Is the Xbox Brand Simply Weaker Than the Playstation Brand?

[Mr Puggsly]

Burek said:

That really makes no sense to me. Didn't PS1 also have competition in the market? Didn't Nintendo have a console then? Why would all of a sudden people who grew up on a Nintendo brand decide to give preference to an upstart Sony console instead to a proven Nintendo brand? One would guess that an existing and proven brand will be the first one to take advantage of a growing market.

Certainly Sony had to do many things right to attract all those Nintendo fans. You have to consider that the gaming market didn't grow of itself, but that Sony managed to put in an effort to expand the market outside existing userbase.

The market is always growing. Again, lets not give too much credit for the market growing when PS1 was around.

PS1 didn't have strong competition. Sega was struggling to stay relevant. N64 came later and didn't get great support primarily because carts were expensive and space was limited. Sony throwing money around for support didn't hurt either.

If Playstation wasn't around those other consoles would have EVENTUALLY performed fine, I think Saturn most notably becuase it used CDs. However, it was easy for a company like Sony to swoop in and take the market because Sega and Nintendo were making some bad moves. It was more difficult for MS to break into the market because they had tougher competition.

The competition screwed up and helped Playstation thrive. Sony eventually screwed up and allowed Xbox thrive, now we're seeing the opposite. Sometimes getting an edge on competition just happens from the mistakes of others.