you that sony should wait a bit longer to release the Orbis and create 1: A really strong launch line up for the 1st 12 months. 2: create a graphical difference which would really seperate it from the Xbox8. But they can't arrive later then 9 months after Xbox8. By then a snowball effect would have began in terms of people being like "I'm gonna get the xbox because 3 of my friends already have it and I wanna play them online".
