I would say that fads serves more to damper than help the sales of the consoles...

Wiimote not being supported well by 3rd parties could have prevented Wii to sustain sales, Kinect mandatory X1 damped its sales, Sega-CD made Saturn sales lower, PS3 bluray making higher price impacted PS3 sales, etc...

Focusing in the games first is what made NES, Genesis, SNES, PS1, 2, 4, X360 successes...

Green098 said: Doesn't the PS4's controller have a touch pad? Do game's still make great use of that these days? I know it's not a central selling focus at least nowadays, but it's still apart of the hardware that doesn't seem to be highly praised that much. I'm just saying even Sony like to be a little different with their hardware sometimes, sure it might not always succeed but it's good when companies at least try. As well even the PS4 is not without it's own "fad" although I don't really think that's the best term to call it.

TouchPad really get low use and probably adds more costs than necessary. At least it offer something like an additional analog

those good games could have been on their next system too with a better price and image.if consumer doesn't show any interest in your hardware then just forget it and start over again.u may loose some customer but if ur next system is interesting and affordable they will eventually buy it.what Sony did with the ps3 may be considered consumer friendly but that was not a financial friendly act.but now they learned their lesson pretty well looking at their handheld system.vita doesn't work so they just abandoned it and moved on.they need to understand that not all system they  make are not going to be successful and they learned that the hard way with ps3 and acted wisely with the vita. all the PlayStation system sold well except for vita.

DonFerrari said: pxrocks said: Ps1,ps2, and ps4 did good because of good library not because of some gimmicks like motion control or dvd player.ps3 could have been the best selling console last gen but due to that unnecessary bluray player it never reached its sale potential like a PlayStation.it was a disaster.sony should have dropped that console after a year or two and moved to a new gen.Nintendo did that with wiiu and its working fine for them.but on the bright side ps4 selling good without any gimmicks and holding well against the competition. That unabandoned failure managed to sell 90M and get some very good games.

pxrocks said: those good games could have been on their next system too with a better price and image.if consumer doesn't show any interest in your hardware then just forget it and start over again.u may loose some customer but if ur next system is interesting and affordable they will eventually buy it.what Sony did with the ps3 may be considered consumer friendly but that was not a financial friendly act.but now they learned their lesson pretty well looking at their handheld system.vita doesn't work so they just abandoned it and moved on.they need to understand that not all system they  make are going to be successful and they learned that the hard way with ps3 and acted wisely with the vita. all the PlayStation system sold well except for vita. DonFerrari said: That unabandoned failure managed to sell 90M and get some very good games.

People don't seem to understand what a fad is.

1: Something akin to 'fashionable' that people buy and then forget about quickly.
2: Something people do for a short period of time and then easily get bored of it.
3: A product that's only on the market for a short period of time before it's forgotten about. 

None of this is to be confused with a person who is 'faddy'. These people can buy any product, even if it has been very popular for years (and still is) but soon get bored of it. 

Last edited by GribbleGrunger - on 28 December 2017

pxrocks said: those good games could have been on their next system too with a better price and image.if consumer doesn't show any interest in your hardware then just forget it and start over again.u may loose some customer but if ur next system is interesting and affordable they will eventually buy it.what Sony did with the ps3 may be considered consumer friendly but that was not a financial friendly act.but now they learned their lesson pretty well looking at their handheld system.vita doesn't work so they just abandoned it and moved on.they need to understand that not all system they  make are not going to be successful and they learned that the hard way with ps3 and acted wisely with the vita. all the PlayStation system sold well except for vita. DonFerrari said: That unabandoned failure managed to sell 90M and get some very good games.

Abandoning your console is bad on the show of support and how you threat your early adopters... also launch aligned PS3 were always ahead of X360.

I realize now that using sarcasm in a forum post doesn't always go over. If you may recall, I done a thread stating why the 'PS2 sold because of DVDs' claim was nonsense, so I'm right there with you. But if anything I (attempted) to bring fourth another point in this thread about the idea that PS consoles don't need, and never needed, a fad (some new enticing technology substantially different to what has been seen on other consoles).

People think that by fad i'm saying something with less credibility or 'flash in the pan', I just mean some new thing that was a primary draw to the console, like motion controls or what some people have actually said, DVD on PS2.

LethalP said: We all know PS1 and PS2 only sold because they played CD/DVD's, and the PS3 proved that without the help of the new hot multimedia format (Blu-Ray was luke warm), PlayStation sales weren't all that hot, yaus? So it's strange to see Sony's gaming centric approach push the PS4 to these levels of success previously only seen on consoles with fads at their forefront (like CD, like DVD, like motion controls, touch screen etc.). Maybe it's something else not game related selling the PS4? Because after all, no console in the history of ever sold the way PS4 is without some out-of-the-norm novelty compared to it's competition. So either PS1/2 sold for the same reason PS4 is, the library, or PS4 is an unseen anomoly in the gaming industry? Interesting stuff.

This is one of the dorkiest claims I've read of all discussions. I can understand discussions on hot new games, sales, hell my consoles is better than yours arguments. This though is just pure awful and you know that.

This probably won't go down well, but complete lack of competition also helps. Don't get me wrong Sony have done great but let's not pretend Nintendo and Microsoft didn't make major mis-steps.

PS2: I wouldn't call having DVD support a fad. I would call it an incentive to buying a console
DS: Kinda
Gameboy: Portable Nintendo console. I don't really see what type of fad that is
PS1: Same as PS2
Wii: Yeah. Motion controls were kind of a fad.