Console Market not contracting, becoming more focused

[potato_hamster]

Paperboy_J said:

twintail said:

Honestly if there is one console that pushed the boundaries of who a console could appeal to it, it would be the PS1. Sure, the Wii expanded upon this but before the PS1 gaming was pretty much exclusive to youth and as a niche hobby. Then the PS1, and all it's marketting was aimed at saying that anyone could play games (mostly teen, young adult culture at the time). And here we are. The PS2 pushed this even further with various software aimed at casual gamers and did gain traction at the time.

 

 

You're saying the PS1 brought in new gamers like the Wii did?  People who had never been interested in videogames before?  Sorry but I gotta disagree with that.  The people who bought the PS1 were those same kids who grew up on the NES, SNES and Genesis, only older.  The PS1 didn't expand the market, it merely stole Nintendo's and Sega's fans (not saying that's bad or anything, but that's what happened).

Wii on the other hand brought in grannies, soccer moms, everyone.  DS had women gaming for the first time ever.  Those systems just took things to a whole other level.

That isn't really true. The SNES and Genesis combined to sell 78 million consoles worldwide. The PS1 did 105 million itself (plus another 41 million between the N64 and Saturn). While I'm not disagreeing that many of its fans came from Sega and Nintendo, the Playstation also expanded the market signficantly (but definitely not in the way that the Wii and DS did).