| TheLastStarFighter said: The power rumors make sense. Sony is in a different place than in the past. Playstation 2&3 were used to promote a new type of media. Any pofits were secondary. Now, the leaner, meaner Sony has stated the Playstation will be one of their 3 pillars of profitability. That means they need to be a true games company and sell systems and make money like Nintendo. If they don't include a tablet controler, double the specs and charge a little more they could do that at a near-profit. And it won't be called PS4 because four has a negotive connotation in some cultures. Microsoft, on the other hand, is still very much in the business of pushing tech boundries for alternative motives. They will max out the nextbox and lose money, but the goal is to push tech limits to promote the advancement of PC's and... new copies of Windows. I think this means that most 3rd parties will scale their games to hit as many platforms as possible. This is great for us, the game buyers, as it gives us lots of options. As far as what strategy is best for the companies selling products it depends on their goal. They could all be successful in their own way. Since Nintendo is launching first with what will be the cheapest system, they will probably get the most sales. |
I agree. Sony was willing to take a huge loss with the PS3 in an effort to advance Blu-Ray. That won't be the case this time around. Their loss per PS4 at launch would have to be slight, something probably on the order of what the Wii U is losing, where they would generate a profit-per-unit within a quarter or two.
I also agree that relative power might be less of an factor this generation. With the Wii U launching first, it has potentially established itself as the lowest common denominator. If multi-platform games are built from the baseline of the Wii U then the PS4 will fit comfortably into those specs, even if it's less powerful than the 720.
Microsoft's goal is to get Live and Windows into every household that they can, on multiple linked devices, even if it costs them billions to get there. They can afford that.
