Well that line is nothing but personal opinion. Resident Hazard used decent arguments in post far away from "crap".

The wii's sales are higher than the HD consoles because it's cheap.  Dev's like it because it is the same as a PS2.

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.

That article was made by a journalist who refused to give anyone the name/source he had gotten the information from.

Which in turn lead to him being ridiculed by other sites:

http://pswi60.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/news-that-smells-funny-sony-begs-for-3rd-party-devs/

Of course, Sony may have indeed begged third parties for support, but I certainly wouldn't cite that article as reference.

Take a look at EA's recent revenue announcment, their biggest mistake would have been to abandon the PS3.

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*.

No doubt the Blu-ray victory helped, but to put the recent sucess of the PS3 all down to the Blu-ray victory?

Sony underwent some huge changes between launch and this year. Some heads rolled, the advertising department changed everything, a price drop occured, and Sony brought out some big exclusive titles.

If Blu-ray was the only reason the PS3 managed to start selling well, the software sales for the platform could not possibly be so high.

*See Devil may Cry 4 and the total Xbox360 userbase.

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.

Lair and Haze undoubtably failed the system, and while HS and Uncharted might not have moved as much software as Sony might have hoped, they were still far from complete failures.

For HD development there seems to have been a shift recently, with even EA making the PS3 the lead platform for some of it's titles.

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.

50k is barely topping? (See lasts weeks figures.)

Possibly, the future figures will tell.


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."

Most posters assume Spring/Summer 2010 or therabouts.

Closing on it by almost 2 million isn't threatenting growth??


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.


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.

You actually believe that some studios would drop the PS3?

Perhaps some of the smaller ones, unable to allocate resources, but then they were never going to release titles on it in the first place. What you are seeing is some studios releasing old titles from the 360 onto the PS3 for some easy money. Then to release the next installment of the franchise on both the 360 and PS3 down the line. If anything the PS3 is gaining support. (Saints Row 2 is one example of that.)

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.

this is nothing but crap and personal opinion. Have you seen the exclusive coming for next year? Sony's is much more impressive than the 360's.

The wii's sales are higher than the HD consoles because it's cheap. Dev's like it because it is the same as a PS2.

You say it is impossible for the PS3 to pass the 360. It has outsold the 360 by almost 2 million this year alone. It is far more likely that 'impossible' should be replaced with Inevitable. And it is doing that at a higher price point.

Overall, your post comes across as something that would have been written maybe 6-8 months ago.

This is at least a more intelligent response to my post than the fanboyish ones appearing above, sans proper writing.

I'll try to address some of your issues:

I don't attribute Sony's increased sales entirely to Blu-Ray's success.  But no doubt that added to it.  The sales increase came at a time when there were no new system-selling PS3 exclusives, but it did coincide with HD-DVD's demise.  You assume that I attribute all of the PS3's sales to Blu-Ray, which is just absurd.  Don't just assume the illogical.

I know  full well that Heavenly Sword and Uncharted didn't totally fail like Haze and Lair.  But the fact remains that Heavenly Sword scored lower than anticipated--and was one of the most commonly used titles prior to the PS3's launch to show off it's graphical capabilities.  The fact that it's sequel has been axed is telling as well.  Uncharted simply sold below expectations.  Honestly, I think that's one of the more attractive PS3 titles because it's easy to pick out of the crowd, so to say.  It also looks the way I think a modern Pitfall game should (not like that horrifying sack of crap they're developing for the Wii).

What do you mean, closing in on by 2 million?  The PS3 is still 5 million behind the Xbox360.  Dammit, if I could only remember the thread I posted in where I calculated total sales by December 2010, based on current monthly average sales.  The Xbox360 still came out on top.  Not by a whole helluva lot, but it still sold more based on that model. 

Here's a more pressing question:  Do you actually believe that studios didn't drop the PS3?  Because money is a major factor in this.  Games cost a small fortune to make these days (unless you're Square-Enix, then they cost the GDP of an average-sized country), and the PS3 has the lowest install base.  No game is 100% appealing to an audience.  Hell, the biggest selling PS2 (GTA:SA) game still only appealed to about 15% of the PS2's audience.  If your game costs 5 million bucks to make, you run a serious risk on the PS3 because the install base is so low.  500,000 copies on the Wii can be a success because it costs one-half to one-third as much to develop on the system.  But only selling 500,000 copies of a 5 million dollar game on the PS3 is barely breaking even.  You don't think companies looked at the high cost of HD production and the low adoption rate of the PS3 and got nervous?  Even Square-Enix got nervous.  Some companies dropped PS3 support.  Some merely compromised, and decided to go multiplatform to make the money back.  Some did both. 

Now, granted, my post is largely theory.  This is practically a hobby to me:  Game industry analysis.  It was my belief long before even the launch of the Xbox360 that this generation needed to do something brand new the way the NES did brand new things when it came out and the 32/64-bit generation did things brand new in their time.  Whoever did something brand new would succeed.  Nintendo did things brand new, and they succeeded.

The sad truth is that Sony fucked up in quite a few ways this generation.  Not that the other two didn't--but Sony is the company that got hit the worst.  In fact, I think everyone came into this generation more half-assed than any other generation was started before.  Never did we have the level of hardware issues we had this time--and not just the RROD, but Wiis bricking from firmware updates, or not being able to read Smash Bros, PS3's wireless controllers bugging out, SIXAXIS wasted, etc.  Nintendo, no harddrive.  Sony, too many SKU's, too much cost.  Microsoft, launched too early, initial games barely an improvement over Xbox, no Wi-Fi.  Sony's ego.  Nintendo licensing every flash-in-the-pan shitwad that wanted money.  Damn near every single company lost money in the last fiscal year, except Nintendo, Activision, and I'm sure someone else. 

Yes, you're right, there were a lot of changes inside of Sony after the PS3 launched.  But they were the embarassing kind of changes that come with failure.  Like Gunpei Yokoi being "kindly asked to resign" after the Virtual Boy's colossial failure. 

Now, my analysis might be totally wrong and you're free to disagree.  But keep in mind these two things:

1.  When a console starts in a bad place, they tend not to leave that bad place.  The N64 started on shaky ground and, while it survived, it never really competed against the highly successful PS1.  Atari was never able to repair the shattered image of the Jaguar. 

2.  When a company abandons a console, they tend to stay away for the remainder of the generation.  When Lucas Arts dropped the GameCube, they didn't bother even trying to go back.  In a worse bit of history, when companies dropped support of Sega because of the Saturn, some stayed away into the launch of the Dreamcast.  Now, I doubt the PS3 will leave the kind of scar on Sony that the Saturn left on Sega. 

I get that you're all upset because maybe it looks like I'm selling short your baby.  Rest assured that, unlike histories other gaming quagmires, the Playstation brand is still strong and the PS3 will in no way turn into the Jaguar or Saturn.  But dismissing the upcoming line-up of the Xbox360 is a matter of taste.  I wouldn't be surprised if 2009 is made up of the X360 and PS3 sharing the vast, vast majority of their games due to the similarities of the systems, their closeness in sales, and the high cost of development for them.  But I wouldn't be surprised if 2010 ends up awash in highly competitive exclusives on both systems (well, by then, the Wii will have it's fair share as well) because no doubt, MS and Sony will both be desperate to usurp the other.  It's entirely possible that the Wii could manage to capture 50 or higher percent of market share leaving the other two fighting over who controls the most of the remaining 50%.  That will likely spur on some creative exclusive development.

Just because I can see how the PS3 could end up finishing out the generation in Saturn/N64-like droughts doesn't mean it will happen.  I don't doubt the PS3 is gaining support in the way of ports from Xbox360 games, but I think at this state, exclusives for the system will be fewer and far between--and many of the upcoming ones were probably in the works when it was still believed the PS3 would be a runaway success and the dominator of the generation.  Financially, for a lot of companies, developing a grounds-up exclusive on the PS3 at this point may be prohibitive.  I could be wrong, who the hell knows?  I'm sure you totally think I'm wrong, and maybe you still believe the PS3 will overtake the Wii, which looks nigh impossible at this stage.  Time will tell.

Again, though, this isn't just something I guess at.  I spend a lot of energy--probably too much--just watching, reading about, and analyzing the gaming industry.  That doesn't mean I know more than you, it means that my analysis doesn't come from nothing.