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Kyuu on 27 April 2023
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javi741 said:
Kyuu said:

That's because the most powerful system traditionally had a number of real disadvantages (not "excuses"), like late launch and poor design. PS1 had a 2 year headstart vs the N64 which went for expensive (up to) 64MB cartridges, a terrible move that sealed its fate. "Power" isn't the reason the N64 lost. And the low pricetag wasn't enough to mask its inherent disadvantages. Price and power are meaningless without context. Past trends are of little relevance regardless.

PS5 vs Series S absolutely proves that. The Series S shares the same feature set with the X. The Switch OLED beating the Lite does have more to do with features, but features are hardware/price related anyway, they require better hardware and come at an additional cost. Nintendo isn't going to launch the Switch 2 at the same price or $50 lower than the OLED model lol. If they wish to repeat the Switch success, then I think it's best to go with $400 minimum (for the standard "expensive" launch model), which is today's equivalent of yesterday's $300. I think there is an overwhelming evidence that the average gamer is ready to spend more money for more hardware, Nintendo should take advantage of this and not be overly concerned about price being high. Pricing the hardware too low at the cost of specs/features is just as dangerous as going too high.

I too couldn't care less about high resolutions (1080p is perfectly fine, and anything over 1440p is a total waste of resources), but it's up to developers to decide how to utilize power, and since PS5 will be the lead platform for most relevant 3rd party games, even a "powerful/expensive" Switch 2 would only play them at relatively low resolutions. I very much doubt even $500+ Switch 2 would target high resolutions for demanding and AAA games.

The examples you used with the Switch Lite/Oled and Xbox Series X are not good examples that people wanna pay more for higher specs. Both the oled and Series X are more successful because of reasons outside of specs, the Oled is more successful because people want to have a Switch that actually plays games on the go and TV, nothing to do with specs. The Series X is more successful than the S because it has a disc drive which is something that gamers still prefer to have to this day, again the higher specs have very little to do with it.

You also claim that the most powerful system hasn't won because of problems that don't have much to do with specs, while that's partially true for certain consoles, there are powerful consoles that screwed up because a company was too ambitious with the specs that made the system overpriced, take a look at the Saturn and PS3, both overly ambitious when it comes to specs that people don't care much about which led to an unappealing price. Also, part of the reason why the DS was more successful than the PSP was because it was cheaper, same reason why the Wii was so successful against the competition, because people would rather pay less just to play the games.

A better comparison you could've used to see if people would rather pay more for higher specs is looking at the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X sales numbers against the regular Xbox One and PS4, both the regular consoles and upgrades have the exact same features, only difference is that the PS4 pro and One X have better specs and are more expensive.

  1. If it's the case that people would rather spend more for higher specs, then why didn't the One X and PS4 pro outsell the original consoles? Answer is that people don't care to spend a bit more just for higher specs and would rather just get the cheaper model that just plays the same games.

Features and specs are both important, and both translate to a cost increase. You're not getting more features/specs free of charge. I never claimed the OLED/Standard Switch outsold the Lite due to the specs difference primarily.

Series S isn't being crushed "because it doesn't have a disk drive", that's a silly and convenient excuse. PS5DE -which also doesn't have a disk drive- outranks the standard PS5 whenever available despite 1) the relatively modest $100 price difference, 2) Sony's fanbase being more physical biased than Microsoft's, 3) not being pushed as Sony's main console (It's in high demand because the specs are the same as the standard model). A Series S with disk drive at $350 would barely have any effect on sales performance. A widely available Digital Edition Series X at $399 would have a significantly bigger impact. The Xbox ecosystem is more digital-centric than Playstation's. If the solution was as simple as making a disk edition Series S, Microsoft would have done it a year ago.

PS4 Pro and Xbox ONE X were expensive for what they are, late, were never going to have a single exclusive, and didn't really offer notably better graphics. Their higher specs were mainly used to increase resolution for the limited 4KTV market. For those reasons (Combined. Not individually), they never had the sales potential of a true next gen console. It seems you arrived at the same conclusion that Phil Spencer and Microsoft did when they launched the Series S, seemingly thinking midgen upgrade trends would carry over to a true next gen console ("PS4 and X1 sold better than PS4P and X1X, therefore specs don't matter for non-enthusiasts!"). Midgen upgrades and nextgen consoles are two entirely different things.

I don't see the standard/expensive Switch 2 launching lower than $399.