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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Without Playstation, would the industry be in another crisis?

Train wreck on 20 April 2015
RolStoppable said:
Train wreck said:

But you just wrote that Sega didn't have the financial means to expand gaming and Nintendo was experiencing generation/generation declines in home consoles with the NES to SNES, where would the growth and expansion come from?

Where did I write that Sega didn't have the financial means to expand gaming? What I said is that Sega didn't have the money to compete with Sony on an image campaign, but with Sony gone (which is the topic of this thread), Sega could have just continued with what they did with the Genesis/Mega Drive and position themselves as the cool alternative to Nintendo.

The growth would obviously come first and foremost from Europe and the reasons for that growth would be the same that led to the PS1's success there.

The playstation 1 and Sega Saturn has the same development time (for the purposes of this thread) as they were released a couple months apart in Japan.  From what we know about CD based consoles before the playstation and what Sega had layed out for the Saturn, if the playstation didnt exist, where would the growth come from?  Sega was already the premier videogame brand outside NA and Japan.  The Saturn, at launch, had little to no games, was extremely expensive, and was coming off a two failed perpherials.  From past history (and recent history) this is a receipe for a disater.  Even if Sega was not pressured from playstation launch, the price still would have been extremely expensive which would have limited gaming growth.



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fluky-nintendy on 20 April 2015

Without Playstation, gaming simply wouldn't be the same. Very hard to imagine that world though.



...Let the Sony Domination continue with the PS4...
Eddie_Raja on 20 April 2015
generic-user-1 said:
Eddie_Raja said:
generic-user-1 said:
torok said:
generic-user-1 said:
Sega saturn would have sold alot better. and sega wouldnt have been so broke.
the PS got lucky and the saturn didnt, thats all. sony didnt do much for this succes, they were there when first nintendo fucked it up and than sega fucked it up.
the games that pushed the PS the hardest would have been made anyway.


PS got lucky? Saturn was a terrible hardware project, while N64 was simply "average". And claiming that Sony only managed to do an impact because the competitor fucked up is absurd. With PS1, they outsold their competitor combined by 2:1. With PS2, they did it by 3:1. With PS4, they are almost beating then combined. It takes a lot more than luck to reach these kind of dominant results.

The first sentence is simply obvious. The TuboGrafx-16 would have sold much better to if there wasn't an SNES and Genesis on the market. Saturn was beaten not because of bad luck, but because it was more expensive, weaker, didn't had a Sonic game, complicated to develop for, hard to cut manufacturing costs, etc. Add that to the fact that it was almost a mockering of all the people that bought 32X and Sega CD and you get why Sega went down. As much as I am a Sega fan, I know that they simply didn't do anything right for almost 5 years before quiting the console business.

why did the PS win? Cds and 3rd party support. the saturn had cd and would have had 3rd party support if sony wouldnt have entered the market. sony hadnt any 1st party killer apps, the tech wasnt better or cheaper than the rest. sony was just at the right place at the right time and didnt made stupid mistakes. 

sure the gaming market would be different with sega and nintendo at the top and many others that try to make a good console but it wouldnt be much smaller, and it would be alot stronger and not in a crisis like todays gaming industrie(the 3rd party developer are bleeding a lot of money)


LOL why did PS win?  It's obvious:

-CD's were too expensive when the Saturn released, whereas the PS1 was still priced as an average console.

-Sony had TONS of killer apps like Crash, Spyro, MGS, FF7, and GT.

-CD's were WAY cheaper than cartridges to produce (Like $1 vs $30).  It's no wonder why Sony got better 3rd party support.

-Sony appealed to people of ALL ages, not just kids.

 

Saying the industry would be stronger without them is pure conjectgure.  There is no evidence to support this.

so what you saying is that cds got a lot cheaper in just 11 days?   the saturn wasnt so much more expensive, it came with a bundled game, and games were realy expensive in that time.

and sega had the better games, they just were run by idiots, the saturn launch was realy a mess.

and sony appealed to casuals, not just core gamers, the PR actions of Sony to make gaming cool were realy succesfull.

LOL it was $100 more expensive for a worse line-up and less PR.  Stop fooling yourself.  The launch was a complete mess too.



Prediction for console Lifetime sales:

Wii:100-120 million, PS3:80-110 million, 360:70-100 million

[Prediction Made 11/5/2009]

3DS: 65m, PSV: 22m, Wii U: 18-22m, PS4: 80-120m, X1: 35-55m

I gauruntee the PS5 comes out after only 5-6 years after the launch of the PS4.

[Prediction Made 6/18/2014]

zorg1000 on 20 April 2015
HollyGamer said:
zorg1000 said:
HollyGamer said:
zorg1000 said:
 

Yes, Sony did an excellent job at making consoles mainstream in Europe and developing countries. The thing that I find a bit annoying is when people act like they made gaming mainstream in America or Japan, because console gaming was already big and growing in those regions.

Yeah agree with u, US and Japan is the exception because those country at that time is the most advance country interms of economy and the people have buying power more then other country. But  mainstream mean also  more diverse and variaty of consumer, more casual , and more popular and that's include US and Japan, with PS1 people buy console not just for playing games, people buy for style, part of trend and also PS1 is a symbol of entertainment, unlike SNES at that time, people think SNES is just a video games while PS1 is more of electronic entertainment device.

I don't really buy it that Playstation made gaming more diverse, gaming was growing in America before Playstation released.

Atari 2600 did about 23 million in America

NES did about 33 million in America

SNES+Genesis did about 45 million in America

PS1+N64 did about 60 million in America

PS2+XB+GC did about 80 million in America

The console market would likely have continued to increase in America with or without Playstation, people credit Playstation for bringing gaming to adults but I don't believe it, kids who played games in previous generations were now becoming teens or adults so it's just natural that they would want more adult themed games.

Let simply say and agree that gaming would have continue even without PS, but will not be as mainstream like today,and high probability might have anothe crisis  because it would have only  supported by Japan and US. the same happen with ATARI because no compatition, no global appeal.


How does that lead to a crisis and what does the Atari crash have to do with anything?

So we have already established America would continue to rise with or without Playstation, as would Japan, it went from Gen 3-20 million, Gen 4-25 million, Gen 5-30 million.

The console market was about 20 million or so outside of those regions pre-Playstation.

So it's safe to assume that without Playstation, the 5th generation would probably be the same or similar in America/Japan and everywhere else similar to Gen 3/Gen 4 putting the total around 110 million instead of the 140 million we saw. Nothing suggests a crisis would have happened.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

Materia-Blade on 20 April 2015
HollyGamer said:
Materia-Blade said:

Do you have a crystal ball? Because you can't say what sega or any other would have done. The comparison with sony doesn't hold any ground, since sony didn't do/save anything.

Sony indeed did not save anything,  but they did a remarkable job by brought games to mainstream consumer globally with more of world wide  influnce, that's is a feat will not be achieved by any company at that time, not even Sega, hell it would have been difficult even for Nintendo at that time.

Sony didn't do that. 3d gaming expanded the market and ps happened to be the market leader at the time. The increase in hardware sales would have happened anyway.



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BruB on 20 April 2015

WithOUT Sony people would have bought Saturn and N64. Maybe even the Atari Jaguar would have gotton more third party support and sold a more and lasted a while to. I don't understand the PS brought gaming for adults theory , Sony a massive organization with loads of money used there marketing strategy to to push the system to everyone ,it played adverts in cinemas before their films, and sponsored adult events. But gaming in all honesty is a neither adult or Child like. It's gaming. Many bought Megadrive because it was deemed more adult like then Snes.
Saturn would have sold more, as well as N64. Neither may have not reached the sales numbers of PS ,but In Japan Sega Saturn's marketing was very good and sold well there. Of note ''Tomb Raider '' was developed on Saturn by Core design who actually liked the Saturn. Plus all these games people mention would have gone to one system or another. Plus developers would have tried harder on Saturn to program using both processors instead of being lazy and using only one .

PS had no games to match Virtua Fighter 2 ,Sega Rally or Virtua Cop for almost 18 months

Today Sega would still be the Sega we new, Nintendo would be at the top of there game and even though XBOX was inevitable ,it still would not be a contender outside of America and the UK. The rest of the world just don't seem to take well to Micrsoft's consoles, especially Japan.

And yes i believe the ludicrous DLC demon may not have got out of hand as it has .

But then WHO KNOWS WHERE WHERE BE IN FIVE OR TEN YEARS TIME . WHO will be the market leaders then, will Sony or Microsoft still be behind the PS and XBOX brands.

All i know is i just don't have room for any more consoles.

What if all current companies made a console together. Give it a really crazy name.( Snes Staion Box) Third parties would just need to produce one version of any game. But each company would say produce their own consoles with their own branding . Making their first party titles only playable on their branded system. Consumers would buy the console with the best exclusives for them and still be able to play all third party titles.

From a current view from a first party choice i know who i would choose. do you?



BRKITG

Aeolus451 on 20 April 2015
RolStoppable said:
Aeolus451 said:

Really? I didn't see anything in the op about handhelds. Someone else must of brought handhelds topic into the thread. I wonder who....

Here:

Turkish said:

Without Playstation imo gaming would be in another crisis and succumb to the threat of mobile gaming already because it didn't innovate enough.

(...)

So my conclusion is, without Sony targeting the young adults and +30 age groups, Nintendo would be the leader with a fickle install base (kids, teenagers, older casuals), they are not loyal as the transition from Wii to Wii U demonstrated.  As we know, kids, teens and casuals mostly flocked to mobiles. This means Nintendo competing for the same audience with the dominating mobiles.

While it obviously wasn't the OP's intention to talk about handhelds, you can't make such statements and then completely disregard handhelds. Especially because the PlayStation brand includes handheld consoles.


I was being sarcastic.



gabzjmm23 on 20 April 2015

without Sony, someone would fill in Sony's shoes to be the next big thing besides Nintendo and Sega back then. We all know Sony Playstation and what it has accomplished through each generation but speculating what would it have been without Sony? Maybe Sega still exists, Nintendo still dominates and control the 3rd party games. or even a new player similar to Sony came into the picture or if that was even MS coming to the picture earlier and became the dominate force. who knows.



naruball on 21 April 2015
zorg1000 said:
HollyGamer said:
zorg1000 said:

I don't really buy it that Playstation made gaming more diverse, gaming was growing in America before Playstation released.

Atari 2600 did about 23 million in America

NES did about 33 million in America

SNES+Genesis did about 45 million in America

PS1+N64 did about 60 million in America

PS2+XB+GC did about 80 million in America

The console market would likely have continued to increase in America with or without Playstation, people credit Playstation for bringing gaming to adults but I don't believe it, kids who played games in previous generations were now becoming teens or adults so it's just natural that they would want more adult themed games.

Let simply say and agree that gaming would have continue even without PS, but will not be as mainstream like today,and high probability might have anothe crisis  because it would have only  supported by Japan and US. the same happen with ATARI because no compatition, no global appeal.


How does that lead to a crisis and what does the Atari crash have to do with anything?

So we have already established America would continue to rise with or without Playstation, as would Japan, it went from Gen 3-20 million, Gen 4-25 million, Gen 5-30 million.

The console market was about 20 million or so outside of those regions pre-Playstation.

So it's safe to assume that without Playstation, the 5th generation would probably be the same or similar in America/Japan and everywhere else similar to Gen 3/Gen 4 putting the total around 110 million instead of the 140 million we saw. Nothing suggests a crisis would have happened.

You did no such thing. Your hypothesis is built on a weak argument. Just because the market was growing, it doesn't mean it would keep growing or at the same pace. Or should someone assume that since the market has been growing until now, this generation will surpass the last one? We all know that's not happening. Also, 3 out of 5 generations you mentioned include ps consoles. Without them we have no idea how the other consoles would have done. Especially since ps2 sold a lot thanks to the dvd player and piracy (same with ps1) and we don't know if other consoles would have faced similar problems.



hinch on 21 April 2015
Ka-pi96 said:
I would hope somebody else would have seen the potential of the industry and have stepped in.

If not then PC gaming would truly reign supreme.

If you truely believe that.. then wow.

At any rate, Nintendo would probably still be top dog and Sega might just still be around making consoles. Which, to be honest.. wouldn't be such a bad thing. At all.