UPDATED - 7th Gen - 'Which System Won The Console War' - Poll Added

[greenmedic88]

I'll say that the PS3 made what many would have considered to be an impossible recovery/turnaround back in 2007-2008 when there were some pretty hilarious/hopeful predictions that Sony would be forced to leave the console business due to the failure of the PS3. Meanwhile, it was simultaneously predicted that the Wii would become a standard household item with the more optimistic predictions wish/believing Nintendo would eventually sell something in the range of 250 million units.

In terms of marketshare lost, it's a no-brainer when you're starting from something like 80% from the previous generation. Of course, this was for a $299 box that had no legitimate competition at the time. The GC and XB arrived too late to stop the momentum. So even if the PS3 miraculously closed up production with just over 50% of the total 7th gen hardware sales (obviously impossible), it still would have lost a huge percentage of marketshare compared to the PS2.

In terms of monetary losses, not only did Sony manage to debut with a box that cost $600, they topped themselves by losing well over $200 per unit over production cost for the initial models. While those models were in production for less than a year, it still took several years and hardware revisions before Sony was able to make a small profit on each hardware unit sold. This wouldn't have been such an issue had Sony been taking in say 70-80% or even just over 50% of the revenue (for the total console market) being generated through software sales and licensing fees, but this wasn't the case. It was closer to a third at best.

The number of units sold may well be the least important number relative to the above and ironically, this is the number the PS3 has the greatest chance of actually "winning" if it stays in production long enough, given that the current numerical "winner" of the 7th gen is for all intents and purposes done, dead and finished selling any significant number of hardware units.

In terms of positioning, heading into the current generation of consoles, Nintendo managed to kill their lead faster and harder than Sony managed to kill their lead continuing from the PS2. Nintendo literally has 100% of the 8th gen console sales and will likely find itself in last place somewhere between Q4 2013 and Q2 2014. MS managed to leverage itself into the best position with the XB360, only to lose positioning with the reveal of the XB1 between the lesser hardware specs, the higher price and a bunch of the policies MS has since backtracked on due to consumer backlash, leaving Sony in good position with the PS4.

We'll see what happens from here. We've already seen that "winning" a hardware generation means little if this isn't leveraged properly into the next generation with the PS2 to PS3 transition and most likely with the Wii to the Wii-U.