Should Sony have stuck with the PS2?

[FJ-Warez]

Bodhesatva said:

RolStoppable said:

You shouldn't forget that the Wii is something totally different to the PS2 and sooner or later developers would have shifted support to it anyway, doesn't matter if it is 360/PS3 or 360/PS2. The Wii is the next big thing in this industry. If Sony had waited with a new console, Nintendo would have had a too big lead, to overcome for Sony, and thus making it impossible to get the support back. Sony would have had to wait for the 8th generation to fully get back into the race.

The PS2 is only outselling the PS3 and the 360, but not the Wii. I think even with full support of Sony the Wii would be outselling the PS2 now. The PS2 library has practically everything a library can offer, while the Wii offers new experiences that are impossible to achieve on the PS2 on a broad scale. PS3 or not, people would have switched to the Wii. Without PS3 and Sony still supporting the PS2, it might have taken longer though.

I don't think you understand. I'm not even suggesting waiting -- I'm suggesting just not making another console, at all. Period. No PS3 for another 5+ years, at least until the next generation.

Suddenly, the PS2 is Sony's console for this generation, they are selling (almost?) as well as the Wii, and they have a 110 million unit lead. Right now, the Wii is doing well because it's such an innovative console, but it's also doing well because Sony messed up so badly. If they still had full support behind the PS2 -- producing their major games for that system, not the PS3, were still advertising the PS2, not the PS3, were encouraging developers to make games for the PS2, not the PS3 -- then these figures would still be higher, and would certainly not be trailing off as they are now. They're trailing off precisely because Sony is intentionally moving their support to their new platform.

Let me state this again for emphasis: Sony is deliberately killing the most succesful console in history. I understand that eventually... that has to happen. I guess. But the Game boy lasted 15+ years in different incarnations. I understand that home/portable markets are different, but I really don't believe that keeping a console for 12+ years instead of 6 is an absurd notion when that console is as monumentally popular as the PS2 has been.

Even worse, having nothing new will kill the PS2 sales again the mighty "Wii-mote", the best case escenario will be this:

PS2 "Great Games"

Wii "Ports of Great Games with Wii-mote"

 

What would the casual audience choose? Same graphics in both systems, new control scheme on the Wii.