I got all 3 systems cause there are games that I really want to play on each of them, but I do have my favorite (PS3)  and my least favorite (Wii) as a system.

I find myself preferring if the PS3 did better and the Wii didn't do so good because I don't like the direction Nintendo is going with Wii Sports/Play; All this being said, Zelda and Paper Mario have been great and I am looking forward to Super Smash and Mario Galaxy, but those don't fit into the whole 'casual' game thing... 

I'll tell you why, That Guy (love your signature and avatar by the way. who is that?).

Unlike the movie industry the videogame industry is very fragile. Nintendo is the foundation that keeps this whole business together and others haven't gotten to their level in regards to freshening the industry while keeping up a healthy profit. A few bad decisions by enough companies and this whole industry goes extinct. That's almost what happened 25 years ago.

Unlike movies less people are apt to want to play games. It is seen as a kid's hobby and any adult playing still gets seen as undeveloped man-children or women-children in the rarer case. That whole "When I was a child I thought as a child but when I became a man I put away childish things" kind o' thing. The audience and this stigma has improved over the years but the population at large still doesn't play videogames in comparison to the ones that do. I think they say the videogame market hasn't gotten over 33% of the entire population YET. (people surprised at DS's success don't realize that Nintendo has plenty of room to grow because of this fact)

Since the market is limited sales are harder to come by. This business is notoriously difficult to make a decent profit out of. Once again only Nintendo has mastered this. Every other company including Sony finds it difficult to make money in this field. Sony put in so much to get back so little and they had the best selling systems of all time. An expensive field with little reward. Microsoft lost HOW much? $4,000,000,000 USD trying to break into this market and they're the richest company in the world. Had it been anyone else they would have folded and possibly gone out of business or at least bankruptcy. Money problems destroyed Sega as a hardware maker. Sales don't mean a 'darn' thing if you ain't making some green to stash away in your Scrooge McDuck Money Bin to swim in. Aye Laddie...Work Smarrrtar, No' Harrrdar. Atari and Mattel and every 2nd gen competitor flunked out of game school because they couldn't survive the Crash. Atari hung on but got scratched by a wild Jaguar. Now they've been bought and sold to so many corporate johns that they are just fighting to stay alive as a name. Good games don't always mean good sales and companies have to strike the balance between making something fresh and unique to keep the art form moving forward and putting out slapped-together money-making hashes for short term funds. People don't cherish videogames like they do movies and play a little bit, cheat or run through the game fast and then demand more. All those years and months that went behind the making of a game and yet the buyer will always complain and be unsatisfied still wanting more as if this stuff can be slapped out like water from a tap.

On top of this you have to worry about pirates who understandably or not-so-understandably bootleg the games creating a cancer effect on the selling power of the companies' games. Only a few markets will actually pay money to buy videogames and some won't pay until the price comes down to player's choice/best seller steals. Most of the world which is poor will bootleg. The other bootleggers just do it for the sake of doing it regardless of their income. And even in the markets that actually put down dollars to buy games bootleggers are prevalent. And you really can't stop a pirate; all you can do is slow him. If it can be made, it can be hacked and cracked. All depends on the skill level of the bootlegger.

Then you got the used games market which is a good thing for economical buyers but basically recycles old already-bought games to new users. It's good because the buyer may become loyal to a certain company and may seek to pay money for a new game once his finances allow but the money spent in used games only goes to the used games sellers in the meantime.

Not counting added stigmas about children corruption via vieogames, games causing couch potato obesity syndrome and the constant siege of this pastime you also got to worry about competition's direction. Videogames are supposed to be a cheap simply-accessed luxury. You have companies behaving like computer companies and going far beyond the pale in the making of their machines. Raising prices trying to stupidly push the technological envelope on a videogame console. That's not what they were designed for. That's a computer's job to push the technological envelope. Consoles have a threshhold that people won't go beyond when considering spending dollars. It is viewed as a superfluous pastime and unlike with jewelry or other high-ticket items most people are not going to spend extraorbitant amounts of money on a game set-up. It hasn't attained that status yet. The people who have money like that are probably least apt to want to play videogames in the first place. They don't have to escape into a fantasy world; they can just take a plane to any exotic resort they wish at will. Imagine buying your wife a PS3 for your 10th wedding anniversary instead of a gold diamond necklace. Though there ARE girls who may appreciate a PS3 as a present most women will be displeased. As The Rock would say "some companies are forgetting to know their role". Unchecked companies that try to use a game console as a place to make the highest tech will bankrupt themselves and alienate game players who will end up going to simpler games on cell phones and the low-end parlor games on the computer. Or stop playing altogether.

With gas prices rising, job security becoming a part of folklore, and retirements and pensions becoming ancient Greek mythology people will spend on certain things disregarding the others. Since the game market is still a minority splintering this group further bodes horribly for the gamesindustry.

People speak out of concern for a very teeter-totter industry that is still in danger of extinction. People related to movie screen for a century. Good or bad it will always survive. Network TV is similarly resilient despite losing ground to games, internet, cable TV and home video over the years. Some industries can sustain themselves because of the sheer potential audience available. Most of the American population watches movies. Most of the current approximate 300,000,000. This is not so with games. Gas industry won't fade until someone has the guts to unveil a better energy source. You HAVE to get gas to do everything in this country. It is essential to the infrastructure. That's why these guys get away with jacking up the prices. What are you gonna do without your local electric and water monopoly? Not a dadgum thing unless you play the generator game or live ruffneck mountain man style with the outhouse and manual well (if you're lucky).

Game industry ain't got it like that so people voice their concerns over something that may not be tomorrow and infinite competition is not reality. There's really not room for more than two competitors at a time as it stands right now. The money spread is limited so some company will always get the shaft. People campaign out of subconscious or conscious desire to gather support for their system so that it succeeds. Others speak out for the concerns of the future of the industry.

This may change in the future but as of right now this is how it is. And until that changes you will see more of this. Some rational, some irrational.

On the other hand be GLAD people care so much. Quality goes down when people stop caring about the industry they participate in. That's why there's so much junk on TV & Movies. The audience became so big that no one had to care anymore and junk was produced as the rule not the balance.

You can say this about the politcal industry as well.

John Lucas

Not only is a 33/33/33 split not possible, it would suck. I mean, no one wants HD-DVD and Blu-Ray to split the pie, to they? So that everyone has to invest in multiple formats? The format-owners have to keep burning cash to get an edge, the movie studios have to produce movies for multiple formats, consumers have to buy two machines. Everyone loses.

Now it isn't a perfect analogy, obviously... Non-"winning" consoles can still be profitable and sell tens of millions of units... But a dominant platform is an inevitability... And its beneficial to a large extent... I mean, no one would like it if there were 10 consoles evenly spliting the market... And the very fact that a dominant platform always emerges should clue us to the fact that most people prefer 1 console to 3, as well...

Thanks, john lucas for the input.

That "Guy" in my avatar is the Guy from V from Vendetta. We don't know his real name, but he is known for wearing that crazy mask, a Guy Fawkes mask. It comes from an English holiday; "Guy Fawkes Day", which is celebrated on November 5 of every year.

That Guy was known for attempting to blow up the British Parliament because he was upset with the government.

I forget if i just did the V for Vendetta thing because it was cool and it just happened to be a coincidence, or if I had put a lot of thought into my Avatar/Sig/Screen name. I'd like to think it was the latter

Also, sometimes people just call me "V" because my real name starts with V.

Anyways, lets take a look at the Car industry. Its not a perfect split- lets take that out of the equation for now. Most people have cars and stuff. A company like Toyota or GM, for example, wants to build a mass market car, something that everyone can afford and buy. But there are several other companies like BMW or Porshe or whatever that only sell uber PS-Triple-like cars, which are super expensive, but also have lots of features too. They don't expect to have the same market share as Toyota, but they are still profitable.

And as for your HD-DVD/Blu Ray point, Aston, the winner of the format wars will depend on *you guessed it* THIRD PARTY SALES. We know the Toshiba/MS camp, and then we have the Sony Camp. Sony isn't going to win the HD War if it only released Sony movies on Blu Ray and nothing else. All the other companies will have to cooperate and release movies for Blu Ray too. And making two formats wouldn't be too bad.

A big company like EA releases third party games for all formats and seems to have no trouble making profit. If a system dies, then EA will just go ahead and release more games for a different system and life goes on.

Even if 10 consoles split the market, as long as there are enough 3rd party games to go around, then everyone should be happy. Unless the market consolidated to just one company, not everyone will be able to get all the exclusives anyways.

Iono, i think my original point was why there is so much brand loyalty and fanboyism when everyone can just choose what they want and talk about how much fun they're having instead of bashing each other for having a "kiddie console" or whatever.

The issue is that if the consoles do split, the gamers benefit only with cheap multi-plats that aren't talor made for their systems.

 I think the major resemblance is the SNES/Genesis years: Unlike now, the companies could support both platforms and do well. Sega had some brilliant games, and so did Nintendo. There were 3rd parties on both sides and easily put out the most innovative games of any generation.

If it goes 33% this time, devs will just support all forms and we really won't see any blockbuster games that are unique to a system. I really want the 360 to do well because I think it can do things the Wii can't do (graphically) and the PS3 can't do (online-wise). If the Wii does good, then devs will make more use of the controller than they would with just cheap multi-plats that they really don't care about the controller. If PS3 wins, then devs will make full use of the BR-DVD and we'll get magnificent quality for imagery. The more sales they get from a single system allows more resources on that version of the platform. Look at Fight Night Round 3. EA did a spectactular job on it for 360 - because they wanted to make it great, and they will end up selling near 1m copies of it.

So when one system wins, the owners win as they get higher quality 3rd party titles. I think the race will be close enough to where we see alot of battling from the 1st party games that we get alot of fun titles, while there's just enough difference to see a few unique 3rd party games either favoring the Wii or the 360/PS3.

I will have to disagree with you one one thing john lucas and it is the fact that you view the video game market as being weak and then turn around and use sony as an example. Sony has been growing. It's   revenue is 3 to 4 times operating income which means Sony is trying to save after paying taxes they are pretty much turning around and sinking it back into projects and acquisitions. Their goal apparently is to make enough to pay everyone while still growing and testing the markets. From electronics, phones, banks, music, movies and games it should be more than obvious where Sony's money goes. Speaking of which, who here is going to see spider man 3 when it comes out?

Because I can watch every movie in the same movie theater.  If the Wii could play all 360/PS3 games and vice-versa then no, people wouldn't really care. ;>

Staticneuron: I am going to see Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the carribean in May :P

It could easily be a three way split the game market is much larger now thanks mainly to Sony inrtroducing large numbers of casual games which the Wii will suck up in huge numbers , this however leaves huge numbers of more hardcore gamers for everybody to fight for i reckon in the end it will be 40% sony 35% Nintendo and 25% MS a very good mix and only adds to choice . Bring it on its great only wish all the stupid fanboys would stop fighting and acting so babyish .

Two reasons for you, that guy: first one is that there are always people who care, in every business. There are people in the movie business who say for example superman is good and others say batman is good and so on and this is true for every part of life I think. but it is important to see that we are the minority. most people do not care about who built their console, but some do and they are arguing.

the second point is that it does matter if your system wins or not, which is the difference to the movie business or the car business or whatever. I for example buy nintendo consoles because I like the nintendo games and I don't want to buy more than one console per generation. This means that I miss a lot of good games, but if my system wins, I will get a lot more of those good games.