ZenfoldorVGI said:
So, in bizarro world, the PS3 is mainstream and cheap, while the Wii is expensive and niche.
Also, Superman is black, and walks on his hands.
I know I didn't say it first, so all I can hope is that I said it best. |
First off niche means a special area of demand for a product or service, has nothing to do with demand which I'll get to.
Value and cost are NOT the same. If you pay 30 dollars for a pet rock and 300 dollars for a dog you might contend that the rock is the better value. It is not, it just costs less. If you go to a website and design a computer do you look at straight cost and get the cheapest thing you can? Do you put in 512MB of Ram, a 7 year old pentium processor and install Windows 95 on it? Or do you look for a combination of low price and high performance that ends with, say, a 1000 dollar computer that does a lot of things and uses components that are reasonably priced? On its face the 300 dollar computer with the small specs is a better value, but it isn't, it just costs less which is different.
Similarly the Wii has around 33% of the PS3's capabilities and yet costs around 70% of the PS3's price. That is a better cost but a bad value. The PS3 on the other hand, if a blu ray player alone, would cost 300+ dollars. It has many more features then that all of which are expensive on their own (media hub, network hard drive, game system ect) and yet costs very little relative to the value it presents, the opposite of the Wii charging 250 dollars for very limited functionality.
As to "mainstream" and "Niche" those do not only refer to popularity but also to functionaliry. If you have something that is popular but only useful in limited situations it is still niche. Lets say the Ipod never expanded to things like the iphone and touch, it was niche in its original incarnation despite being popular. All it did at first was play music and so had very limited function. To produce a 2003 ipod and charge 250 dollars would be madness, for the same 200 dollars you can get an ipod with vastly more features that also makes calls, uses 3rd party software and many more things. The iphone is a wide spectrum device, it can do many things out of the box, the old ipod is niche, it has very limited uses out of the box even if it does those limited things well and sells a lot. It has moved beyond its music playing "niche"
Similarly the Wii is niche in that it is almost entirely limited to playing highly casual games with poor graphics desired by "casual" gamers. It has no features other then playing those games, it is not very expandable, it won't ever be a DVR, media hub, blu ray player....anything other then a simple, niche, gaming device. Alternately the PS3 is becoming a wide spectrum device more like the iphone. You can install software, play blu ray discs, use it as a media hub, beam things (games, movies, music) to your PSP wherever it is over wifi ect. It is aiming to be more then a simple toy, and is succeeding. The Wii on the other hand only WANTS to be a toy, hence the idea that the PS3 and Wii are not direct competitors.
