Does Sony win every generation by default?

[Mr Khan]

Intrinsic said:

Mr Khan said:

S.T.A.G.E. said:

Nintendo won last gen, but mostly because Microsoft stood in Sony's way. Sony has what Microsoft and Nintendo both lack which is why they will always perform well. Its why they appeal to a great audience at large. They increased the overall market the second they joined the gaming industry and continued to have it continue in its growth over the PS2 era.

The increase was due to their ability to reach into markets (countries) that Nintendo and Sega couldn't. Don't oversell it.

Come on man thats just BS. I dunno if you have something against sony, and your posts could lead one to think so.... but you are underselling it. What PS1 did to increase the size of the market was by making "maturing" the industry. It made gaming "cool" so to speak and primarily sold to an older and more mature audience. The PS2 to carried that along and added the bonus of having the cheapest DVD player at the time. 

How can you possibly tag the success of a console over the course of a 5-6yr generation simply on availability in countries??????

Malstrom's more than a little nutso in some cases (why i stopped reading him like 3 years ago), but here's something from an earlier age from him, indicating that while overall console ownership is up, the rate of "household penetration" is down, or was 5 years ago

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/email-comic-book-industry-and-the-end-of-the-core/

The notion that Sony grew gaming because it made it more "mature" is, simply, bunk. It's based on Sony's ability to have a bigger presence in Europe and developing countries, as well as population growth and the rise of multi-console ownership as the NES generation "matured" and got more disposable income.

Sony does certainly get credit for becoming the industry standard, which is due to their vigorous efforts to engage third parties from day one. That's what helped them out of the PS3 jam, because third parties were still making PS3 games (even if no more exclusives) even when the console was in the sales toilet. You can't get support like that all in a day. But their ability to "grow" the industry is largely due to the fact that they were a truly global corporation entering a playing field dominated by much smaller players. Their ability to dominate the competition (not just win, but dominate. This is the point i'm trying to make against the thread's thesis) is due to the multifarious mistakes their competitors have made in all gens but the 7th.