no ps3 will have sold the most at of all 3 in the near future and its exclusive SW was impressive

xb1 wont be as successful as 360 but will not be the 3rd place console

I don't believe in curses, but I do believe in companies sometimes losing sight of what made them successful, particularly when they set their scopes on bigger targets.

Particularly when they're making their third console.

It's eerie, isn't it?! Admit it!

No, it just boils down to companies getting full of themselves and making bad decisions.

Saturn, Sega rushed to put it out on the market and was found lacking in the power and games that could have kept the system afloat outside of Japan.

N64, Nintendo wanted to control things just like they did with the previous generation while the industry was finally ready and wanted more storage then just the expensive cartridges Nintendo wanted to stick with.

PS3, basically Sony was expecting people to pay a high price without having the games or development tool necessary for easier development of games.

And really aside from the Saturn (which Sega rushed to abandon outside of Japan too quickly and thus doomed the Dreamcast to have the same issue that the Saturn did in not being strong enough to face its competitors), the PS3 and N64 were respectable, while they didn't match their predecessors in dominating the industry they are far from what you should describe as failures or victims of any curse.

Neither was the N64.

lol.

OT: Well, Microsoft are killing themselves just like Nintendo did with cartridges and Sony did with that PS3 pricetag so maybe the curse exists.

Or maybe they are aware of this third console curse myth and are trying their best to keep it making it happen.

Who knows.

Haha, alright, yes, I'll admit that it is an eery coincidence.

I had actually never thought of this before, but... yes. That makes worrying amounts of sense.

Though technically, Apple made the Pippin, then the iPhone, then the iPad, so there's one exception.

I think this is why:

1st: They learn what the market is like and get acclamted.

2nd: They apply everything they learned from their experience, and their competitors to make the product they know people want.

3rd: They did so much better from 1 -> 2, that they assume if they double down on older policies it will happen again.

*I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was a cycle (Notice Gamecube -> Wii -> Wii U)

*They don't necessarily fail with the third one, but they sell far less than their second gen...

I have a theory that this is caused by console manufacturers attempting to use a technique similar to Intel's Tick-Tock strategy, and failing on the pass that is simply an upgrade and not an overhaul. The SNES was using a 65816, a 16bit counterpart of the NES's 6502, but as soon as they went to MIPS, they lost it.

No it is because of bad business choices and/or lack of good exclusives. This dumb curse doesn't exist at all.