ziran said:
To the mass market, i.e. the majority of people who play videogames, and most PS2 owners, PS3 offers NOTHING over the Wii. If you disagree you're wrong, and really have not been paying attention.
The PS3 offers HD support, a wide variety of videogames that you will never see on the Wii (nothing on the Wii comparable to Gran Turismo, or even God of War, or Little Big Planet, or NHL 09, or...I can go forever here). The PS3 offers BluRay playback as well, the Wii will never be able to do that.
People want this stuff, but they can't afford it. The key to the Wii's success has been in 3 things. Firstly, the motion controller made gaming highly successful. Secondly, the hype was garnered and used to its full potential. Thirdly, the price was at a mass market price point since day one.
You know, several months on and a couple of years in, the saddest thing here is many people, including possibly Sony, unless they're playing a big bluff, still not getting that PS3's biggest mistake wasn't price, it was coming to market with the wrong gameplan. Of course, price was/is a factor, and ultimately condemned them to last place this gen (but more about that later ;-), but it wasn't their key mistake, which is pretty obvious now.
Sony, like MS, assumed the market would take to last gen gaming with better graphics, as this had worked for the PS1 -> PS2 gen, but the mass market had moved on and wanted something new, which turned out to be Wii. This left Sony and MS fighting it out for a secondary market of 'core gamers', which is what is causing many developers and publishers so much trouble because it is what it is, i.e. a secondary market, and simply doesn't have, nor will ever have, the installed base to accommodate the risk of HD development. Sure, you have a chance of profit, but this can easily be wiped out by increased losses from the bombs because the business model is so retardedly expensive.
You are flat out wrong. There IS a market for traditional games, and there ARE people wanting these games as an HD experience. If this wasn't the case, we wouldn't see roughly 44 million combined units of the 360 and PS3 sold. In fact, that is about equal to the Wii's userbase. So logically speaking if you consider it the wrong gameplan to sell an HD console, you would effectively be denouncing Nintendo's strategy that has got them the same success. The market sizes are virtually equivalent.
Another piece of evidence to demonstrate how wrong you are, games that are released for HD platforms can sell in the millions. One example is Fallout 3 which has sold over 4 million copies on the PS3, 360, and PC. If there wasn't any market for HD traditional games as you say...this would be impossible. FO3 isn't a strong console brand name (not like "Mario", for example), so selling this amount means that there is a receptive HD traditional gaming audience out there.
Obviously, ANY analyst or strategist would see that the best thing to do is to diversify to capture both markets.
To discount one over the other is flat out wrong.
The other crippling mistake Sony made was not dropping the price this year. Wii is the closest thing to a PS2 type system, and will likely outsell it significantly, but there is a decent market for a certain kind of content on HD systems, but by not dropping the price this year, Sony has essentially said HELLO to 3rd place and given 2nd to 360 (which, imo it deserves because MS has worked and bled billions to get there), which I think is the point DeaconKnowledge was trying to make, but you were so eager to avoid. Sony has fucked up so magnificently it's begs belief!!!!
It's funny how you start by neglecting the price as a factor, and then list it here. I think it's safe to say that it was the PS3's biggest problem, right along with the 360 offering the same sorts of games at a much cheaper entry price point.
When it comes to hitting the jackpot of the mass market, having accessible games isn't the be all end all, there are many factors that must converge to create a successful product. Price is one thing, quality of product (quality of games) is another, and finally the sort of hype you can create is the 3rd.
2008 marks a year where Sony had an excellent 1st party lineup, but couldn't hype it up to the level of attention that I thought it deserved. The price is still at a prohibitive price point for the mass market, especially during this economic crisis.
