Global Hardware up for the weeks ending Jan. 2 & Jan. 9.

[binary solo]

Intrinsic said:

CosmicSex said:
I think the impending barrage of PS4 exclusives is why the PS4 is selling so well. For the Xbox One we only really have Quantum Break aNY times soon and I have a feeling that it's going to either be completely overshadowed by Uncharted or completely bomb. I predict that Uncharted will outsell Quantum Break by at least 5 to 1 in the US and 10 to 1 worldwide.

think it's more of a word of mouth thing behind PS4 sales. Even that isn't a good measure of the sales. Cause the XB1 is pretty much h holding its own in NA. The real issue for MS is that outside NA it has zero momentum. And as the PS4 shows every week, sales every where else is more than sales in NA alone. 

The PS4 is also the default multiplat console. 

If Sony doesn't drop the ball going into next gen, then I fear there is nothing MS can do. and next gen they will be even worse off than they were this gen. All Sony has to do is make a similarly/more powerful console and maintain feature and price  parity with the next Xbox and that's it... the next Xbox will be dead on arrival. Cause there will be nothing to make already existing PS4 owners switch to an Xbox. 

Overconfidence is a big risk for Sony. And with all the caveats that a mid-cycle refresh from Nintendo must have, if Nintendo has learned a lesson from their Wii --> Wii U debacle then Sony's main rival is more likely to be Nintendo. To out compete Xbox Sony simply has to not screw up and make something that is demonstrably inferior or significantly over priced. And I think in this Sony will still have it's PS3 experience firmly in mind.

Nintendo, on the other hand charts its own course, and if its course happens to converge with mainstream gamer expectations and desires then Nintendo might come through the middle and own the largest market share. This seems to be a bit unlikely but with Nintendo they could do something that really captures the mood. 

I recall in 2009 some people here were predicting Nintendo would own the home console race for multiple generations on the back of Wii's success, and of course there were predictions of Wii outselling PS2. Others saw the writing on the wall and saw that Wii and Nintendo's position was not as strong as it looked in 2009. Sony has the advantage that mainstream gamers are PS's main customers, so they can be more relied upon to buy the next gen machine than 80% of Wii owners. But one should always be cautios not to become too complacent about what next gen buyers will chose.

I think we need to see whether the mass market will move away from TVs as their main way of viewing their home video entertainment. While TV remains the main means of watching video content (whether streaming, broadcast, download or on disc doesn't matter), then a variation on the traditional console and the traditional controller will continue to be the main way people play video games at home on the couch. I think Sony is possibly going to look to turn [gutted form of] the Vita into a PS4 controller as the next controller evolution for PS. Obviously borrowing from the Wii U tablet controller concept as well. The key to a controller with a screen is making sure the cost is reasonable so people can buy multiple such controllers instead of having one controller with screen and other non-screen controllers. Tech should be cheap enough to achieve that by the time PS5 comes along. Making the Wii U tablet controller too expensive to buy as a standalone extra was part of Nintendo's problem. But the big question is whether and how fast head mounted displays develop to become the new way the mass market watches video content, and how quickly it becomes affordable to a house to own multiple head mounted units.

If Occulus Rift is $1000 here, then I can buy 5 ORs for the price of a 60" UHD TV. And perhaps if I was the sort of person who was willing to drop $5000 on a TV then I may well decide that 5 ORs for the whole family is a better long term entertainment investment. But I can also buy a 50" 1080p HD TV for less than the price of 1 OR. And if I'm in that sort of TV buyig bracket the 50" TV will win every time. So the key is for head mounted displays to become cheap enough that you can buy 4 of them for the price that a middle class family would be willing to pay for a 1080p big screen TV. They also need to be able to be both compltely isolating for a full immersion experience, but also be more socially open for shared experiences. And this is where Hololens can have an advantage.