Will PS3 top 100 million?

[Final-Fan]

Loud_Hot_White_Box said:

Final-Fan said:

Loud_Hot_White_Box said:

Final-Fan said:

*bleu-ocelot* said:
No i meant that because of cheaper Blu-Ray production cost,the PS4 will be in a better position than the PS3 was out the gate.

In that case, in terms of cost and ease of production, I agree completely.

But on the other hand, the PS4 won't be coming off of the massive success of the PS2. The PS3 will probably be in a strong 2nd position, but it will be far behind the leader, and far, FAR from the crushing dominance of the PS2. It's impossible to say at this point exactly what impact that will have on the level of support the PS4 will have out of the gate, but it will not have the same level of developer confidence and support that the PS3 initially had.

PS4 will have more developer confidence and support, not less, if its architecture is based an evolution of the Cell processor, as it likely will be. (E.G. 64 SPUs and 8 dual-thread PPUs running at 5Ghz -- IBM has already run Cells at 6ghz +). Devs will come out of the gate rocking the hardware because they already know it from its infant state -- in PS3. This, I think, has always been the plan.

Dev confidence in support don't depend as much on whether the previous console sold 75 or 150 million units so much as it depends on the architecture: is it PC-like, or is it like another console that the devs already know how to work with (360 and Wii had those advantages, respectively, over the PS3 this gen, but next gen if PS4 still uses Cell(s) -- vastly improved though they will be -- the advantage is gone).

Oh, that explains the massive launch support for the Xbox -- basically a budget PC in a Halloween costume. And the Wii obviously had a landslide of developer support in its early days due to being an evolution of the Gamecube architecture.

Apologies for the sarcasm, but that is just completely counterfactual. It is true that a Cell-based PS4 will be much easier to develop for than the PS3 was at first, since they will have grown more used to what was literally an all-new type of processor. But that doesn't mean that they'll necessarily want to.

Perhaps you misunderstood me when I spoke of "developer confidence and support". In the months -- indeed, years -- before the new systems launched, it was Sony's system that got all the attention. It was the golden boy, the heir to the throne. Only the yearlong head start of the 360 gave it the software advantage it now enjoys. Only Nintendo's amazing marathon effort has given the Wii its superior load of stellar titles -- as someone pointed out today (yesterday?) on a thread I can't be bothered to identify right now, the PS3 actually has more "pretty good" games, despite the Wii absolutely crushing the PS3 ever since launch -- ever since E3 2006, really.

The PS4 will not have that advantage. The Wii is king, and the PS4 is certainly not going to be its prince.

The XBox launch had disinguishing features: MS as a completely untried player, and a larger PS2 lead than 360 had over PS3, right?

My edited post said "initial dev support", meaning just that devs can get good games out of the gate faster if the architecture is a familiar one. True. Will they want to? That question depends on 1, most importantly, whether the architecture is familiar, because then they can bring games out cost-effectively for a new system with a small install base, and 2, whether the system/brand is a monster with legs. Playstation is. Xbox wasn't, but after 360 it might be. Wii wasn't at launch, but is now and no one will doubt its successor. It was the fact that Xbox 1 and Wii brands were unknown that limited initial 3rd party development. Familiar architecture would have helped them even more initially if the devs had faith in them. Enter PS4.

Don't throw Nintendo success at me like it hurts me. I own Nintendo stock. Bring on the shovelware. $$$.

You're saying that all three consoles will probably have good support, or if not all three then certainly Nintendo's and Sony's.  I agree with that.

But it will not be on the level of the PS3's initial support, which was derived from the monster success and utter domination of the PS2, which the PS3 was considered heir to.  The PS4 will not be the inheritor of such a legacy.  The next Nintendo console will probably not even be the inheritor of such a legacy -- even if it flies way past the PS2's lifetime numbers (I think it will), its competition will have done WAAAY better than the PS2's competitors. 

So yes, of course developers will want to support the PS4.  But they very likely won't want to as much as they initially did the PS3.  And they very likely won't want to as much as they want to support the next Nintendo console.