| Aielyn said: I always find it funny when people try to make these sorts of claims. Look at the numbers selling per week. Wii down, PS3 and 360 up. No matter what argument you want to put forward for why the shift happened, the fact is that both PS3 and 360 sold more strongly later than they did earlier, while the Wii sold stronger earlier, and declined later. That's not just "weak hardware meant bad legs", because that doesn't explain the weaker sales of PS3 and 360 in the first few years. This isn't about console wars. It's about complacency. Leaders risk getting complacent. Look at Nintendo's output after 2009, and compare it with their output before then - not in terms of games you might be interested in, but broad-appeal games. Wii sales disappeared because Nintendo stopped catering to the expanded audience, stopped trying to push the boundaries properly. Meanwhile, 360 and PS3 expanded their appeal beyond the shooters that were so excessively common early in their lives. By the way, Wii U sales are stronger now than they were at any time during the period where they still had decent 3rd party support. Any argument for Wii U's sales based on third party is disingenuous. |
Weak hardware means bad legs would explain PS360 success, because they are way stronger than the Wii. The rise of online games gave it the final blow. It explains a lot of PS360 weaker sales in the beginning: they were expensive compared to the Wii. We can concludee too that it can be related to Nintendo's weaker legs on their consoles after the N64. Usually Sony has monster legs, so we could even (with a big stretch and some luck) see the PS3 pass the Wii.
Nintendo output after 2009 isn't the problem. Sony destroyed both MS and Nintendo with the PS2 and they didn't even had a decent 1st party output. They just had THE 3rd party machine,
Wii U sales are stronger now only because the console is on it's second to third year. It's following the normal sales curve. The fact that its sales are beyond terrible just shows that 3rd party support is important. Think about it. PS4 passed it like it was nothing, it wasn't a challenge. The X1 can even pass it this year. Both are more expensive than the Wii U. Sony expecifically didn't used any of their big 1st party titles (5M+ or 10M+ franchises, expect TLOU but that's a remaster) and they are just cruising with 3rd party games.
Nintendo was a beast when they had 3rd party support. The NES was an absolute monopoly and the SNES manages to win the gen even if they were 2 years late (that's suicide). They lost 3rd party support for the PS1, and just lost after that. The Wii actually got a pretty good 3rd party support, but it eventually died with the console sales.
Consoles don't have to push the boundaries always. Consoles are pretty much physical APIs. It just needs to be balanced (price/performace) and be easy for 3rd parties. That's what the PS2 did and it was the absolutely pinacle of a competitive console. Simple, no weird decisions, just the last console upgraded with extra power and some new features. And no mistakes, this is the most important. Honestly, PS4 is very similar to it. If it launched last year, this gen would be an even bigger onslaught.
