StarDoor said:
Here's a crappy mockup I made:
Consoles are arranged by release date, with the year added for context. Just add in relevant new hardware when it releases, and remove its predecessor. Red = Nintendo, Blue = Sony, Green = Microsoft.
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Machina said:
RolStoppable said:
You can keep the bars, but you don't list market share percentages anymore. That way you won't have to put Switch twice on the frontpage.
I know it's unfortunate, but there is not a simple solution when the number of platforms has been reduced from five to three. Nintendo combined their home console and handheld while Sony exited the handheld market. It's a small section of the frontpage, so I cannot imagine that it would be a lot of work to implement a new design. Convincing Brett to get it done is the hard part.
StarDoor had a good idea when he put release years under the bars for console sales. I can also get behind the idea of using market share percentages for year to date sales that include consoles from two different generations.
Change is always going to be controversial and you are never going to please everyone. But it's a fact that change happened and you won't get around the new circumstances in the video game console market. You have to figure out what makes the most sense going forward. What are you going to do when the PS5 launches? If you keep market share percentages and then swap the PS5 for the PS4 on the frontpage, Sony's market share would drop from ~60% to under 5%. Removing market share percentages is going to be a lesser evil than retaining them.
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Regarding your question. Assume PS5 releases in, say, 3 years' time, and the Switch is continuing to prove a great success, so Nintendo has no plans for a new platform anytime soon. In that situation I'd say the home console chart would be just Switch and PS5, with XOne being dropped entirely. The next Xbox console would then be added to the chart when it released.
Sure this'd mean PS5 having almost no market share at first, and Switch having 90+%, but that's jsut the state of the market at the time and no different from the Xbox 360 headstart during that generation.
Like you say it means making a call and no one will be entirely satisfied. But if I were to make that call right now it would be:
NS/XOne/PS4
3DS/Vita
With market shares and with date of release, and with the chart being renamed current platforms. The handheld chart would be removed once both Vita and 3DS stop being produced. If Nintendo releases a new handheld then it would have 100% market share. If they don't, then handheld gets taken down altogether. Switch fits more comfortably in the console section than the handheld one imo.
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Is it possible to add another chart option just like Last Gen and Year-to-Date, and call it "Current Platforms" ?
By the sounds of it, you could use/copy the same chart system now, but make a few minor changes, so the "Current Platforms" chart mimics the one by StarDoor?
This way, the This Gen chart, doesn't need to change at all, and anyone who wants to see Switch on the charts can just go to "Current Platforms" to see it for now.
Considering Switch has 100% marketshare of the newest gen, percentages wouldn't be necessary until there was some competition, if at all, but maybe having percentages to show how much marketshare each platform has right now would be better than no percentage at all, since it would be a "Current Platform" chart. At least by doing it this way, in another completely separate chart, it would have to greatly minimize complaints, considering the charts that exist now wouldn't be changed or affected.
The final question would be, does This Gen remain the main chart to show up on the front page or do you make "Current Platforms" the main chart to give Switch a spot on the front page?
