| curl-6 said: If the Playstation 3 had used a more standard CPU, and went with DVD instead of Blu-Ray, but launched at a more affordable $399 USD as a result, how do you think this would've affected its sales and how Gen 7 played out? |
It would have helped for sure, but would it have saved the PS3? Maybe not. I think people neglect how on point Microsoft was during Generation 7. They launched a year earlier, still secured a ton of exclusives and honestly just had better games early on. They were still selling even with the Red Ring of Death (people were more willing to deal with the system failure than get something else). A lot of Sony's launch games weren't great and who knows if losing Cell would have made them better. Sure, they would have been more functional, but were they better than Gears of War or Halo 3? Probably not. Even when you look at their expanded market moves, Kinect had far more impact and did better than Move did.
Also, it should be noted 3rd parties would have gone multiplat regardless of how difficult it was to make PS3 games. HD development drastically increased development time and cost. They couldn't be exclusive to one machine. While there were some games, it wasn't the norm. The days of the PS2 having every single game were done and it wont go back to that.
I think the thing is Sony doesn't ever put themselves in a strong position. They're kind of the status quo console and it seems more often that their completion missteps than they make big business plays. This is certainly true of the XBox One and Wii U. Even with some of the changes you mentioned, Microsoft and Nintendo were still in peak performance. The XBox 360 dominated it's home market and Wii created a phenomenon. Would Sony going from teetering on the brink of bankruptcy to being just OK really have changed their fortune in gen 7? Probably not.
Last edited by VideoGameAccountant - on 23 March 2020
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