What does it mean for a game console to fail?

Any system that
1.) survives <2yrs due to low sales compared to competition (sales watchers/market confidence)
2.) does not have a sequal (loyalists)
3.) does not have a significant library of games or third party support (gamers in general)
4.) loses a company money (stock owners and company employees)
can be considered a failure by their respective groups.

Some systems fit ALL of these, some only a few. Usually a system has to fit at least 2 of these for most to consider it a failure.

Lets look at the PS3:
So far the PS3 seems to be meeting 1, 3, 4 with the potential for 2.
Now 4 could be fixed if 1is overcome.
3 will only further influence 1 which will further influence both 4 and 3 which can lead to 2.
1 can be fixed if 3 is overcome but 1 influences 3 by way of self-fulfilling prophecy.
2 is a risk because of 4 and Sony's restructuring.

The wild card is Blu-ray, a gimmick of the gaming device that can leverage 1 thus helping overcome 3 which helps overcome 1 which leads to overcoming 4 which ensures 2 does not happen.

DoesWhatNintenDont said: An initial $600 price tag! What?! Look at how well the Panasonic 3DO faired, or the PC engine did overall! :P In all seriousness, I think there is very little beyond the bottom line reports being sent out to investors that can tell much of anything these days. Why? Mainly due to technological advancements across the board in peoples everyday lives. The dynamics of console gaming has changed based on different marketing schemes and target audiences. It's not always fair to contrast and compare all data to previous consoles as the technological marketplace has changed so dramatically within the last twenty years. Good guidelines, but certainly not law as there are too many changing variables.

your right...but you should take note that some of the variables are still being used as of this day....

clandecyon said: What does it mean for a game console to fail? Any system that 1.) survives <2yrs due to low sales compared to competition (sales watchers/market confidence) 2.) does not have a sequal (loyalists) 3.) does not have a significant library of games or third party support (gamers in general) 4.) loses a company money (stock owners and company employees) can be considered a failure by their respective groups. Some systems fit ALL of these, some only a few. Usually a system has to fit at least 2 of these for most to consider it a failure. Lets look at the PS3: So far the PS3 seems to be meeting 1, 3, 4 with the potential for 2. Now 4 could be fixed if 1is overcome. 3 will only further influence 1 which will further influence both 4 and 3 which can lead to 2. 1 can be fixed if 3 is overcome but 1 influences 3 by way of self-fulfilling prophecy. 2 is a risk because of 4 and Sony's restructuring. The wild card is Blu-ray, a gimmick of the gaming device that can leverage 1 thus helping overcome 3 which helps overcome 1 which leads to overcoming 4 which ensures 2 does not happen.

im kinda lost with your answer....can you be more specific??

I was listing what the prospective groups would consider failures in a system with the prospective group in parenthesis for the failure in question. Now many systems fit at least one of those, but usually a system must fit at least 2 of those for many to start to "agree" on a failure.

Playstation 3 is on its way to meeting 3 of those failures. 2 is a failure that will only happen after the current generation but is caused by the other 3 failures. 1 and 3 are reliant on each other and take a while to start the downward cycle needed to bring about 2. PS3 has already started to cycle those two with many developers moving to other consoles, once this happens, it is very hard to cycle back the other way. 4 is something that Playstation is doing at every turn and will NOT be turned around unless 1 (and in turn 3) are taken care of. Blu-ray adoption may be the only thing to turn this around.

You can almost map out Playstation 3's possible path to demise as such:
4 > 1 > 3 > 4 > 1 > 3 > 4 > 1 > 3 ... > 2

WiteoutKing: "But... this has happened before (to a significantly lesser degree, though). It is entirely possible that this can turn a 180 in the blink of an eye. Faster than you can say "What happened here?""

Hi, would you care to cite an example in past console generations where such a turnaround happened before: a system starting by failing in the first six months where all the systems of that generation where available but turning things around to be successful after that (though I guess not necessarily the winner of that generation).

Tetsuya said: 1. i think price-if you come to notice that a console is getting constant price cuts thats an early indication 2. lack of games- there is no software for the system i cant think of anything else cause my brain hurts but can anyone else think of facts?

There are signs but not the ones you want to hear... but I'll try to answer your question in regard to me. Your first opinion - price cuts - is an indication for sure but there are certain senerios you got to look out for in that case too. For me, constant price cuts after it's been on the market for 1 month to 1 1/2 years - yes there's a problem. but still there are jsut too many senerios where price drops aren't really a sign of trouble so I don't really hold that too high.

Your second point could be true too but you have to look at the time line. Typically consoles don't really have games coming out for it till it's 10th or 11th month mark. If a console doesn't bring out a significant number of games that make you say "damn that was good" in 1 1/2 years then that might be a problem but then again it's not really the meat of it.

Let me break it down for you with this gen and you may disagree with everything I say but then hey, this is jsut my thought pattern. OK so... well actually seeing as I'm in a rather close and hostile site I'd rather not break things down here but if you're at all interested you could PM me and I'll break down as detailed as possible how one can know what console is going to dominate and which will fail. Hey, I've, so far, not ever backed a failed console as a matter of fact, I've only backed what always turns out to be the dominate console so I must be doing something right I guess. I've also been gaming for almost 3 decades now so that helps too :)

 

Might be easier if we had a list of failed consoles for comparsion.

I'd define a "failed" console as one that doesn't survive to the end (or near the end) of the generation it is released in, especially if it doesn't have a follow up system.
Neo Geo

Definite fails:

Neo GeoSega Dreamcast
Atari JaguarPanasonic 3DO
Sega Saturn 

Note1: I am not going back to the pre-NES days. Market has changed too much, IMO, for good comparisons.

Note 2: Most of these systems were also launched with much higher prices than the competition. The exceptions are the DC and the Jaguar.

steverhcp02 said: Playstation price drop 250 days Gamecube Price drop 176 days Dreamcast price drop 245 days  Xbox price drop 181 days  PS3 price drop 229 The only "Failed" system i see is dreamcast and it was cut 5 days earlier than the PSX one of the most successful systems, and the GameCube which made nintendo a great deal of money and had some amazing games was cut at 176.......xbox might have lost MSFT a buttload of money but it produced some stellar games, so theres some stuff to answer the underlying question of your thread, no the PS3 is not a failure based on the price drop. On a related note, Peter Moore seems to be the only constant with failed consoles of relative generation, eh?

I think these are somewhat misleading stats. The Cube and XBox cut price so soon because they launched so much later than the PS2. Their early cuts were a forced response to the drop by Sony.

OTOH, DC launched well before the PS2. Sales practically dried up leading up to the PS2 launch (Sony's hype machine pretty much killed the DC). Once Sega did start cutting prices, they didn't stop. 4 months after the PS2 launched, the DC was already down to $99.

Meanwhile the PSX had launched over a year before the N64. It's competiton during that time was the overpriced Saturn, so it never had the need for a drop because of competition.

Dbl pst

SOLUTION!!!!!!!! It has often been said that when it comes to a console's success: "It's all about the games", and this is certainly true. A console manufacturer needs to have ample third-party developer support in order to have a steady stream of quality video games being released throughout the year. Although brand loyalty, technical capabilities and price certainly plays their part, people tend to purchase the console that offers the games that they enjoy most. Without games, there is no reason to buy a console. It is the very reason why people doomed the Nokia N-Gage to failure before it was even released. Therefore console manufacturers need to establish good relationships with third-party developers, otherwise they risk losing the support that they need to another competitor. A lot of this revolves around management, business decisions and partnerships, however a console manufacturer can also help promote third-party support by making their console easy to develop on. Part of the reason for the success of the Sony PlayStation against the Sega Saturn was that the PlayStation was considered an easy platform to develop games, while the Sega Saturn, with its dual processors and overall complexity, frustrated developers instead. Nintendo is perceived to be comparatively lacking in 3rd-party support, and rely somewhat on their own 1st-party games, a situation since the Nintendo 64, since at the time, many third party developers opted for the PlayStation due to the ease in making games for it. In the current seventh-generation, this is reversed: the PlayStation 3 is perhaps the most difficult (and the Wii the easiest) to develop for.