@MikeB

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I stated on many occasion the Nintendo Wii performs remarkably well, what I don't agree with is this reflects on bad PS3 performance with regard to the higher end gaming market (price point $400 or above). The lower end market is yet to be addressed by the PS3 later on during its lifecycle.

Don't know what to say except the only way you can think the PS3 is somehow holding onto the marketshare of the PS2 is if, as it appears you try to do, completely negate the Wii. Claiming the Wii is not 7th gen but 6.5 gen perhaps might get you to simply a PS3 vs 360 out look and PS3 will likely hold more marketshare. Though even there it's highly questionable that the PS3 will enjoy the 70% share the PS2 holds.

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With regard to the lower end gaming market the PS2 still performs rather well

Ahh so the Wii should only be compared against the PS2?

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It's a long term battle, however it's easy to declare the European PS3 launch a success with record breaking sales, outperforming even PSX and PS2 launches at a much lower entry price

But behind the Wii which it is a 3 way race Wii vs 360 vs PS3. The Wii undoubtably has slipped Sony's #1 position to #2. So perhaps the PS3 might beat the PSX or PS2 by sales count but in so far as marketshare will not be positioned as strongly as the PS2.

@Trezzer

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And that is a good thing for customers. Not as good for Sony - if their launch had been the explosion of pent up demand they were expecting and hoping for, the PS3 would have been sold out pretty much everywhere - as was the case with the first million Wiis and 360s sold in Europe.

Are you sure you know Sony's expectations? What Sony stated in the past was that they thought the PS2 would outperform the PS3, for Christmas 2006 Sony expected the PS2 to be the best selling home console (and were right). With regard to Europe they stated that they would try to ship enough units to have them readily available in shops accros Europe.

Within 1 week retailers managed to sell to consumers more than double the amount of XBox 360s sold in Europe for 2005's whole holiday season! I think such a positive result is hard to spin even by you.

Last edited by MikeB on 02-Apr-2007 at 03:48 PM.

@MikeB

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Within 1 week retailers managed to sell to consumers more than double the amount of XBox 360s sold in Europe for 2005's whole holiday season! I think such a positive result is hard to spin even by you.

Now of course this was expected as Microsoft took the unproven/untried route to launch Japan/US/Europe all at once. What this ended up doing is ensuring quantities of the console were low. You can't directly compare launches when quantities available are inconsistent with one another. Certainly the PS3 will beat the 360 in the end. Looking at the current numbers the PS3 will not have the marketshare of the PS2. Likely the #1 Sony PS2 will be slipping to a #2 Sony PS3 slot where Wii ends up #1 and the Xbox 360 gains too on market compred to the Xbox.

Last gen the PS2 enjoyed #1 position and 70%. This generation it appears Wii will be #1 and the 360 will likely be #3 but a stronger #3 owning a greater % of the market then the Xbox. Sony might be glad for sales but certainly can't be happy to lower their position in the marketspace.

@MikeB

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Are you sure you know Sony's expectations?

I know what they repeated in public.

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Within 1 week retailers managed to sell to consumers more than double the amount of XBox 360s sold in Europe for 2005's whole holiday season! I think such a positive result is hard to spin even by you.

See, even now you're using the absolutely ridiculous comparison between a console with LIMITED SUPPLY against one that did not have a world-wide simultaneous launch and plenty of time to arrange for as many units as possible for a single territory launch. What is even more ridiculous about it is, that you know perfectly well that demand remained higher than availability for many months after the 360's launch. Which is what I've argued all along and you've happily ignore to be able to spin (like a record baby).

I even said it before the PS3 launch and said you'd most likely spin it like you're currently doing.

Last edited by Trezzer on 02-Apr-2007 at 04:21 PM.

All factors considered last gen (GC, PS2, Xbox), Sony didn't have a 70% market share and contrary to popular belief the Gamecube outperformed the Xbox, though barely.

Factors are: total software sales and hardware reliability.

In software sales, the PS2 did not enjoy 6x-7x in software sales and the GC have more 1,000,000+ sellers than the Xbox did. Sony and MS's marketing department did a great job in the mindshare of all gamers in general with regards to calling the Gamecube a "kiddie" system, but true gamers knew it's worth.

The problem with the gamecube was "ported" crap. No cross-platform developers used the TEV's fully programmable shaders so the GC got ported PS2 graphics and some scaled down engines that were worst that the PS2 versions because alot didn't use the 16MB of ARAM and only relied on the 24MB of main ram, which was less that the PS2's 32MB of main RAM.

Games targetted at the Gamecube clearly showed it's true potential. Games such as the launch title Star Wars:Rouge Squadron II which boasted normal-mapping and 15 million polygons in real-time, far above Nintendo's conservative (as always) quote of 12 million. I believe to top Xbox game only achieved 18 million...

This was a problem with early Wii games as the kits used were essentially GC kits. The Hollywood API wasn't finalized until late September. So launch games had more or less GC graphics.

Even the GC had a 2MB internal framebuffer which means it can theoretically do 1024x768 which is coincidentally the resolution of the Wii remote's pointing ability. The Wii's Opera browser in widescreen mode is reporting a screen size of 1024x600. The image is scaled down on the screen but a mere system update is all it would take to unlock higher resolution settings...

The Wii's CPU had the power of a 1.6 GHz Pentium 4. I don't know about you guys, but I was gaming in 1024x786 on an Athlon 700 in 1999 on the PC... The Wii is not under-powered. It's under-utilized. Don't discount it as a non-contender in the "next" generation of consoles.

@BrianK

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Last gen the PS2 enjoyed #1 position and 70%.

Not for the console's first months on the market though, actually both the PSX and N64 greatly outsold the PS2 for quite a while. So what the figures will be like exactly in a couple of years from now is really just anyone's guess, but considering the PS2 did well IMO for the long run when the PS2 gets retired and the PS3 gets cost reduced the platform will be in an advantaged position to the PS2's place within the market (due to backwards compatibility and many PS2 exclusives like God of War, Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo making their way onto the platform).

@Lou

The GameCube was certainly a strong contender. Both the Xbox and the GameCube and their strengths and weaknesses, and one can argue that the GameCube was strong through elegant design, whereas Xbox was strong through brute force.

And your point about it not being utilized well is entirely correct. Very few titles really pushed the GameCube. Sadly I also found it somewhat lacking in terms of good exclusive content. There were quite a few titles, but I ended up with relatively few cube titles. I do love the ones I bought though.

As for raw power... I doubt we'll see anything on Wii like what the PS3 and 360 can deliver. It will be able to make pretty games, though I believe we'll mostly see that realized through great art direction rather than raw power. That's not a bad thing - it's just a different way of reaching your goal. Often great art direction is preferable to photorealism.

After all - do we play games to be entertained or to relive reality?

@MikeB

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and many PS2 exclusives like God of War, Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo making their way onto the platform

It's certainly a good thing to have franchises. It doesn't necessarily equal an easy victory though. First of all there are exclusives for other platforms too, and if those consoles hit the sweet spot (the Wii arguably already has - at least in the US and Japan) when the market is ready to move, things can look very different this time around. I wouldn't be surprised if there will only be two out of the three you mentioned that are PlayStation-exclusive by the time the price drop comes around...

There are many factors here - and even when we gather as much data as we can, it's still difficult to get the grand overview. Even professional analysts often fail at that...

Last edited by Trezzer on 02-Apr-2007 at 05:01 PM.

@MikeB

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Not for the console's first months on the market though, actually both the PSX and N64 greatly outsold the PS2 for quite a while

So your arguement is that Sony's marketshare has slipped on the PS3 but eventually it'll slowly pick up steam and surplant the other options say what 2 to 3 years down the line?

@BrianK

I love the way that Mike goes on and on about record sales and yet ignores the Japanese sales figures.

@Thread

I was watching Ridge Racer 7 on a huge TV the other day. It was bizarre, but the only thing that left an impression on me was that the people on the stands were flat (like cardboard cut-outs).

@Hannibal_Smith

Yeah, in many ways it still seems like a last gen game even if the resolution is high and the frame rate is solid. At least the gameplay is solid, even if my favourite in the series is still Rage Racer.

@BrianK

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So your arguement is that Sony's marketshare has slipped on the PS3 but eventually it'll slowly pick up steam and surplant the other options say what 2 to 3 years down the line?

Sony's marketshare is still pretty good globally. I view the PS3 as a product complimenting their installed PS2 platform pretty well. IMO amongst the products currently available from rivals the PS3 is more next gen than the other offerings and this is reflected on the price, IMO not a bad choice considering the product doesn't rival the PS2 that much by shooting this high with their basic configuration.

I think the first real global battle for the hearts of people will be around christmas 2007, I think the PS3 will by then have overtaken the XBox 360 sales in most of the world, except for North America and the UK. In 2008 I think the PS3 will overtake the XBox 360 completely, During the years after this the PS3 will be cheap enough to target the low end market.

These are just expectations, but you asked for them.

@MikeB

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Sony's marketshare is still pretty good globally

According to VGCharts there's ~10M 360s, ~6.5M Wii and ~3.1M PS3. Their current markeshare is ~16% that's not pretty good that's last. It's especially not good compared to the 70% share of the PS3. Now given PS3s in Japan sell more then 360s but the Wii is eating their lunch with a near 2:1 ratio. Certainly 70% to 30% in that market isn't a good sign.

You make some nice claims about beating the 360 in 2 years. But that's the whole point. The PS2 kicked the Xboxes butt. Now the 360 is rivaling the PS3. I agree the PS3 is likely to win but it's % of the market will be significantly reduced from the 70% of the PS3. Whereas the 360 will see significant market % gains over the Xbox and the Wii may well take first place seeing significant market % games over the Gamecube.

Undoubtly the one sided Sony market advantage has eroded and it appears right now we're headed for a more evenly shared marketplace. I think the writing is on the walls from the developers who are making less exclusives for Sony and more shared platform games, as many are now coming to the 360 and a few to all 3 consoles. Why do the developers need to do this? To reach that 70% of the market and recoup their expenses they know that Sony only will no longer cut the mustard.

@BrianK

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according to VGCharts there's ~10M 360s, ~6.5M Wii and ~3.1M PS3

I am not discounting the PS2, if the PS3 would be released next month the PS3's market share would be 0%, but would Sony's marketshare be 0%?

For 2007 Sony's marketshare in North America:

January + February (home consoles)

1) Total Sony hardware sales: 1,068,750
Software sales for Sony platforms: 7,505,000

2) Total Nintendo hardware sales: 929,000
Software sales: 4,689,750

3) Total Microsoft hardware: 591,250
Software: 6,066,000

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To reach that 70% of the market and recoup their expenses they know that Sony only will no longer cut the mustard.

I think to recoup investments hardware sales after costs reductions would be better than having the bulk of sales right now, unless people would buy maybe a dozen PS3 games or two dozen Blu-Ray movies together with their purchase...

Last edited by MikeB on 02-Apr-2007 at 09:19 PM.

@MikeB

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I think to recoup investments hardware sales after costs reductions would be better than having the bulk of sales right now, unless people would buy maybe a dozen PS3 games or two dozen Blu-Ray movies together with their purchase...

There's a bit of a Catch 22 situation though.

For games to come out that recoup the machine cost for Sony you need a large install base. To have awesome games come out you need an install base that's large enough to make money on your venture or at least break even.

At the moment we see some companies pushing back game releases till 2008, because the install base isn't there. Why should people get the machine, when the games aren't there? (unless they're looking for a movie player).

Sony needs to get past that step by cost reducing really fast - the big question is whether they should just open the wallet and bleed some more in order to get the PS3 down to a reasonable price for a games console and hope they sell enough movies and games to make up for it.

Because yeah, at the moment the attachment rate isn't really at the spot where Sony start making money.

@Trezzer

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For games to come out that recoup the machine cost for Sony you need a large install base. To have awesome games come out you need an install base that's large enough to make money on your venture or at least break even.

The games distributed by Sony for the European launch except for Genji 2 (a game more geared towards the Japanese) are doing well. I guess Resistance at over 1 million sales has produced good profits and sales are still going strong.

For the UK I reported earlier Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorstorm topped the British charts, the same goes with regard to Germany, Spain, France and Italy:

Italy: week ending March 25

1. Resistance: Fall of Man
2. MotorStorm
3. F1 Championship Edition

Spain: week ending March 25

1. Resistance: Fall of Man
2. F1 Championship Edition
3. MotorStorm

@MikeB

Yeah, but what was the attachment rate again? Around 1.5 for the European launch? It's not a lot if you have a multi-million investment in your game, only a few million sold machines and 30 games to fight for the money.

Last edited by Trezzer on 02-Apr-2007 at 10:43 PM.

@Trezzer

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After all - do we play games to be entertained or to relive reality?

With the success of Second Life one starts to wonder...

@jiyong

Good point. I think that the user created content plays a big role in that. Well, that and cyber sex apparently.

Stuff like Second Life isn't strictly a game though. It's rather something you use as a means of communicating. A substitute for some parts of your communication needs in the same way that some would use instant messaging or IRC.

It's still somewhat hard to pinpoint exactly, but I think that is at least a large part of what makes Second Life so popular - it's part doll house, part chat room. You can show off your creations to your friends. Basically imagination is what limits you as you can script things to a great extent. I'm somewhat fascinated by it, but not attracted.

I prefer to keep things functional - like phone calls when relevant, IRC and IM to keep in touch, email if I need to get hold of old people in Korea, games for kicking back with friends while chatting or *gasp* meeting up with people in real life