burninmylight said:
Way to pick a strawman for your argument. The Wii U was doomed to failure from jump, for reasons everyone here has discussed ad infinitum: horrible name that confused consumers, poor messaging that confused customers, horrible and practically nonexistant marketing, a concept that didn't capture that lightning in the way that Nintendo hoped, and a barren wasteland as far as game releases go. Comparing it to the PS4 means nothing. PS3 and 360 were outselling Wii U: is that because they are more powerful? Vita and Wii U were competing pretty closely; maybe they still are for all I know. Is the Vita more powerful? Everything not named Virtual Boy would outsell the Wii U. Power has nothing to do with it. Nintendo fucked up, and power is only a fraction of the reason why. I can't believe I have to resort to these tired old facts, but here we go: Wii outsold the PS3 and 360: was it more powerful than those two? By the way, the Wii to PS3 gap is probably the largest one in a console generation history. That was the last time you could grab some random Joe off the street and he could defitively tell you the difference. Yet, the Wii is the sales king. PS2 outsold the GCN and XB: was it more powerful than those two? Nope. DS outsold the PSP: Is it more powerful than that? Hell naw. PSP even had Monster Hunter that gen. 3DS outsold the Vita: Is it more powerful than that? Lol. GBA outsold the N-Gage: Have you ever even heard of the N-Gage? So yep, most buyers don't care about power. In most instances, it's negligible. The gap between the X1 and PS4 is negligible. The gap between the PS360 was negligible. The people who care about power are message board nerds like us and, like a friend of mine said in another thread, the "I need to compensate for my small wiener" crowd. I think you're wrong. Most would-be gamers do care about power when it comes to determining value, and they care more than ever. They don't need to know about anti-aliasing or screen tearing to know that PS4 games look objectively better than Xbox One games, that look dramatically better than Wii U games. We can disagree. I have no problem with that. But I'm telling you, if you go find random people with and ask them tell you which version of most multiplats look better, they won't really be able to spot the difference. If you try to have a conversation about console power and capability with anyone other than your hardcore gaming friends, you will bore them to death. The demographic you and I are in don't represent the majority of consumers. That is fact. It's a factor that helps people choose which console they're going to buy, especially when all of the prices are the same! It's a pretty small piece of the pie. Most people choose a console based on price, games they want, what their friends have, and any other luxuries like media capabilities before they consider power. The guy who only plays consoles for Cawd isn't going to choose a PS4 or PC if his friends are already gaming on X1. The woman who loves Uncharted isn't going to buy a Scorpio if it's not getting Uncharted. You're right in the sense that most Nintendo fans couldn't care less about power, but that's an incredibly easy argument to make when your console of choice isn't nearly as capable as the rest. I heard plenty of Nintendo fans toot about how much more powerful the Gamecube was compared to the PS2, and I bet you those are some of the same people that suddenly don't care nearly that much. You only need to look within this very thread and others on this site to see that there a lot of Nintendo fans who care about power. It looks very petty of you to have to have to resort to strawman arguments. You're starting to sound like DonFerrarri; I don't recommend taking after that guy. But just to let you know, the GameCube is more powerful than the PS2. It ate the PS2 for lunch in terms of power, and that's before we even get to the Xbox. I'm glad you brought it up, because guess what? The PS2 is arguably the greatest console of all time, and the undisputed popularity champion. So like I said earlier, if power is what people cared about, why did the Xbox and GC get destroyed by the PS2? Your own logic betrays you. If that's the marginal difference you're referring to than your point might is valid, but from what's been leaking out, it's entirely possible that the Switch is actually less powerful than the Wii U. Just let that sink in. Think about how hard it will be to sell a system to developers that's actially less capable than its predecessor, when the competition has gotten many times stronger. The difference is going to be stark. Making a PS4 game run on a console less powerful than the Wii U For example, imagine two display booths in a store like BestBuy. In my local store they're literally all right next to each other X1 - PS4 - Wii U. All in a Row. In the middle, you havePS4 pro that does native 4K, and then not 6 feet away, you have the Switch that does native 720p upscaled to 1080p, the is absolutely zero chance that the games from the switch aren't dramatically worse, and they're selling for the exact same price. Dude, rumors are all over the fucking place. Show me a thread posting a rumor saing the Switch is weaker than a Wii U, I'll show you three more saying the Switch is double the Wii U, triple the Wii U, half the X1, in the ballpark of X1, slightly stronger than X1, between X1 and PS4, and slightly stronger than the PS4. Unless you have sources, that paragraph doesn't mean jack. When we have actual information to go on, then I will be glad to have this discussion. |
It's curious that you didn't mention the current generation. I wonder why that is. Could it be because the most powerful console is in fact dominating the competition? The fact that the PS4 was signifcantly more powerful than the X1 and cheaper certainly played a part in a lot of Xbox 360 owners I know that switched over and bought PS4s instead. It certainly didn't help that MS stuck a grenade up its ass, but still, the X1 has never really gained any ground since. The gap just gets bigger and bigger.
In any of those previous generations you mentioned, did any one of the console manufacturers every release a significantly more powerful version of their existing console? I don't think that's ever happened. Yet we have two console manufacturers doing it right now. You can harp back on previous generations all you want, but that change the fact that the consumer base has changed, and they care about console power more than ever before. You can see it all around you.
Now whether or not that is a big enough factor that the average joe knows that the PS4 is more powerful than the X1? I'm not sure. But you can bet your ass in a years time Mircosoft is going to be bombarding the world with ads to let it know how Microsoft made the most powerful console ever. Why on earth do you think that Microsoft is putting out an X1 that could literally cost twice as much as the base model if the consumer base wasn't showing a demand for a more powerful console? What is the point in doing that if no one really cares about that and they're just going to buy regular X1s instead? You must have really low expectations for the PS4 Pro and the Scorpio based on your arguments.
