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pokoko on 12 September 2014
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Soundwave said:
pokoko said:

Hold on a minute.  You keep saying "underperforming".  I want to be sure about what you mean.  Are you using the PS2 as a universal standard?

From a business perspective, "underperforming" means that something is not doing as well as it should be doing relative to the current market.  If analysis indicates that it should be hitting 400k a month, then it would be underperforming.  It does NOT mean that a product is not measuring up relative to a product from 13 years ago.  Anyone in business knows that markets change over time and that eternal standards don't really carry any meaning beyond the trivial.

So, then, when you say "underperforming", what exactly are your criteria?


The comparative market leaders (the PS2 and Wii) since the year 2000 (14 years ago now) perhaps? I'd say it's fair to compare. 

Saying "that will nevar happen again" is a bit of a cop out. Market leaders will get compared, the SNES had to be comapred to the NES, we use these comparisions as a metric of the industry, but fanboys don't understand that and think it's some stupid "my console is bettar than yourz" line of reasoning mistakanly. 

I got the same blow back from Nintendo fans who kept saying "but the 3DS has sold 20+ million alreadY!" when I would point out there were some disturbing month to month patterns developing in its sales way back and it was the same "b. ... bu ... but you can't compare to the DS!" schtick then too. Now even the most ardent fanboys are starting to realize that there is a real decline going on in that market sector. 

Sure, you can compare, but unless the markets in each era are identical--and we know they are not--then the comparison is superficial.  A metric is only meaningful if the conditions are the same.

Let's suppose that a runner is timed on a dedicated track.  Later, that runner is timed on the beach in loose sand.  You can compare the two results but only a fool would say that the runner underperformed during the second run because it did not match the first run.

Do you think PC manufacturers consider it a failure if they cannot reach the numbers from 13 years ago?  No, because they know the market now is radically different.  They will be trying to reach the be numbers possible now, not a decade ago.

So, yeah, compare away.  Just don't expect people to seriously think that consoles now should be selling exactly the same volume as they did in the past.  Markets are not static, especially in the technology and entertainment.  A decline in the market does not automatically indicate that the market leader is underperforming--all it automatically indicates is that the market is declining.  Those two things are not one and the same.