By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
naruball on 22 April 2015
Edit Thread
Mandalore76 said:
naruball said:

Not necessarily. Many people stop gaming after a certain age. Who knows how many more would have stopped (because it was no longer cool to do so), had ps not expanded the market. Also, how was sega's strategy working? Obviously it didn't work enough, hence their failure. But even if they had done alright (with ps out of the picture), they never had the money for the promotion that Sony has been doing since forever. Sega would never be able to afford that. They couldn't promote their brand the way, for example, Sony did with football games etc.

Considerably less though. And that's what's important here.

That sounds like a casual market, if you are needing a corporation to tell you what is hip or trendy to do.  I played video games growing up and still do, because I enjoy it.  Did I have a PlayStation?  Yes.  Is it the reason I still play video games to this day?  No.  I also had an N64 and a Sega Saturn.  My grandfather had an Intellivision (favorite games PGA Golf, PBA Bowling).  My dad played Coleco Vision (favorite game Carnival) and Super Nintendo (favorite game Sim City).  My uncle had an NES (favorite game Legend of Zelda).  My best friend's mom still plays RPG's on PS2, and his uncles play Madden on XBox 360.  Either you enjoy these things or you don't.  If you're just doing something that a corporation tells you to, you're going to hop on whatever band wagon comes along next. 

The Sega Saturn got torpedoed at E3 by Sony's announcement that the PlayStation would be $299 compared to Saturn's $399 pricetag.  Sega also botched their own launch by releasing the console 5 months earlier in May without bothering to mention it to their retailers who were promoting and planning for "Saturnday" in September, but that's another story.  However, if not for the PlayStation's existence and cheaper price tag, Saturn might have survived that misstep, probably not even feeling the need to rush their launch and therefore not irking their own retailers in the process.

Ps3 faced similar problems, if not worse, with its launch and still survived and ended up doing well. Why? Because Sony had the cash and the right people to turn things around. Sega was unlikely to fix problems in a new generation, had their last one done ok.

@first two bolded. I strongly disagree. Why do you think Apple and Samsung have been doing so well the past couple of years? Their products are considered "cool" by the masses. People do what companies tell them and will continue to do so. Apple is showing no signs of slowing down. Not only that, but now they have a crazy number of harcore fans who will buy anything and everything that apple releases. In other words, the casual market that you speak of, can become casual with the right strategy/ brand promotion. And why do you think handhelds are doing worse? It's not considered cool to own one any more. Having a tablet, iphone, etc is, though, hence people everywhere using one. You may not care about what people think, but others do. It's how things work whether we like it or not.