Western style titles yes. Anyway, that's not true, as EA and Ubisoft continued supporting the Gamecube. No wonder we have a different view. You didn't even realize you were talking about the Wii, not the business plan. Of course the Wii and the Wiimote are part of it. But thinking the VC, the channels, ... are just there to look good is a mistake, IMHO. We fall back to the exact same criticisms made for the DS, every single time. And yet you tell me I have no basis to think you weren't thinking the same about the DS. And what are you saying for the Wii without the features you talked about ? Will it be successful ? So there was a general consensus like that. There's exactly the same for DS. So how come you see 3rd party flock to DS and they didn't to GC ? How come PSP saw far more support from western devs than DS, despite PSP selling less ? They wouldn't have come onboard as they plain and simple didn't (or rather, really poor support compared to PSP) until Nintendogs skyrocketed DS sales. See ? Autofulfilling prophecy, you're pushing the general consensus even more. The general consensus was that the PSP had a better appeal to devs, and that the DS had substandard hardware and online service. The FPS part was a bet, a guess, as that's the only demographic I know that react like you do to some games cited. So there's another I don't know about. Now, what you said was rather : "No one would care about Rayman or Elebits or Excite Truck if they weren't on the same console as Legend Of Zelda: TP. It's those well-known titles that carry the console". Except that it didn't help the GC or N64. And Zelda WW sure enough didn't carry RE4 or Tales of Symphonia. Keep in mind both of those were ported to PS2. 3rd party is important, if only to fill the hole between good 1st party games.

For lordN : " The business plan revolves around the Wiimote. If you take away the Wiimote, then you basically have a Gamecube with online play. Less-than-stellar online play, at that. The Wii without the Wiimote would be a weaker PS3 and 360 just as the Gamecube was a weaker PS2 and Xbox. Developers have even criticized the Wii for its substandard hardware and online service, and that's what these devs would have to work with should the Wiimote novelty wear off. " You confound the innovation with the business' strategy. Wiimote is one of many means that Wii had to fulfil its business' strategy. Recently I hear only Sony or Microsoft that try to diminish Wii using "lack of power" excuse. About Wii's online I believe you never heard Wada's praise ... Ah I hope you know, who Wada is I don't understand why you try to diminish Wii, comparing it to GC. Wii have an improved GC's hardware architecture but for the rest ( the business' strategy ) this two system is in two worlds apart. Having the seam hardware architecture of GC, could be see as a graphic disadvantage but the other side of the coin is that Wii have the seam development cost of PS2. Implementing wiimote features is NOT expensive, Anyone has seen Wii's tool : LiveMotion ? PS3's position is not near similar to Ps2's position for many reasons : - PS3's development cost and time. - Sense of timing of PS3's launch. - PS3's price tag and target ( yeah PS3 target il lower than PS2 thanks to PS3's excesive focus on multimedia part) - Rivals are in better position in this generation than in last one ( PS2's sense of timing was awesome ). - Numbers of PS3's exclusives is going down day in, day out. " 1) Animal Crossing is a Nintendo flagship titles that was established back on the N64. 2) New Super Mario Brothers has outsold Brain Age by almost 2-1. 3) Mario Kart DS has also outsold Brain Age. " 1) Do you know that AC's N64 version was launched in 2001 only in Jap together with AC's GC version. AC for GC can not achieve the huge success of AC wild world because GC's online limitations ... The first AC episode that really made this series a Nintendo flagship is the DS' version ... I bet that AC for Wii will have a greater impact than DS' version. 2) Why do you not look at software worldwide sales of this site, before you talk about it ? New Super Mario Bros sales = 8.64 M Brain Training sales = 6.89 M 8.64 / 6.89 = 1.2 3) Again, see my question above : Mario kart DS sales = 6.08 M Brain Training sales = 6.89 M It's so annoying ... Mh ... Do you know Erik, your writing mode is similar ( for style and ideas ) to Sean's ( but I'm not an expert of English ...) Are you Sean ?

IMO Sony can afford to take another initial manufacturing loss, it will be made up in licensing PS3 will drop its price, Sony already hinted at it and will follow though once some of the chips+blue-ray diodes are cheaper which will most likely be around may/june. All backward compatability issues will also be resolved with upcoming firmware releases. The last 2 generations have been won by PLAYSTATION, Even Wii users will by one after the novelty wears off and amazing eye-candy and fun titles like GTA, god of war and shadow of the colossus and original IP's come out this year and the next. 115 Million+ PS2 consoles worldwide and still selling... Sony can afford to take another initial manufacturing loss, it will be made up in licensing Once Sony pictures puts its entire DVD catalog and future releases on BR, people will like the fact that "ONE BOX" can do it all instead of having to switch around inputs and remotes to watch movies and play games. Which is Sony's original intent...and it is STILL the cheapest blue ray player...and the format war was already decided by disney, panasonic, apple and a slew of other companies... So PRICE is the only deciding factor right now...and the real war is between the 360 and PS3 not Gamecube 1.5. The PS3 will outsell the Wii in a year, tops. and have outsold 360 by this time next year. Watch for christmas 07

I think the PS3 will be in 3rd this x-mas. I think it will be within 15% of the 360's sales tho. I expect the Wii to be about 25% above the 360. Gamecube 1.5 I love it! That's all the Wii is. A Gamecube, with a new controller, Wifi, and a autoloader that will scratch your discs...

The PS3 is bombing horribly right now, but I guess the Sony fanboys are being delusional about it.

Wow you are not biased or anything. While it is true that Sony said they were open to a price drop, they never said when. A year minimum at best, but I would say at it will be at least 1.5 years before they seriously consider it as a viable option. Yes, Blue-ray has caught up to HD DVD finally, but it is still too close to call and honestly I don't see Blu-ray pulling away anytime soon. I do however see a problem, hybrid drives that play both. How will this affect the outcome? Only time will tell. Just because the Playstation 2 has sold just over 100 million consoles, does not mean it will again. A 1/4 of the those are DVD only as far as I can tell. I have only one friend who ever bothered to buy games for his, rest just use it for DVD's and a cd player. Don't believe it? Just look at the total games sold ration for all three consoles, the PS2 should have ALOT higher numbers than it does. Of course using this argument also goes in favor of PS3 again. The question is this, do people want high definition movies? I don't know the exact answer, but look how long it is taking for people to buy HD tv's. I mean given the choice, I still see people buying SDTV's instead for the price, and cannot see the justification in HD, and why should HD movies be any different? The PS3 will keep up, but it will alway be behind the XBox360 and Nintendo Wii because of the high price, and the fact that not as many people want an all in one device like you seem to believe.

Various responces, including thoughts covered by others...

Righto. I'm not going to reread the thread totally, but I think someone was implying that "casuals" wouldn't buy as many games. Allright, but you're talking about PS2 so far. The business plan behind PS2 and that behind PS3 are totally different. And I think some of these companies may end up in trouble, unless they got a major liscense or IP. The advantages are the same as GC? Here's a couple advantages I can think of that GC didn't have. 1. Devs are used to working on GC which Wii is based on, destroying any "learning curve", and the system has a shorter expected development cycle than its competitors regardless of the learning curve. 2. Nintendo are encouraging the making of "casual" games, which further shortens the development cycle, and de-emphasizes the arms race that has formed within established genres like RPGs, FPSs, or third-person sandbox type games. 3. Wii promises to sell MUCH better than GC in Japan and Europe. The Wiimote is the RESULT of the approach Nintendo took as a company. The RESULT of their business plan. Not the other way around. Take away the Wiimote, and you probably have a different revolutionary control technique, or another radical differentiating feature, since it was Nintendo's goal of differentiation and eventual disruption which led to the invention of the Wiimote. They would still have a budget console, an interface designed around user-experience, an online store focused on amassing the most content, a system architecture with minimal learning curve, would be relying on games with the same purpose as Wii Sports and Cooking Mama, etc etc etc... Nintendo do need to get some parts of their online squared away (I'm not surprised with a company like Ninty that the store was the one element perfectly ready for launch...) Again, the stylus, as well as the voice recognition and the "casual online" aspect of DS (by which I mean the ability to "visit" a friend's game), were the result of the business approach Nintendo took. Not all the key software they have is enabled by the stylus etc., but even some of that might not have existed without the business plan. 1. AC was established on N64, but established as a flagship on DS. In many ways, it was just a game which fit into the philosophy of DS and Wii, even before those systems were in development. With the ability to make and trade your home deco, customize Miis, visit your friend's houses any time day or night through WC24, get updates on the game regardless of if you're playing it, etc, it could continue to be a killer app on Wii. 2 & 3 = Wrong & wrong. Check your numbers. For reference, I use this site called "vgcharts.org" for all my numbers. Maybe you've heard of it. I'll also note that NSMB was even a game which was somewhat revolutionary. Yes, we've seen it before, but not a new one in 15 years, and making that game broke the thought process which says games evolve linearly and audiences move on to new types of titles. Basically, they made a game marketed at FORMER gamers more than anyone else, and it became a massive hit... It fits in perfectly with their new strategy, even though its old gameplay. And now it could hit 10 million shipments this year. No. I just read his articles, and followed it up by reading up on Blue Ocean strategy. His thoughts were confirmed by a variety of sources, including the Motley Fool and Walt Mossberg. I also learned a lot from the Iwata asks interviews. Even a title like GTA only has a draw of about 15-16 million at most, and most of that from the west, where 360 is a viable option. So even a massive franchise like that now has little draw in the grand scheme of things, in comparison to the volume of games. GTA, FF, MGS, GT etc could become like Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong and MarioKart etc were on N64. Massively popular, seemingly the most important games entering the generation, but the superior business plan still won out.

PS2 has substantially better attach rates than Gamecube... Not sure about XBox... People want HDTV... But not for the HD movies or games! The one videogame market with huge HDTV adoption is Japan. Why? Because they're "high tech savvy"? Nah. They're a densely populated country, with smaller homes and have more use for thin TVs they can mount on the wall. In the West, HD adoption is happening for the same reason, just more slowly.

That would make perfect sense except for the presence of thin LCD and EDTV's at a cheaper cost all over the world. Peolpe purchase HDTV's Because they want HDTV's.

One interesting point expose by JJ2000 is that this generation of console's purpose is not only on a gaming level. It's clear that Sony with PS3 is trying to do a convergence from console to PC whereas Micrososft is trying to do a convergence from PC Windows to console. The future is NOT in hard format but in digital distribution so MS, Sony and Nintendo ( yeah Nintendo too ) are going to push hard their digital platform. Nintendo is not insterested in multimedia such as cinema,music etc... The goal of VC is to become the mainly distribution channel for games like iTunes do some years ago for music. In this thread we talk about "Sony over" but we can't talk only about PS3. If PS3 reach full success then a PS3 user will download cinema and music of Sony label from PSN, will watch BDrom cinema ( so Sony takes the royalties of BDrom ), will watch HD films with a Sony's Bravia TV, will buy a PSP and connect it to PS3 and obviously Sony will gain from the gaming ( royalties,online microtransaction and accessories). If Sony achieves this success with PS3 then Sony could become the most richest company in the world. What I want to ask you is : Could Sony achieves this multimedia success without a strong gaming plan ? Could PS3's strong focus on multimedia features overshadow the gaming plan ?