Dodece said:
Why do some posters feel it is rational, and altogether plausible that the PS3 will not only come back into the race, but has some chance of overtaking the other two competitors either one or both? This seems like a bold claim with no relevant information that indicates that it can happen. Frankly if you are going to make such statements you should have the decency to have some explanation of how this can be accomplished. Having the reason be logical and within the realm of reality would be a serious plus for the reader.
The trends are pretty clear as to the health of the consoles, and successes and failures are cumulative. The piss poor PS3 sales this year are going to hurt their library for the next three years. A bad year of sales is going to scare consumers. Late adopters are not risk takers. They side with winners. The public impression will become a negative one. Where last years hype becomes a joke, and the vultures look to feed.
Cumulative means each bad thing adds up in the whole to make the situation worse over time. Sony might have moved forward with sales, but the public impression has actually gone in reverse. Developers have an equal understanding. There is more money to be made on the other two consoles, and they are reasonably correct. Microsoft has a decent install base, and Nintendo is boasting increadible sales.
Everything points to the trend being maintained and in fact the margins increasing rather then decreasing. That means Sony is going to be left farther and farther behind. Both their competitors have strong short term plans which will probably aggravate the situation. Like pooring salt into a open wound.
Every reason provided is nonsense. Siteing a price drop changes nothing the other two companies can do this. The only difference is with every drop they get closer to a much larger mass market. That favors Microsoft and Nintendo. The only one that loses in a price war is Sony. Microsoft and Nintendo might even be proactive in this area dropping their prices before Sony.
When you say a certain game is going to jack up sales a reasonable question is who has more sales jacking games. Now the company with the least number of these games will obviously get the smaller boost. Ignoring that look at consoles that got their fantastic games too late in their life cycles the generated sales are insignifigant. The earlier a fantastic game arrives the better. The later it arrives the worse. So the company that puts out more great sales increasing games first is the company the reeps most of the rewards.
When you invoke a radical situational shift you must justify it with some rational explanation. Calling on the power of a game like an avenging angel, or telling yourself that everyone wants it is quite silly. When you yourself cannot make a argument why it is better for the designed purpose playing games. You also cannot say eventually it will happen that it will be better. This is a race and the longer you screw around the harder it is to win, but more damning the harder it is to get people to bet on you. Consumer confidence is critical and the PS3 is not creating any thats why people say it is selling poorly.
Has the console sold poorly? Yes it has sold poorly not only has it not met expectations, but more specifically it has not hit specific sales by certain times. This is a very critical time when Sony needs to make a compelling case to developers and the public. Frankly they have done a awful job at that. Sony has lost quite a lot already. Right now I think they need to gear themselves towards cutting their losses, and I think most analysts would bet the same.
Those playing on the Wii or the Xbox are very likely to get a complete generation experience. Both have a strong install base to work with. Both have strong first party development. Both should have positive trends before the end of the year. Both make compelling arguments to developers. Those with a PS3 however if the sales do not show a marked improvement could start missing out on a lot of third party support, and could end up with marginal exclusive content. I think many PS3 owners are concerned by this and rightly so. Nobody wants to see a console they purchased do this poorly.
The PS3 has done poorly in that it has not made the sale that it had to make. This console is late in the market compared to the Xbox and the Wii launched at the same time and is looking to have four times the sales by the end of the year. The developmest costs for the other two parties are cheaper, and they have more customers. This effectively strangles the console. Thats why time is so critical and why posters should ignore it. Sony needs to make a serious move before the end of the year or your looking at a console that will be a third place player this generation if it can stay in the game that is.
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The very first thing you do is lump together "PS3 can beat 360" with "PS3 can beat Wii" which is frankly a ridiculous thing to do.
The "piss poor" sales have been almost as good as the 360's (WW of course), much better after the PS3 price cut, and slightly but definitely better after the price cut (until Halo time of course). Nowhere do I see "piss poor" after the European release. As for negative public impression, "costs too much" is more easily forgotten once the problem is solved than "OMG RRoD!"
Your price drop argument is proven worthless by the fact that the PS3's price drop had MUCH more effect than the 360's to date. The fact is that the magical number for mass adoption is $200-250 and until the 360 PREMIUM gets that low the PS3's dropping from "super high price" to "kinda high price" will help it more than the 360's going from "kinda high price" to "lower but still kinda high". And in fact the Elite just muddies the waters IMO as it seems to admit that the Premium is an inferior console (even though it's not that bad).
Your argument regarding game-fueled sales boosts is equally worthless. The reason great games coming out LATE in a hardware cycle does little to affect sales is because most people by then who could be persuaded into a purchase by great game releases already have been. It's unfortunate that the PS3 will have to wait longer than the Wii for it's flagship titles, but that doesn't mean that it will see any less of a boost because of it -- just a later one.
Maybe some people have claimed that once those flagship titles hits it will be all ZOMG PS3 UBER ALLES but, speaking for myself, I have never said such a thing. I doubt anyone who can listen to reason has. But the PS3 will undoubtedly get more popular once it gets more than a handful of decent games and maybe even another price drop in time for MGS4.
Once again we come to "poor sales vs. PS2" YES THAT IS TRUE. And it will never, ever, have PS2 sales. However, as I have said repeatedly, that does not mean the PS3 cannot be successful judged by its own merits and faults. See previous posts.
"Complete generation experience"? WTF.
True the PS3 has some catching up to do with the 360, but I don't think that it's anywhere close to out of reach. As for the Wii, well duh.
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