@sega4life

I heard something much the same on the radio driving home a couple nights back. What can I say talk radio is slightly less irritating then all the stations that replay the same ten songs until you hate the artists, and wish them a slow painful death.

Anyway they were running comments in relation to this. Their were of coarse positive comments from backers expecting the format to be a bright spot for the electronics industry this holiday season. However their were also comments from anonymous retail sources which were very blunt about the fact that for many retailers this holiday season is a last chance for the format. Apparently the format is not out of the woods. Retailers need proof that it can or will be profitable to devote real floor space to the format.

I found it interesting that perhaps the economic crisis may actually kill the format. Not that necessarily the backers have to drop their support. Just that retailers will decide to discontinue carrying the format, and once that happens you really are talking about a death knell.

I think the real problem for Sony is how close the PS2 is to the PS3 still.  That was good news in 2006 and 2007 but it's worrisome in late 2008.

It's a catch 22, the PS2 makes Sony money but it's harming the PS3.

This seems to be a rather flawed statement as the NPD only looks at the US, and people jump on it to prove worldwide issues?

this is a major issue, and one which has not happened before. I feel this is a sign of the maturing nature of this industry where short cycles will not be tolerated by the consumer. your looking at a scenario much like the computer industry where you have to force the obsolescence of a cash cow, then kill all product for it to force a move.

though i feel sony moving to open source the ps2, so that all devs dont have to pay royalties is a good idea, what it will do is eat into the ps3 games/hardware sales, without giving them revenues for it. this would probably have been a better plan to push if they had a stronger foothold with the ps3.

This post seems flawed to me as it only really pertains if US for data. WW if I'm a developer I need both PS3/360 to reach full potential.

I'd say the PS3 is past the point where developers abandoning it was a risk. At worst (hello Fallout 3) it gets a game with some rough edges due to porting work, at best its the lead platform (this is still a minority but can only improve for the PS3) and mostly it gets exactly the same game.

Unless 360 moves seriously ahead WW (which I think is unlikely) it cannot tip the balance back the other way anymore IMHO.

Me too, though I also like some of the PSN games and will play those too.  But I pretty much have been using PS3 for exclusives only, and the occasional Blu-Ray.  Part of it is I  have triple the firends list, and more real-world friends, on XBL than PSN, and it's so much more fun and easier to play with them on XBLive.  Half the peeps on my PSN list don't even have headsets yet.

Not with shooter:

Cod4 360 > Cod4 PS3

Army of Two 360 > Army of Two PS3

R6 Vegas 2 360 > R6 Vegas 2 PS3

BF Bad Company 360 > BF Bad Company PS3

Dark Sector 360 > Dark Sector PS3

Condemned 2 360 > Condemned 2 PS3

^ Thats interesting. I'd might do a study of this as the difference in others seems to be way smaller then the disparity in NA.

Mm, not really. NPD top ten doesn't really tell us much about the state of the industry. Notice, for example, that third parties are still making DS games in droves...

Edit: Not saying you're wrong in your thesis. I'm saying you've picked a poor bit of data to support it.