mrstickball said:
No. It's just that Crazzy + MikeB have more balls to post for the failing console. Avinash_Tyagi and John Lucas have also made some insane BS predictions (John said the Wii would sell ~60 units by today, and made that prediction right at the end of '07. Avinash claims the Wii will sell above 250,000,000 units lifetime). I am also sure that, with some digging, you'll find some crazy X360 predictions on the forum, but they seem to be more level-headed, I think. I got a lot of flak by VGC users for claiming the X360 would sell 26,000,000 consoles by the end of 2008, which shows you how low users' expectations were for the 360 in 08. |
In the defense of John Lucas, he may actually be closer to the actual Wii's ending 2008 sales than say, Leo-j will be, who I believe predicted something like 35 million for the end of 2008. Also, John doesn't do the Crazzy thing and blindly believe it... he usually just posts and then makes a few points, then leaves. He doesn't really care whether you belive or not... CrazzyMan thinks you're a hater if you don't expect teh PS3 to make it to a million. Avinash is about the same way, and we really can't know when Nintendo's new found blue ocean may run out... 250 million might not be out the question entirely, looking out past 2015 or so.
As for MikeB, at least he can form sentences and defend his postion (claps for MikeB), so even though I think he's totally off his rocker I can at least have a discussion with him and understand what he's saying.
On other notes, whoever said that after the third year, consoles sales fall with no exception is not entirely correct. My data (gathered from VGChartz weekly data) shows that the PS2 sold more in 2005 than in 2004 (roughly its 4th and 5th year), mostly because of the Total Others region. From what I can tell, Japan has rather constant yearly sales through the first few years, with rapid dropoffs after the 5th, with the first and second year are usually the BEST years (which doesn't bode well for Crazzy's predictions). In America, it has its best years around the 3rd year, with a sharp decline afterwards, then modest drops. In Others though, the sales increase for the first few years, even up to the 5th year, then have a sharper drop due to new hardware coming out. Note this is based on PS2 sales data.
It is important to say that consoles rarely see large increases in sales after its second full year (meaning after 104 weeks of being on the market). Depending on how you look at sales (and I use 3 different methods), it would really be amazing if the PS3 managed a 50% increase in sales in 2009 to 20 million worldwide sales. Even the PS2 only say modest increases in the 3rd year in every region, and it was the market leader...
Also, MikeB, although 80 million by 2012 I "expect" is way too high, I can see how it could come to pass... with the correct steps and marketing and price cuts... may be a long shot, but still. But 140 million by the end of 2016? That's averaging 15 million units a year after the next generation starts, since I think most believe the next gen will start late 2012, maybe late 2013. This would be, from 2009 to 2016, the PS3 would have to average 17 million consoles a year, after it only averaged 8 or 9 million in the first few years... not to mention that after the current generation started, the PS2 has only managed to sell 12.5 million in 06, 9.5 in 07, and 7 million (so far but not much more) in 08, and next year it'll probably be below 5 million, if not lower... meaning for the PS3 to average 15 million over those three years, with similar declines, it would have to sell about 18 million in 2013, 13 million in 2014, 10 million in 2015, then 4 million in 2016, which really would be crazy. It's just not going to happen...there is no precedent for it because it just doesn't work like that. The PS3 does not have the market leadership, so it won't get as much support after the next gen starts that the PS2 did, killing the PS3s sales earlier than the PS2s... it doesn't have the casual gamer support that the PS2 had, and that the Wii is getting, thus it won't get a lot of games that the PS2 had (my favorite are the Scooby Doo games that sold about 3 million each), that at least 3 million people care about, and thus it'll continue getting games that work on it (shooters, RPGs, racers, sports, etc), but only attract to a limited number of gamers overall, as someone else already mentioned.
I'd also like to point out if you added up all the highest selling versions of each "big name game" that the PS2 had, including things like GTA:SA, DQ, GT, etc etc, but only the highest selling of each (ie: only GTA: SA would be used, since it's the highest selling GTA game on the PS2), you'd only get maybe upwards of 80 million copies, meaning if every single person who bought one of those big name games didn't buy any other big name game (heh, impossible, but it works in this thread), then there are still upwards of 60 million (nearly half) of all PS2 owners that don't care one squat about any of your big name games that you keep listing Crazzy...
I really do love how some say that "the PS3 only needs an average of 10 million over 10 years to reach 100 million", when the PS2 hasn't even been out 10 years, and won't sell 10 million each year (though it will on average), because for every year the PS3 sells below 10 million, it has to sell that much over 10 million to make up for it... so in the last few years of its life (if it even makes it to 10th year), if it only sells 5 million in its 10th year (being generous here), it would have to sell 15 million another year to make up for it... if in its 9th year it only sells 8 million, it has to do 12 million another year... it only did 8 or so million its first year (using each region aligned to launch), so it already has to make up some.
It's just not going to happen... 100 millon, 140 million, even 80 million. You can quote me. I don't care. It would take 6 and a half years of an average of 12 million per year to reach 80 million, and the first two years it already is behind by 6 million units or so.
Avinash's 250 million prediction just a good of a chance, if not better due to the complete unknowing of the size of Nintendo's new market, of happening than 100 million, and I'd say if the PS3 reaches 140 million, the Wii will definitely reach 250 million.