Too Early to Tell

People on the internet constatly upsets me.  You have some people siding with the Company of there choice.  Others will look at statistics from the past and think this relates to the future.  The thing is, you can be a fan of a company all you want, but no matter what console you have you will get good games.  Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all makes good games like it or not.  Get all three consoles or both handhelds and you will get to play them all.  Statistics from past generations do not translate to the next genereation.  Compare PS2 to PS3.  Compare GameCube to Wii.  Compare XBOX to XBOX 360.  Things will be unpredictable.  

When PS3 came out everybody said it was doomed.  As soon as people see that sales aren't immediately amazing, they just shout doom, but let me tell you a not so big secret that a lot of people seem to ignore.  Brand name does not sale consoles, games sale consoles.  PS3 had already shot itself in the foot with a steep price.  This automatically hurt the PS3, but on top of that PS3 had no big name games.  Resistance and MotorStorm was just not going to cut it for people to spend that much money on a console.  When the price lowered and Sony started to bring out exclusive after exclusive, and that is when sales picked up and stayed up.

Now let's move onto the 3DS.  The 3DS reminds me of the PS3 launch more than anything.  A hyped up console built by the leading console maker of this generetion and a steep price point with no launch games.  I remember when it first came out everybody screaming DOOM once again. I kept telling people, "Do you see a Mario game?" No you ddidn't, because soon as Mario was released, that's when people will start buying it, because software sells hardware.  It proves time and time again.  Of course the price drop helped too, but without Mario Land 3D, Mario Kart 7, Monster Hunters 3G, Nintendogs + Cats, Zelda Ocarina of Time, Kid Icarus, Resident Evil Revelations, Star Fox 64, and Pushmo the 3DS would still not be worth it.  Now what happen's when Pokemon, a new Zelda, Donkey Kong, etc comes out?  What makes us like consoles? It's not the brand, it's the games.  

All the sudden the Playstation Vita gets announced and people are going crazy about it too.   When it was announced it was easy to tell that it would have problems when being released.  Why do I say that?  The price point for starters.  3G and games together makes no sense, the data would be eaten up so quickly.  I find that funny though because the same people who complain about paying for XBOX Live pays for 3G on the Vita.  The games that was being released for the Vita.  The thing about Sony releasing games on portable devices is that they take some of there big hitters and try to make a portable game out of them.  The thing is though, that none of there big hitters translate to portables very well, besides a few like Little Big Planet.  So here comes the release of the Vita and guess what, people shout DOOM.  However, I once again don't see this as a problem.  The Vita will eventually pick up when some of its better games comes out.  I do not know what these are, but it will happen eventually.  Another thing is the price will not stay 250 forever.  Eventually this will decrease as well.  No need to shout DOOM, jus give it a little time like the 3DS and PS3 before it.  

Now finally the WiiU.  What happens to a console that led this generation and brought on motion controlers? What happens to a console that has little hype surronding it? What happens to a console that joined the HD crowd so late.   Once again I think it's too early to tell.  Even when it get's released it may be to early to tell.  Why is that you ask?  Because these things are unpredicatable.  What I do know is that Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong and counless others will continue to sell well.  And if software sells, so will the hardware.  Will it sell more than the Wii?  I don't know, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't need to sell more than the Wii to be a success.  It needs to profit to be a success, and that's all.  We as gamers look at numbers but we don't think of much other than that, but there is a lot more to it than that.

WiiU-

-did you think bout ninty's move away from the casual market?
-What effect will the remote play feature have on the spec/price ratio? How will this effect the sales?
-Will ninty want to put less attention behind the console given its powa in the handheld market?
-Given ninty's shares drop in price over the last several months, how do you think the market views ninty's chances to succeed in a dominant fashion?

-We don't know what price the WiiU will be
-We don't know the launch games
-We don't even know the exact release date

About shares, the only people who cares about it are people who own shares.  Most people who buy consoles doesn't know anything about how well it sells or doesn't sell.  The game I listed above like Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Pokemon has proven to be popular and sell well.  They are some of the most well known names in the world.  Not just the gaming industry either.  They will continue to sell well no matter what console they're on

You have a really subjective touchy freely approach to analysis Jaywood. I prefer metrics, but whatever.

lol my point of this is nobody can predict it, you can only give your opinion and a lot of people don't think logical about this kind of stuff.  

I agree with the OP: I'm no Sony fan, but lets wait a year or sumthing before screaming doom and pointing at the Vita. I can never imagen it rivaling 3DS, but doomed? I don't know... What if Microsoft release all THEIR exclusive titles on the Vita? They don't have a hand held console, so why not? None of us can see in to the future, so don't say it's impossible.

The same thing goes for the WiiU; ppl are screaming d0med! And for what? Because they're late to the HD era? Imagen a HD Zelda; that alone will sell 10 million more WiiU's (hehe just a slight exaggeration;P), and add another 2d Mario: that's another 20 million WiiU's!

Let's look at the num,bers before screaming doom. I always welcome a healthy debate based on facts :D

For the Wii U I agree 100% that it is too early to say how it will perform ... Almost everything people "know" is unsupported rumours.

With the PS-Vita I think a picture is starting to emerge that is not looking too good; and, without a dramatic move by Sony, could lead to long term trouble. While you can argue that the same could be said of the PS3, if Sony lost over half their userbase in the handheld market (like they did in the console market with the PS3) no one will be calling it successful ... There is still time to turn this around, but everyone will be looking for Sony to do something pretty drastic at E3; and if that doesn't happen, I have doubts about the long term viability of the platform.

With the 3DS, while it is too early to claim that it will replicate the success of the DS, it is fair to say that it is on track to being a highly successful platform. A year old and over 16 million systems sold, even if it only averages 3/4 per year for the next 7 years it will break 100 million units sold

Meh, if you compare it to the sales of the psp, it's not doing too badly up against that.  

Well yeah I realize that, but compared to sales the 3ds it seems to be doing ok. I mean the psp was only selling about 25% of the ds hardware, and it was still profitable somehow.

3DS: definitely tracking post price cut/release of first major titles for the holiday season.

PSV: too early to tell. Not enough major titles to justify current price. In other words, the EXACT same situation as the 3DS a year ago. While I don't see a $70 price cut happening in the next four months, the release schedule through the 2012 holiday season will be the real test as to whether the platform is able to gain any serious traction in the near future. Barring any as of yet unknown killer apps, the state of the platform in Q1 2013 may set the tone for the remainder of the platform life cycle.

Wii U: simply not enough information for anyone to be making a legitimate analysis. Opinions are fine, as are wishes/hopes, but they really don't have much bearing on reality. Hardware specs aside, which most who have been paying attention to Nintendo's business plan from the last 15 years or so know has not been their focus (I'll say it never has), there is nothing known to the general public regarding any potential killer apps on the level of Wii Fit or Wii Sports to say nothing of the potential applications of the platform coming from third parties.

And of course, public reception trumps all. One of the most popular disparaging remarks about the Wii ("It's just a trend"), happened to be one of the key reasons why it ended up in tens of millions of households that had previously never owned a video game console. The Wii U should be so lucky if it hits "trendy" status this hardware cycle.