| SeaDaVie said: Some of your numbers don’t look right: NES+Master System in NA = 35.5m SNES+Genesis in NA = 41.38m PS1 + N64 + Saturn = 62m
That’s 16.6% growth into 49.8% growth. In Europe: NES+Master System = 15.25M SNES+Mega Drive = 16.54M PS1 + N64 + Saturn = 38.54m That’s 8.5% growth into 133% growth The best selling system of the generation went 61.91m -> 49.1m -> 102.49m -> 160m If you think that is just normal growth due to changing demographics then I don’t know what to say to you. The release of the PlayStation started the biggest growth period in the history of video games and completely changed the way video games were viewed by entire societies. I’m sorry if that doesn’t sit well with you because you prefer other companies. |
RolStoppable said:
The reduced sales of Nintendo consoles point towards the competition taking gamers away from Nintendo, not Sony bringing in entirely new audiences. As zorg1000 has already pointed out, the leap in sales during the PS1 generation we saw came from developing markets. The growth in Japan and North America can be attributed, for one, to increased disposable income resulting in the rise of multiconsole-ownership, and two, population growth. The growth in Europe came from the EU taking shape with a united market that was introduced in 1993, doing away with borders and tariffs, therefore making all sorts of electronics a lot less costly for European customers. A major change like that takes a few years to trickle down and this coincides with a strong increase of PS1 sales as well as Gameboy sales. The catch is that we never talk about GB sales, because if we would, the whole PS1 myth begins to crumble. Additionally, the EU kept adding countries at a faster pace than before from the mid-1990s onwards. There was a lot of outrage from PS gamers that adults wanted to play the Wii. If you missed all that, you've lived under a rock. |
I guess I lived under a rock and I guess the outrage was done by the time I joined this site (2010)
See @SeaDaVie 's reply above, Sony did bring in new audiences.
Europe didn't experience the video game crash like the US, NES didn't make as much of an impact and gaming would have kept growing more towards PC if Sony had not made console gaming 'cool'. I do remember game consoles being exclusively sold in toy stores before the PS1 and the first time I saw a PS1 was in a department store running Wipeout. Then consoles ended up in record/movie stores.
Sure there were other factors as well and yes the market expanded in Europe, yet the PS1 convinced me and many others to give consoles a try while coming from PC and Amiga. MS also played a role in that as Windows 95 was horrendous for gaming at the time.
However the big shift was consoles not just being sold in toy stores anymore and being marketed to older kids. At least that was my experience in The Netherlands at the time. And marketing to a wider demographic definitely helped jump start console sales faster in those new markets.
