thismeintiel said:
The_Liquid_Laser said:
All of your bullet points are good points. Those are important factors. In particular the most important factors in launching a successful console are 1) having a strong library of games and 2) price (in that order). However launching early also helps. Why?
Because when a console launches early, that gives it a chance to build up a good library of games. Then when the competitor launches the first console has a much larger library of games in comparison. Also, the earlier a console launches, the earlier it can afford to drop its price. This means that the earlier console can often be priced more competitively than the competition. Launching early helps a console in both 1) game library and 2) price, and these are the 2 most important factors. It doesn't guarantee a win or anything, but launching early definitely helps.
What was Sega's most successful console? The Genesis (or Mega Drive). It launched 2 years before the SNES. What was Microsoft's most successful console? The XBox360. It launched a year before the PS3. And of course there is the biggest transfer of fortunes in all of gaming with the PS1 vs. the N64. The PS1 launched 1-2 years ahead of the N64 (depending on region). None of these 3 consoles had a particularly strong launch, but they all did a lot better over their generation than their launch would indicate. Their competition gave them time to get a stronger footing by releasing more games and being in a better position to drop their hardware price. Releasing early helps quite a bit. Given it can't save a console doomed to fail like the Saturn or Wii U. But if the console has some potential, then an early start can give it a much bigger advantage.
One factor that notoriously does not help is power. Waiting to launch a more powerful console is always a bad move. History has taught us over and over again that console power does not help, and yet companies still fall into this same trap. I can understand why. If you ask a person if they would rather drive a Toyota or a Ferrari, then most will say Ferrari. And yet every year Toyota sells a lot more cars than Ferrari does. Price matters. Price matters a lot more than power does. Sony may be trying to brand the PS5 as the Ferrari of gaming, but then it is going to sell like the Ferrari of gaming. Nintendo is very much branding Switch like the Toyota of gaming: simple, efficient, family friendly, etc.... Switch is already selling like the Toyota of gaming.
All of these reasons are why it really is a terrible idea for both Sony and Microsoft to wait until late 2020 to launch. They are giving Switch a ton of time to build up a huge library of games, and at this point Nintendo can drop the price as much as they want (if they feel they need to). Meanwhile Sony and Microsoft are delaying to release a powerful console, which is really more of a disadvantage. Both companies are putting themselves at a huge disadvantage. They both begging Nintendo to take them to school for generation 9.
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The Saturn launched months before the PS1. The Dreamcast launched over a year before the PS2. There's much more to it than launching early. By your reasoning, those two should have been successes. Or at the very least, knocked out the competition that launched after the PS1, the N64, and PS2, Gamecube and Xbox. Instead they were both failures. Launch dates really mean nothing, unless the machines, games, and price are going to be exactly the same, which never happens.
Really, I just don't get how hard this is to comprehend, the PS4 and the Switch ARE NOT directly competing with each other. The Switch didn't kill the PS4's great sales, and vice versa. They have different features, game libraries, and power levels. Do you honestly think that someone who owned a PS4 this gen is going to "downgrade" to a Switch as their console for the next 6-7 years? Hell no. They are going to want the greatly upgraded power that comes with the PS5 and, more than likely, the exclusives on that system. If they do get a Switch, it will be just like the Wii was with the PS3 and 360 owners last gen, they got it as a secondary console.
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