windbane said:
naznatips said:
windbane said:
Bodhesatva said:
Legend11 said:
I think it's just people jumping on the bandwagon when it comes to putting down the PS3, for all we know sales could pick up dramatically for it sometime in the future. There were 120 million PS2s bought as well as ~48 million of the competition and even with overlap that's still a lot of people who haven't picked a new console and that's not even counting the unknown number of casual users that have picked up the Wii to go along with gamers from the previous generation, etc, so it's all still up for grabs. |
Legend -- I first want to say that I've very much agreed with (Almost?) everything you've said thus far in this thread. 360/PS3 software development will not dry up. With that said, this particular post seems a bit off. Not hugely off, but worth commenting on. The suggestion that "for all we know" the PS3 sales could "pick up dramatically sometime in the future," is a little unfair. Yes, that's technically possible, just as it was technically possible that the Gamecube would have sold 100 million consoles int he last year of it's lifespan, thus leading it to ultimate victory in the generation. That was possible -- just hilariously and extremely unlikely. As others have noted, no console being outsold 2:1 (let alone 3:1, 4:1 or 5:1, as is the case for the PS3) for months at a time right out of the launch gate has ever suddenly come back and made that ground up. Not once, ever. Not even close, in fact. Does this mean it's technically impossible for the PS3 to come back? No. But your wording suggests it's very possible, if not likely; that's unrealistic. What I would say is this: it's not impossible that the PS3 will end up leading this generational cycle, but it's extremely unlikely. Again, not a case where I think you're totally wrong, but I thought it deserved revision all the same. |
Your last parahraph is true, but it is also true that no console maker has sucked for 2 generations and then come back to dominate a generation. Heck, GC finished 3rd! Also, no hardware company had ever dominated 2 generations like Sony did. Just because something hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't. I think every generation has been unique and there have not been that many. I think that's why the strategies differ so much. I think this generation is the most up for grabs ever. I think we've all been stuck on only 1 or 2 consoles succeeding. We'll see, though. I think unlike all the doomsayers over the last few months have predicted, it's not decided yet. Or maybe it is, but I'm not sure it's easy to predict. This fall/winter is going to be the most interesting in a long time. |
Er... I know you are somewhat young but how could you possibly forget the NES and SNES blowing away competition then the N64 getting trounced? Or Atari dominating till Nintendo showed up. No, in fact history tells us that in gaming the industry leader changes constantly, and to say that one company having success for 2 generations means it will have permanent succes is incredibly narrow sighted. Every generation in gaming is certainly unique, but we aren in the 7th generation without a console in the position of the PS3 EVER getting close to rising to the top, nor has a console selling as well as the Wii ever been defeated (not that a console has ever sold as well as the Wii). |
umm...hate to break this to you, old guy, but the SNES did not dominate like the PS1 and PS2 did. Like I said, no hardware has dominated like Sony's 2 consoles in back to back generations. 5 to 3 is not near 3 to 1. I never said that having success for 2 generations proves anything. I was showing that no generation is the same and things happen all the time that haven't before. Case in point: no third-place console has ever had the third party support that the PS3 currently has. |
I do agree with your main argument here, Windbane -- no generation is exactly alike, and each one has different factors that make it a bit quirky. The NES generation was basically a 1 horse race, SNES/Genesis the only 2 horse race, PS1/Saturn/N64 was the only one to see a cartridge/disc format war, and so forth; for each generation, one can point out several factors that make it unique from the rest.
Yet throughout all these changes and generational quirks, one thing has remained constant -- the system that's selling best once the launch window closes wins. Every time. But this is only 35 years of history, and it's too early to say if this generation's quirks and curios are different from all the other generations' quirks and curios. I understand that, and agree with it. I simply want to emphasize that one can name "mitigating factors" for all the console generations, and each time, those factors have fallen to the relentless might of historical precedent.
