How come every gen has one dominant console over the others?

[binary solo]

UltimateUnknown said:

binary solo said:
I wouldn't call Wii highly dominant, and neither was SNES. Every product will have its market leader and that lead will commonly be quite substantial. Look at iPhone initially, and now Samsung Galaxy there is no good reason for either of these phones to sell so much more than the rest, but they do because the market perceives them as best.

Looking at market share I think highly dominant must mean >50% market share on a minimum 3 console race. The consoles that qualify for highly dominant are PS and PS2. NES was also highly dominant but as it only had one competitor having >50% market share doesn't count, but as it sold 5:1 against Master System it definitely qualifies.

Another qualification for highly dominant is that the console should be the best seller in every market iun which it is sold.

All the other generations had a dominant console of course, but not highly dominant. So your question is rendered moot by the fact that not every generation has a highly dominant console.

I used more of the criteria that a lead of over 10 million or so would be considered highly dominant. But I think now that everyone's criteria of using the percentage marketshare is better.

I'll say just dominant and that's really the question.

That's just typical market behaviour. For any given product there will be a market leader and for many products the market leader is ahead by a long way. And this is irrespective of product quality. The better question is why do products, and services, in general tend to have a significant market leader when if you look objectively at things there isn't enough of a difference to really explain the level of dominance. Of course marketing and being the first cab off the rank usually helps a lot.

The interesting thing with consoles is that each generation is an unknown quantity especially when disruptive technology is introduced (CD and DVD with PS and PS2, waggle with Wii. So dominance from one product cycle to the next is less assured with consoles than with many other products. Which is the interesting thing.