MikeB said: FJ-Warez said: MikeB said: @ FJ-Warez Do you realise this threadis about Japan and how bad is the PS3 loosing the market against the Wii??? I view the Wii and PS3 as two very distinct platforms, I don't see them directly competing for the long run. If 3rd parties would suddenly put the bulk of their efforts behind the Wii it could become a problem. But currently however it's mainly just Nintendo and they never supported the Playstation brand well. I know about your point of view, but is clear how the market is choosing one console, and how some devs are starting to choose it for more games than shovelware, if the Wii wasn't a thread for the PS3 in Japan why the jump of Monster Hunter???Even DQ could end up on the Wii after the DS version... those are big games... And do I need to remind you how many of those "games" FF, MGS, DMC or RE5 started their dev time before the launch and success of the Wii?? If the devs doesn't port those games are due to several factors, but mostly for the money invested in those dev kits and developers, thats the bigger obstacle for the Wii... if those games were announced and developed after the clear succes of the WIi I would share your point of view, but thats not the case... Why Monster Hunter for the Wii? I can imagine a lot of reasons, but it would be best to ask Capcom, which still continues to support the other consoles as well. With regard to "FF, MGS, DMC or RE5" I agree it works into the advantage of the PS3, a lot of effort was made to make them run well on the PS3. So the developed game engine assets would go to waste if future games would not use these already established assets.

I never claim exclusive support to the wii, but a clear trend about putting more serious games on the console...

 That take us to the next point, eventually the Wii market will be to big to be ignored, and I'm thinking about a nice support after the launch of those games, for two reasons, money can be made from good games on the Wii, but choosing how much suport is going to leave the other consoles...

Thats when we are going to see a real change, some 3rd parties are going to support more one console than another, but that is not going to happend before the release of those games... after that they are going to choose...

FFXIII, GT5, and, to a much lesser extent, RE5 will give the ps3 a nice boost in Japan next year. If a slimline model hit next year as well, we could see the machine pull a PSP.

If be secured you mean the PS3 won't be discontinued, you are correct.  But there is no chance it will ever come close to outselling the Wii.  Japan is a one-console territory and thats not likely to change much this generation.

The slim PS3 is probably a lot further out than FFXIII, and we saw in the last financial report that Sony is still losing a truck-load on the PS3, and are unlikely to be able to afford any more price-drops till the end of the year at the earliest, and even then only $50-esk drops at most.

As far as I'm aware, main-story dragon-quest games are unlikely to touch the PS3, and it has already easily been "out-specced" by PC's.......... 

You put too much stock in specs, when all the evidence says the console wars haven't been about specs for a long time.  The PS2 didn't have a long tail because of it's specs, it had it because it gained momentum and held it, garnered a massive userbase, and had an on-going massive majority of third party support.  At this point, the PS3 has none of those things.

If it lasts as long as the PS3, it will only be because Sony puts it on lifesupport, and it will never sell more than 75 million consoles.  Frankly, I don't see it selling more than 45 million before the new console are out.  75 million by the time it dies is EXTREMELY optomistic, let-alone the possibility of beating 140 million.

Your last paragraph is the most contradictory.  In the video game industry, success breeds success, not the other way around.  Even when Microsoft subsidised the Xbox, and Nintendo priced the Gamecube below the the PS2, sales didn't explode, because they did not have a history of success in that generation with regard to sales, software and mindshare.

The PS3 is not the Gamecube of this generation, because this generation has no Gamecube, but it is safe to say that it's sales are not about to experience PS2-like gains this generation.  Only the Wii can lay claim to those sorts of sales, and the PS3 has a direct competitor that can do everything it can do game-wise in the Xbox 360, a console that currently has BETTER third-party support than Sony's machine.   

Im not saying that ff13 will save the ps3 in japan but I disagree with the whole "one game cant make a difference mentality." case in point: Halo.

I think he was talking about the original Halo.

Halo 3 made little difference because the 360 already had a wide variety of shooters upon which to stand, including the juggernaut Gears of War.

I am less worried about the revival of the PS3 in Japan than the decline of the Final Fantasy series. I mean, the 3 FF on PS1 did great. The 2 FF on PS2 did quite good but not as well as on PS1. However, they costed more to make and took longer. Now, FFXIII will be the most expensive and might get worse sales than FFX. I am worried about it and I think SE are as well.