noname2200 said:
HappySqurriel said:
Lead time is a huge advantage ...
The NES, Gameboy, Playstation, PS2, and 3DS all launched significantly earlier than some or all of their competition and went on to win their generation by wide margins.
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This is a fallcious argument. The NES had several systems launched prior to or concurrent with it. The same is true of the Gameboy. And the only way the PS2 can be included is if we, again, ignore the Dreamcast. This leaves the Playstation and 3DS as the only generation-winning first movers. The only way around this is to arbitrarily exclude earlier competitors to fit the narrative. I refuse to do so. This is especially true when of all the reasons I've heard given for the success of the give systems you've outlined, "lead time" has only seriously (and incorrectly) been mentioned for the PS2.
In the omitted portion you stated that "by launching a year earlier, a system will have a better library, lower price, and larger userbase against their competition throughout the generation than they would have had if they launched at the same time." It's a nice hypothesis, and one we can never completely test for obvious reasons, but the data we do have don't support it. That one-year advantage did not change the outcome for the Genesis. Or the Wonderswan. Or the Dreamcast. Or the NeoGeo Pocket. Or the 360. Or...
The theory has been tested over generations, and has yet to prove decisive or even particularly important. For the sake of this discussion I'll concede that it's an advantage. But other factors have proven to be much more important. And, based on what we've seen and heard, launching a year earlier would very likely have led to only minor additional third-party support for the Wii; if anything, it would have had even less Nintendo support ready.
Based on the stellar announced Wii U support thus far, I submit that its one-year advantage will prove similarly unpersuasive for most major third-parties. Their A-teams are likely gearing up for the next Microsoft and Sony systems, and unless those games are easily scalable to the Wii U I expect the Wii U to emulate the Wii's third-party support.
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What systems were released after the videogame crash but before the NES?
What portable gaming system had exchangeable cartridges before the Gameboy released?
Let's evaluate the systems ...
The NES is the first modern videogame system, the Sega Master system launched after it to low sales.
Sega launched the Genesis before the SNES, sales for the Genesis were far better than sales for the Master System and sales for the SNES were lower than sales of the NES.
Sega launched the Saturn at (roughly) the same time as Sony launched the Playstation and (roughly) 18 months before the N64. The Saturn was a "failure" due to the late generation add-on failures of the Sega CD and 32X combined with the massive price tag of the Saturn ($500) and sales fell back to the level of the Master System. The Playstation started out slowly, attracted third party publishers and was able to secure many gigantic exclusives before Nintendo launched the N64. Sega ended up with the most successful console of all time (at that point in time) while Nintendo saw declining sales with the N64.
Sega launched the Dreamcast a year before the PS2 was launched, Nintendo launched the Gamecube a year after the PS2, and Microsoft launched the XBox a year after the PS2. Even with the poor third party support and the impending release of the PS2 the Dreamcast saw better sales than the Saturn had, and ended up selling (roughly) as many systems as they sold Sega Saturns and Master Systems even though it was only on the market for (about) 2 years. The PS2 took its strong position with third party publishers and secured almost every major third party franchise before Nintendo or Microsoft released their system. Nintendo saw their sales decline further and Microsoft lost a billion dollars a year to carve out a tiny niche in the market.
Microsoft released the XBox 360 a year before the PS3, and Nintendo launched at the same time as the PS3. In spite of the fact that both Microsoft and Nintendo had small userbases from the previous generation, that the XBox 360 was an expensive failure prone system and the Wii was an underpowered system with virtually no strong third party support, both manufacturers sold far more home consoles than anyone but Sony had before; and the only gaming systems that sold to similar levels have mostly been Nintendo's handhelds.
Whether you want to see it or not there is evidence that release order matters, and this is probably half of the reason why the pattern of "The most powerful system never wins a generation exists" ... Essentially, releasing a system at too high of a price or too late in a generation does far more damage to sales than the benefit of having a more powerful system. We don't have to do too much looking to see what releasing a year late at too high of a price does to a system's sales (hint: look at the PS-Vita).
