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 didn't factor these into the Wii U launch the same way you factored price 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. Simply stating that the Wii U sold more units than the PS3, BUT the PS3 cost more so it's LIKE it sold better, 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. |
Price and games are two very real and big handicaps the PS3 suffered with until it's first price cut (Oct 07). Wii U is 300 $ and the demandfor that in this economic climate is lowere than a 600 $ PS3 . People can argue about the the economy until they're blue in the face , the fact is, PS3 and Xbox 360 and Wii were all selling better than Wii U is currently . Nintendo should've made Skyward sword a cross gen title.
