| Soleron said: So people are entertained by peripherals? They are entertained by what they can DO with those peripherals. Wii Sports. Kinect Adventures. Wii Fit. Critical mass of PS3 exclusives and good enough cross-platform support. 360 is successful because of Halo, CoD and an online service that supports that multiplayer. It could be an small green cube with a PS2 controller and it would sell. If the Balance Board was released with a test app and then 6 months later Wii Fit launched, when would people buy it? The months later. |
My post was sarcasm.
If one wants to be analytical, there are several factors to the success of a console. People buy the hardware based on features and capabilities, and the promise of the launch games and future titles. They keep playing because of the design/engineering of the device, the quality of the gaming experience, the entertainment value of the system and its games, and any added value they obtain via the online capabilities, peripherals, and applications of use beyond gaming.
People buy a game console to play games. So it's rather obvious that someone is going to buy a console to play games, therefore it's logical that games establish success for a console.
The Earth is round. That's not an amazing fact. It's just a fact. People buy game consoles to play games, therefore the more games sold for a console the more successful that console.
If every PSV buyer was buying every game available for the PSV than it would be a successful gaming system regardless of whether or not it sold 100,000 or 100,000,000. If a developer can assume 100K in sales, or 100M in sales, they're going to make a game for it. Unfortunately, since gamers are fickle PSV owners don't buy every game available. The problem with the PSV beyond gaming is what's the value? Everything you can do on the PSV you can do on a smartphone.
So PSV owners have to carry a smartphone AND a PSV if they want to be in contact with people and do some mobile gaming. Tell me, what killer app is going to fix that? What game will be so worth owning that gamers would gladly carry two devices rather than just one?
Had Sony combined the functionality of the Xperia Play and the PS Vita in one device they would have built the killer app. Instead they built the Xperia Play which they quietly forgot and then the PS Vita which so far developers have loudly forgotten.
Bottomline, you can't pin it all on games. There has to be a perceived value to a gaming system that has to be overcome before gamers will consider it. The question of "Is this worth it?" has to be answered confidently by the purchaser, if not there won't be a purchase.
Elephants don't bite. I doubt you've ever been bitten by an elephant, right? However, you've probably been bitten a few times by a mosquito or midge. It isn't the big things in life that bite you, it's the small things. It's not one big thing that matters for a console, it's a lot of little things.
