Continued. I admit it, I have been a fan of Sony. But not since the NetMD recorder I bought around 1999 or so - since then, they have really pissed me off. Seems like PS3 won't save them, and a a healthy shrinkage won't hurt them in terms of losing that Sony arrogance.
Sony made a lot of the mistakes Sega made when Sega fell off the console game market. They forgot it isn't about raw computing power or how many pixels your system can render. The PS1 and PS2 took over their markets becuase they were affordable and had great games at launch. The PS3 is nice and all, but the games out for it now blow ass. For the less than just buying the PS3 you can buy a Wii, a few extra Wiimotes and a couple really good games. It's all in the innovation in the controller and the games after all hardware wise the Wii isn't really that much different than the Gamecube which was a total flop for Nintendo.
once the Wii fans get tired of flailing their arms around like madmen, they will realize that all good things are on the Playstation. It takes larger objects longer to build forward momentum and once the PS3 gets going, it will put the Wii in 2nd place once again.
Don't have time for the whole article. The excerpt doesn't mention one thing: Is the PS3 selling out? Because if it only sold a half-million because that's all they've been able to make, that is troubling but it there are boxes sitting on store shelves that is far, far worse.
There's not much point to quoting PS3 sales figures right now, get back to me in a year when all the consoles are able to satisfy demand. You don't have to move much more than an ordinary console for most games, even the sports stuff can be played sitting down with tiny movements if you want to be boring. There will be must have titles for Wii that can't be matched by anything on 360 or ps3...there is some seriously cool shit just around the corner.
It seems to be the pattern of all the companies that fall off their console perch is they get arrogant, and forget..EVERYTHING they learned on the way up. Ego's been the downfall of Sega & Nintendo and now Sony, and now the power's rotated back around to Nintendo. And we'll probably see hubris knock them back down again.
Competition is a good thing. We've got at least three commercial juggernauts fighting over our attention by breaking themselves coming up with the best toy. Great time to be alive.
Oh, I agree. Just wish the power cycles would leave a little less rubble like the Sega CD and Virtual Boy, and a lot less pissy attitude from on high. But, there's me, the hopeless starry eyed utopian.
For what it's worth, the pretty little chart at the bottom of Bloomberg.com shows them recovering nicely from an October low and that they have almost caught up with other firms in their market sector now.
Currently the Wii is already in second place. XBOX 360 is in first place and PS3 is dead last. Although the Wii has already sold half as many units in its short time since release that the 360 took one year to sell. As of right now, I can only think of one reason that I would ever want to get a PS3 and that is MGS4. Although it will probably be on 360 eventually, because that is happening with most of what used to be PS3's exclusives. The developers know that most people don't want a PS3, only the diehard Sony fanboys want one. So they are going over to Microsoft and even to Nintendo. Sony got arrogant and fucked up. Hell they said that people would buy it even if there were no games for it. I hope they rot, while I enjoy my 360 and my Wii.
A lot of people try and paint the PS3 as the next Dreamcast, but it's simply not going to happen. The Wii outsold the 360 in Japan in the first MONTH what M$'s system took a whole year to do. Over there, there are two systems, the Wii, and the PS3. The Xbox2 is just not considered. And when more than half the good games are made by Japanese developers, that is not good news for Microsoft. The 360 should continue to lead in North America, where the typical buyer wants to pick it up for a few hours and play a sports game or a first person shooter. I see this generation of consoles being a tight 3 way race between all three companies.
There's certainly been no shortage of arrogance from Sony either. My two favorite quotes are: "We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn't have games." "The next generation begins when we say it does."
"Brand equity", is arrogant-ese for "I'm hot! I'm hot! Gotta go with the streak! Bet it all! You heard me bet it all!!".
You can't count Sony out yet. Being the underdog can be a great motivator (just look at what Nintendo managed to do).
From some of their recent statements, they seem to think that they are winning the console war. It used to be funny, but now I'm starting to worry about them.
Good news for Microsoft. Yeah, they only have 350k units in circulation in Japan, around 10 million here, but they've brought on a lot more japanese developers this time and keep gaining more. The 360 is getting some games which would have originally been Sony exclusives. Considering a lot at MS endorse people buying a Wii as well, I think they're sitting pretty good. With great games of all genre's coming out, RPGs, Action/Adventure, Racing, FPS, etc., Sony will have a hard time catching on in the US this time around. Especially when US retailers can't sell the PS3s they have in stock.
It's not selling out. Here in my COLLEGE TOWN (prime market for games), there have been PS3's that have sat on store shelves for weeks.
Saw a stack of PS3's and XBox 360's (though that's not surprising) at Best Buy yesterday, and I was there mid-afternoon, not near the opening time. No one was interested. Couldn't find a Wii though. I've got photographic proof if I can get the pics off my phone. They were also sold out of PS2's and Guitar Hero II with controller, and the stack of third-party controllers had reportedly shrunk to a third of it's size the previous day. I think there's a connection.
Except when I need to buy separate systems to enjoy 3 extra characters in Soul Calibur That's to say, I really, really, really can't stand it when a game company whose games I like jumps to a different system. A small annoyance compared to what you brought up but maybe I'm not the only one annoyed.
