the_dengle said:
You didn't drag handhelds into the debate, you dragged them out of it because they didn't mesh with your pretty Wii U / PS3 comparison. The reason you used to exclude them from the conversation was silly. The same problems plaguing the 3DS and PS Vita launches were causing trouble for the Wii U at launch: notably, the problem of convincing people who already have gaming devices (smartphones) to buy a new device meant solely for playing games. Total sales are not the only way of defining a console's success at launch. But being this is a sales site, the article you posted is about sales, the chart they posted only shows sales, and this whole discussion has been about sales, I rather thought that was the focus here. Nonetheless, you can also measure a console's success by how much profit it makes for its company. We don't have exact data for this, but given Sony was in the red for several years after the PS3's launch, I think it's safe to say they didn't necessarily consider the launch a "success" in that fashion. I didn't say the price only factors into revenue, just that it factors more into those, which I stand by. Certainly the price affects sales. Know what else affects sales? Software (2 month drought). Market strength (...poor). Competition (mobile devices). You don't factor these into the Wii U launch the same way you factor sales into the PS3 launch -- because you can't. We don't know how the Wii U would have sold in 2006, or with a decent software lineup in January, or at a higher price. These are unknowns. Simply stating that the Wii U sold more units than the PS3, BUT the PS3 cost more so it was more successful, is disingenuous. You give the PS3 a handicap (its price) to make it seem like a stronger product at launch than the Wii U. The Wii U also has handicaps. We can either disregard all such handicaps and show that the Wii U sold better, or factor every handicap into the situation and not even know what the hell we're looking at anymore. |
I dragged them out because handhelds are about as relevant to this thread as the iphone is. OMG THEY PLAYZ GAMZ! Yeah, doesn't mean they should be compared. Who compares the Enzo to the Mondeo? No one. They are aimed at entirely different markets. Just like handhelds.
The focus was that with the sales having hit such a low, does this mean anything for the future of the console? Saying "oh but it has done better than the PS3" doesn't change the fact that it has had a staggeringly low week of sales compared to other consoles. Sony may have been in the red, but they also managed to secure bluray as the next optical format. Nevertheless we digress.
Does it matter how the wii u would have sold in 2006? We are comparing it's lowest week to the recorded lowest week of the last two generations of consoles rather than focusing on a year e.g. 2006. Factor in all the handicaps because those are relevant today, not in the past.
