| catofellow said: Probably Playstation. To me the question needs to be viewed backwards. If any one console hadn't happened, what would be different today? Playstation crushed Sega, took all of Nintendo's 3rd party support, and probably drew Microsoft into the market the following generation. Absent Sony, Nintendo and Sega were both faltering to an extent, it is possible the overall market would have declined, and maybe the market would not have reached the same mass market level. NES is probably second. |
Absent Sony Sega and Nintendo would've grown more.
The main source of new customers the Playstation brand found was in europe and the rest of the world. Nintendo had entry-difficulties in europe because of lawsuits with Atari, that's why Sega was bigger in Europe. But Sony used established channels for their entertainment products (TV, Walkmen, etc.) to push Playstation. Also Sony did a new level of advertising, just investing more money into well-placed ads. Sega and Nintendo would've reached these customers - over time. They would've needed more time to expand their channels, as they had not much established sales channels outside the US and Japan. People tend to forget in our more globalized world today, that in the past it was more difficult to reach customers in countries all over the world and many compynies therefore concentrated on a few important countries. There is no indication at all, that without Sony the market for Sega and Nintendo would've gotten smaller. People just make this stuff up, they don't understand the change of times. I lived back then.
