what I really hate is people saying Nintendo will kill third parties and they will be unable to adjust to the Wiis controlls and demografic and that Nintendo is ceeping them from it, have you ever considerd that third parties are not losing money because Nintendo is taping the new market but that Nintendo is the only to do a good job at taping it, well welcome to capitalism, grab a Big Mac and a Coke but stop complaining, hell its not just capitalism its evolution, you can fight what everybody is fighting for and go for survival of the fittest or you can adapt, Nintendo knew that it was not the fittest of the three anymore, just because Nintendo adapted doesen´t mean its to late for other developers to do the same, will they see Nintendo cashing in and say "to bad we cant do that" ??? sure some developers won´t make it but its allways been that way, the road will be clear for new people with new ideas, is there any market where people didn´t try to cash in ??? did Mc Donalds stop Burger King ??? did Coke stop Pepsi ??? did Microsoft stop Apple (another great adapter) ??? third parties need a little time to catch on but they will never watch Nintendo or anybody else cash in and not try get some of their own, Nintendo opend the gate, they could´t block it even if they tried, and stop bitching about non-games or girl-games, Microsoft and Sony had Guitar Hero and Singstar, do you think all the "hard-core" Halo and Final Fantasy gamers went crazy about Singstar ??? these games where huge because they allready tapped new markets, Nintendo took it to then next level, Nintendo didn´t betray their old fans, they did them the biggest favor they could have done, they stayed alive, never corner an animal, it will make it feel trapped and feel as if it has no option but to attack you. Anybody feel attacked ???

The PS3 will be 299 or less by the end of 08 early 09 BD players are already reaching 300 bucks and with the removal of the EMO engine and a die shrink on both the CELL and RSX, it will be very cost effective. Sony has put themselves in a good position by using the CELL in other products and using a BD drive that is also in other products. It allows them to sell more in other areas while reducing production costs overall. This all helps the PS3 price in the near future. Also by the end of 08 we will have all of the games people are waiting for at the moment like GT5, Lair, MGS4, FF, TEKKEN6 etc. etc. These games alone are system sellers. There online service HOME will also be in full effect.

If Nintendo releases an HD version of the Wii, I think they will be shooting themselves in the foot. They already stated that HD isnt what they are after, so they need to wait until the next console release. It would piss off a ton of people that bought the SD version...as did the release of the "Elite" 360 with HDMI. They should have included it in the beggining instead of taking pot shots at Sony wanting 1080P, HDMI and BD.

Aren't these the same asshat analysts who were saying the PS3 would take the lead right out the gate and never look back?

When are people going to sober up to the fact that these clowns are probably being paid by the companies they favor?

Yes. Though I doubt they are paid off, I do believe that the majority of their predictions are pulled out of their asses. Especially the ones that cite a PS3 price drop but no 360 price drop. They only analyze half the story.

Maybe Nintendo is holding a contest: "Make a fool of yourself and win a Wii".

Christopher_G2 said: To those of you who say the PS3 has no shot tell me what is the 360 doing that's so great sales wise. Console sales have fell in the US over the past few months even with the release of the Elite model. It's doing, like it's predecessor, horrible in Japan, and is doing at best so-so in the Other terretories. If the 360 was a system trully taking off I might agree that the PS3 is in serious trouble, but the fact is it isn't. It basically gets outsold not only by the Wii and DS everywhere in the world, it gets outsold by the PS2 and more recently the PSP. The fact is right now both HD systems are floundering. The 360 is doing better than the PS3, but that doesn't really mean it's doing as well as it's should be. Come 2008 and 2009 the HD gaming battle will be wide open. I kind of laugh at those here who think they really know what's going to happen in the console race. I don't claim to know how it plays out long term. Last gen at this time we knew the PS2 was going to dominate. There's no such clear trend this time. The Wii is off to a great start but it's inovation and it being behind technically the other two consoles make it hard to see how long it keeps this momentum. Sony undoubtedly still has a stronger brand name than Microsoft as far as video games, but so far the 360 seems to be winning, though one can argue with the price and game advantages it should be winning by a greater margin. We have one system with a head start that has sold 10 million, another that came out six months ago at over three million, and another inbetween that's selling faster than any console this early on but is so different we have nothing to compare to it on a long term scale. We have no f*cking idea how it's going to play out long term. People should understand this. The only two things that I can say will not happen are: *The 360 selling the most worldwide *The Wii coming worse than second Other than that any order of the three is possible. It could be Wii, PS3, 360 (I lean toward this way). It could be Wii, 360, PS3 (where most people here are probably). Or it could even be PS3, Wii, 360. People here who really think they know any more than Pachter are really snobish little freaks.

This is an odd argument: the PS2 was selling less at this point in its lifespan than the Wii is now. The original Xbox was selling better than the PS3 is now, and the Gamecube selling about the same.

Can you please explain to me how we knew what would happen last generation, but somehow we don't now?

Sources:

http://www.vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=Japan&cons2=Wii&reg2=Japan&cons3=PS2&reg3=Total+Other&align=1&weekly=1
http://www.vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=America&cons2=Wii&reg2=America&cons3=PS2&reg3=Total+Other&align=1&weekly=1

http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=PS3&reg1=All&cons2=GC&reg2=All&cons3=XB&reg3=All&align=1&weekly=1

Note: please recognize that the Xbox/GC/PS2 totals don't include European figures, because Ioi doesn't have them. That's why I broke the first two into Japan/American components, to show that Wii is outselling the PS2 in both territories. Also note that this makes PS3 even worse in the last graph: it's being outsold by the Xbox, and barely outselling hte GC, even though it has sales in 3 territories, and the GC/Xbox in just 2.

In short, if you want to claim that the race was totally decided last generation by this time period, you must conclude that this one is too. The Wii is outpacing the PS2 ssales, the PS3 is underperforming against the Gamecube and Xbox. In short, the Wii is beating the PS3 worse than the PS2 beat the Gamecube seven months after the launch windows closed. 

People here who really think they know any more than Pachter are really snobish little freaks.

Hahaha. Pachter only takes his head out of his ass to switch which foot is in his mouth. I put more faith in 50% of these boards than Pachter--yourself included! You did, afterall, pick the Wii to win, as any sensible person would.

The analysts said N64 would win and Saturn come in second, because that was the present order of the industry. They said "Dolphin" would win, Dreamcast would compete, and PS2 would be left in the dust, since they figured PS1 was a fluke and Nin/Sega was still the "natural order" of the industry. They predicted PSP domination, figuring PS domination was the "natural order" of the whole industry. Though DS won, they predicted PS3 domination, because now they figured PS was just the "natural order" of the home console industry. I'm not sure whether analysts will decide Nintendo or Sony is the "natural order" at the start of next gen, and I can't tell you what kind of console each company will make, but I can tell you that what company analysts pick will be unrelated to the kind of console they make.

Anyways, George Harrison from Nintendo has said he thinks this generation will last LONGER than others.
http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=16306
Unless Pachter knows something Harrison doesn't... Uh... Thread over.

Isn't too soon to talk about a hypothetical Wii 2, when the first is at the start of it's establishment into the market? Are these the hopes of the pro-Sony/MS analysts, that the support of the machine will stop in favor of a stronger system? Releasing a HD Wii would turn over the whole "blue ocean" strategy at the height of it's success, there is no reason to stop there. In fact, Microsoft & Sony although back in sales (by then i mean) can use that to prove that the machine was indeed a "fad", with "blast prossesing" talk, all over again.

Christopher_G2 said: To those of you who say the PS3 has no shot tell me what is the 360 doing that's so great sales wise. Console sales have fell in the US over the past few months

That's nothing new for game consoles . They have traditionally their best time at the end of the year! The problem for the PS-3 is more in the direction that the console is worth its additional software development costs. The Xbox 360 can be easily developped together with the PC Version, so it's development costs are less significant. If you would develop this way for the PS-3 the games would look worse than the same game for the cheaper Xbox 360. In a way many games for the PS-3 seem to be more or less frozen at the moment, unless they are developped by Sony or were already in development for a significant time.

If the sale situation for the PS-3 does not improve significantly for the PS-3 in the next time it will simpy get downgrades! If this happens the PS-3 is out of the game. A single title for the PS-3 that would look better would not be sufficient to sell the PS-3 significantly better at chrsitmas, compared to the Xbox 360. It would simply use the HD race. Only the winner of this race will be in a position to pass the Wii 2008 or 2009, after mkore people switched to HD Displays.

 

I don't remember the early days of the last generation well enough to say if we knew it was decided by this point, but it's a huge oversimplification to say that things are the same now based on sales alone. There are a metric ton of unique factors at work this time that make it impossible to compare with the past.

To start with, the three companies are much more evenly matched this time in terms of what they're offering. It was easy to call the last generation because the PS2 had such an insurmountable advantage in release date, developer support, and positive buzz. None of the 3 competitors this time have anything close to a monopoly on these factors. Then there's the fact that 3 consoles have almost never had such a differential in power and price. Sony and MS are selling slowly, but not much more slowly than should be expected by their price point. We won't know just how badly people actually want them until they get down to a price more comparable to their predecessors. On the Wii's end, no console before has sold entirely on the basis of an innovative control scheme (well, you might argue that it's happened, but you'd have to go back to the NES days, which were too different to compare). We still don't know if the games that really take advantage of the remote will materialize, or if people will just tire of the graphics in a year or two, as the naysayers are predicting.

But most importantly, you have to consider developer support. When people say that every console's ultimate success has been predicted by its first 6 months of sales, they are missing a key point: early sales in the past have always been correlated with developer support, and this time they're not. Traditionally, before launch, developers choose the system they want to back based on what they like about it and which way the consumers seem to be leaning. The console that was expected to be best really does become the best, because that early confidence translates into games which translates into sales. When a console has failed, it's been because developers lacked that early confidence in it, and it floundered.

But this time things are different. PS3 was the system everyone was betting on early on, and they put their dollars behind it. When it stumbled out of the gate, it was entirely because of mistakes on Sony's part, not a lack of support. Meanwhile most publishers had written off the Wii, and when it turned into a runaway success they scrambled to get working on it. Microsoft, too, wasn't getting a lot of faith early on, but the 360 proved itself and the game makers responded. The important thing to take away from all this is that while Sony (and to a lesser extent, MS) is down in sales, it has not lost its developer support. 90% of console sales this generation haven't been made yet, and with strong developer support behind all three consoles, things could easily still shift.

I won't say these early sales don't predict anything. Wii is pretty much guaranteed a good life, while PS3 can't possibly see the success the PS2 did. But they mean a lot less than people are supposing they do.