The original NES had a rocky start in Japan and was overhauled and turned into a success. But then, it had almost no competition at the time it was launched.
Some of you guys are confusing "slow starts" with "bad starts." The DS and Genesis both started out slow and quickly picked up speed. The PS3 started out rocky. And no, with history as a guide, consoles never recover from rocky starts. The Saturn had a bad start, and never recovered, as did the Atari Jaguar.
Here's why:
First off, the first year (give or take) of a console's life is "do or die" time. Third party companies will make their choices on who to support over the new generation. It costs a lot of money to switch gears later on--especially now when you factor in that games can take up to 3 years now (almost as an average) to make.
Secondly, "you never get a second chance to make a first impression." The PS3 launched with embarassing sales, lackluster titles, too many different SKU's and price points released too close together, too many high profile games failing to meet expectations, lost exclusives (Assassin's Creed, GTA4), and for all the egomania from Sony (another black mark), the PS3 failed to show off any reason that it was truly better and more powerful than the rival Xbox360. Another thing that hurt the PS3 was the almost immediate failure of the SIXAXIS motion controller.
The first year the PS3 was out, things were so bad that an article surfaced at GameSpot.com which revealed Sony "pleading" with third party devs not to abandon the system. Another GameSpot article (from late summer 2007) revealed that Capcom, Sega, Namco-Bandai, and Square-Enix were all yanking various amounts of PS3 support to focus more on the surprise hits Wii and DS.
Sony's sales are up this year over last, but when you look at the numbers, their increase happens to coincide with Blu-Ray's win over HD-DVD--not because Sony is doing anything better. Multiplatform games still sell better on the Xbox360.
Now,
The PS3's sales are up over last year, and it finally got it's killer app (MGS4) out, but only after other intended killer apps (Lair, Heavenly Sword, Uncharted, and Haze) all failed the system in one way or another. It still has the fewest exclusive titles of the three major consoles, and for HD development, the Xbox360 is still pretty much the first choice with the PS3 getting ports. And the PS3's current level of success is phenominal when you consider just how many black marks it had against it that first year.
Currently, the sales of the PS3 only barely top the Xbox360, and with price cuts of potentially all X360 models coming just in time for the holiday rush, MS could temporarily reverse this current sales trend, if for nothing more than a 2-4 month period around the holidays. Sales increases do happen with price cuts, but typically only last for a month or two. Since this latest X360 drop is coming near the holidays, it could last through to January.
The major point is that the Xbox360's lead may be just enough to prevent the PS3 from ever actually overtaking it. While the PS3 has outsold it for most of 2008, it hasn't outsold it by enough of a margin to show any real threatening growth. And next year, sales will most likely be much lower simply because that's how it goes the longer a system is out (with the bizarre exceptions of the DS and PS2 which seemed to be able to maintain substantial steam for amazing periods of time). Meanwhile, Sony has claimed that it will not drop the price of the PS3 in the near future because "they can't afford it."
The PS3 COULD potentially topple the Xbox360 by the end of this generation--I won't say it's impossible, but I don't think it will happen. Last time, the Xbox and GameCube finished at 24 and 21 million respectively. I think that the difference between Xbox360 and PS3 sales at the end may be closer to each other than that (a difference of 3 million), but closer overall to 30-35 million since I believe this generation will last 1-3 years longer than the average length of the previous generation, which was about 5.5-6 years long depending on when you measure.
As for market dominance, it's pretty much entirely impossible, and various reasons continue to pop up which will ultimately prevent the PS3 from ever taking over. For one, it's still too costly for most people to consider it. It will never appeal to the Blue Ocean crowd, however it will likely appeal to the HD crowd (which is likely a lot smaller than the Blue Ocean folks). For gamers, it will likely finish this generation with overall the fewest exclusives and so far, offers the fewest downloadable games by a long-shot (ironically, the harddrive-less, barely online Wii has the most downloadable games by a wide margin). Not only did it lose exclusive control over Assassin's Creed and Grand Theft Auto IV, but also three major franchise sequels with Final Fantasy XIII going multiplatform and Monster Hunter 3 jumping ship to the Wii and a long time back, the PS3 was rejected for the DS as the exclusive home of Dragon Quest IX.
Now, part of the reason the PS3 was able to pick up steam at all was due to Blu-Rays victory, but also no doubt due to the fact that the Xbox360 had persistant RROD issues for far longer than MS should have allowed.
The end matter will be the fact that the PS3 will have the fewest exclusives and throughout it's lifecycle. The Wii will have the most simply because, with less power under it's hood, three games can be made for it in the time it takes to craft one for the PS3--and since the Wii's sales are literally twice that of the PS3, it makes more sense for developers financially. Sony themselves have killed several 1st & 2nd party titles already, not the least of which was Heavenly Sword 2. Currently, things look okay for the PS3, but only a year ago, much support was dropped. What we're seeing now are ports of Xbox360 games and titles that studios chose to finish up before potentially dropping the console. I'm not saying it'll happen, but it's entirely possible that the PS3 could end up seeing an uncomfortable drought in new titles, multi-platform and exclusive, toward the end of it's life. Just like the N64 and the ill-fated Saturn. Developers finished their games, and then gradually dropped the system to work on the more successful platform of the time: The Playstation.
Also, each generation (aside from the 16-bit days) seems to have one system that, towards the end, has the vast majority of 3rd party support while the competing systems gradually lose it. This time, that will most likely be the Wii. Some of us may think that it's skewed too much to the casuals right now, but in a year or two, it will begin getting crowded with hardcore titles--many of which we know about already. Why? Because that's where the sales numbers are. Even the most hardcore gamers will likely begin moving to toward the Wii by late 2009, just as many early GC and Xbox adopters moved to the PS2, and just as many early N64 and Saturn adopters moved to the PS1--just as I did back then.
