How Playstation has forced its competition to change or die

[NeoRatt]

That article said lots of nothing.

True: Playstation 1 grew on a great games library...

Playstation 2 grew mostly on the trend of DVD's taking over from VHS. I remember the exact conversation with my girlfriend at the time... "Buy a DVD player or a PS2 where I can play games too"... No brainer, buy the PS2... I'm sure that conversation played out with 10's of millions of buyers.

Playstation 3 has not sold as well as PS2... By the end of the gen PS3 will probably be at 100,000,000 max... A far cry from the 150,000,000 of the PS2. Microsoft and Nintendo were the winners this generation. Playstation has been playing catchup on the online gaming platform since 360 released (Cross game chat, achievements, avatars, etc), Nintendo brought a new type of gaming for non-gamers (WiiMote and Nunchuk)... Sony came into the gen touting "The 10 year console" yet, they entered the gen one year after Microsoft and are putting a new console out the same year as MS. Who really had endurance this gen? And didn't Sony and Microsoft both have to curb Wii sales? PS released Move, and MS released Kinect at the same holiday so I don't see how MS was combating Sony as much as they were combating Nintendo in releasing Kinect.

PS4 looks solid. There are several questions though... BC looks weak on PS4 because of the architecture switch. And Sony has not announced what would be available at launch vs. later... Sony is notorious for announcing exclusive games, making them look like they are coming out and continually touting them until they are released... Killzone, Last Guardian, FF XIV, FF XIII Versus, etc. I call them red herring announcements to make it look like they have more than they really do.

People should start looking through Sony's red herring announcements. Media Molecule never announced a new game at the conference. Neither did Quantic Dream. In reality there is maybe Killzone and probably Infamous, Driver Club and Witness as exclusives for PS4 launch. Microsoft could easily counteract the Sony exclusives with PGR5, Crackdown, Perfect Dark sequel, and another new IP from Rare (Rare did two exclusives for 360 launch). And I am sure Nintendo will have Mario and Zelda lining up for Wii U this year.

Microsoft has had issues too, but if you look at this past gen, Microsoft and Sony released about the same number of exclusive games in total (MS had more at the start of the gen and sony had more near the end of the gen)... And they were pretty much equal on new IPs over the whole gen.

Yes, Microsoft releases them as part of existing IPs. But, Sony is just changing the setting and using the same game engines to deliver a slightly different game experience... aka Beyond, is an improvement on the Heavy Rain engine, Last of Us is an improvement on the Unchartered engine. I applaud Sony for this. It is the same formula that Rockstar is using (Rockstar released many open world games with different experiences but the same base engine this gen... GTA IV, Red Dead Redemption, LA Noire - It makes it look like three innovative new games, but all they really are is 3 games with the same base engine and some major improvements). This is where Sony is really shining. You can dress a game engine up a number of different ways and give an illusion that you are innovatively releasing new IPs.

In the end, consoles are now turning into regional devices... Wii had broad appeal around the world, but that appeal has disappeared on Wii U... MS has dominated North America and the UK since the Wii started to fall. Sony has dominated the rest of Europe and Japan since the Wii started to fall. I expect that will continue this next Gen... Wii U is a failure... Next Xbox will do very good in North America and the UK. Sony will continue to do well in Japan and other European countries... Who will win? My take... Nintendo is losing... MS and Sony will be in for the long haul.