Wii helps PS3?

[robjoh]

TalonMan said: 

I've got friends that are DIE-HARD Sony fans, and even THEY have failed to commit to the PS3 at this point. These are the same guys that were standing out in the freezing cold to collect a PS2 on launch day 6 years ago - it's now 7 months since the PS3 launched, and they seem no closer to purchasing one today then they did when it came out in November.

My point in quoting this isn't that these people aren't buying, but that people like this exist - and they exist in droves: people who badly want a PS3, but are just waiting for Sony to give them the slightest incentive to buy one. Sure, the PS3 is behind in sales right now, but none of the new consoles has even breached the 10mil mark yet. There are still 100 million+ gamers from last generation still waiting to make their next purchase, and the vast majority of them were PS2 owners. They're comfortable with the PS controller, they're fans of the PS brandname, and they've already been sold on the Sony-exclusive (or semi-exclusive) franchises. They're all waiting, and all they need is a reason to upgrade. I'm one of these. And these intangible factors add up to a mountain more than the 360's tangible advantages.

That's why, if Sony hits us by this Christmas with MGS4, Assassin's Creed, GTA4, LittleBigPlanet, etc. (notice that they don't all have to be exclusives), and a price drop, all of this bad publicity will vanish like a bad dream. The turnaround will happen overnight. All Sony has to do is not screw it up... kind of like they've been so dismally failing to do for the last year or so. And a screwup is still definitely possible: they could stubbornly maintain the $600 price tag, they could let a major exclusive slip away (or drive one away), they could make a bunch more PR blunders... use your imagination! So far they've been doing their best to invent new ways to fail. But at some point they've got to learn, and when it happens they've got nowhere to go but up.

I agree, the problem I see is that those of my friends that is PS fans, wont pay 6000 SEK (roughly 850 USD) for a PS3. I have a hard time to see them pay 4000 SEK (a little bit less than 600 USD). This means that getting the PS2 crowd to stay untill sony can get down to 400 USD in USA is very important. This means that Sony really need to divide their development to three different arrias. The needs more hardcore games to PS2 and PS3 to keep the old hardcore PS fans untill a price drops on the PS3. The problem I see is that Sony does have strong competition, each month now xbox360 (in USA) is cementing it place as the number 1 HD-consol, and Wii as the casual number one choice.

When PS3 does it first price drop, Microsoft will follow. If Microsoft can continue to gain PS3 exclusives from 3rd parties, many PS2 owners might start looking at the alternativs before PS3 gets down to affordable levels. I don't think any of the upcoming games will sell enough consols to overcome Wii, the might pass xbox360 but I am unsure about that either.

Sonys problem is that they are for the moment losing both the hardcore gamers (to xbox360) and the casual gamers (to Wii). They need to keep PS2 alive as long as possible to get longer time to make step from last gen as long as possible.