| Sqrl said: Some of you are overlooking the fact that market share has a cascading effect. Yes the PS2 had an impressive market share, but it didn't start out that way, it was the gradual (at first) increase in its perception as "the" console to own that made it the standard. The more it sold the more this image was bolstered and the more the image was bolstered the more it sold, voila feedback loop. This is how consoles dominate a generation in a nutshell. For comparisons sake here are the two generations at 113 weeks in (for most consoles anyways), please keep in mind that while this is not a valid indicator of performance but it can still provide some insight into what the marketshare situation was like previously for context and thus what it could/should look like now. Anyways, here we go:
First of all, we can see that the Wii with 55% Market Share compared to the PS2's 57% market share is close enough that there is still a definite possibility (far from a certainty) that it could meet or exceed the PS2's market share. Second, the PS2 by this point in its life had already enjoyed the benefits of hardware revisions, the introduction of several alternate colors, but most importantly it had recieved a 33% ($100) price cut to get it to this market share. You have to understand that all of these things are weapons and tools in the arsenal of a console company to revitalize demand for a console and to drum up meaningful long term sales (particularly price drops). All of this allows a console in the lead to continue to build it's image as "the" console and the Wii has managed to build that image without that aid at all so far. With the Wii having lacked a reason to even open this bag of tricks a single time and its market share is only 2% behind despite the ridiculously unfair comparison (pitting 109 Wii weeks VS 130 PS2 weeks) it should seem to be not only possible but fairly optimistic for the Wii attain a PS2 like market share. Again, it is by no means a lock given the numerous factors which interject a great deal of uncretainty, but like statistical noise that uncertainty tends to amount to very little in the majority of cases with both positive and negative movements canceling each other out. So until those uncertainties become certainties I'd have to say I like the Wii's chances to reach a soaring market share similar to the PS2's.
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Wow, that was really, really interesting. More interesting than the rest of the thread combined actually :P
http://www.vgchartz.com/games/userreviewdisp.php?id=261
That is VGChartz LONGEST review. And it's NOT Cute Kitten DS
