If the sales continue as they have been for Nintendo and their little white Wii, you’ll be looking at the top-dog for overall console says–best selling console ever. This would push Sony’s PlayStation 2 to the second spot of awesome console victories over the last seven generations of gaming hardware.
Before Sony fans unite to comment storm, remember, the PS2 had a lot of great games and continues to have games coming through for its console. People are still debating the life-span of the Wii product line, regardless to overall sales figures while the PS2 no doubt had a long live and still continues to have a long life, heck 30%+ of gamers still play the darn thing. Sony has been able to utilize the PS2 and its profitability to glide through the initial PS3 sales slump and get the momentum growing for their current generation console.
Yet, some folks are comparing the PlayStation 3 to the GameCube in terms of sales performance.
“During the first 26 month period, the PS3 sold 6.79 million units in the U.S., compared to 6.75 million GameCubes during its first 26 months. While the GameCube finished a distant third last generation, the console was profitable for Nintendo.” (Kotaku)
Before you get out your flame pens, this analogy wasn’t constructed by me, I’m merely the messenger. Again, to defend Sony (read: put on my flame retardant outfit) Sony’s console is slowly building momentum, depending on who’s statistics you read anyway, and their product will eventually become a profitable sale. The GameCube was profitable as well but boasted “dozens” of great games to play while the PS3 obviously is pushing to become the hardcore gamers console of choice with top tier graphics, blu-ray playback and a free online service. GameCube was really just a cube that played some games, a one-trick-poney as it where.
It still feels odd to say Nintendo is winning and Sony isn’t winning (I avoid the term losing to yet again to kill the flames) and… Microsoft?
Microsoft, in my opinion, is in the best possible situation. They’re not being targetted as the number one console and being critizised for holding such a position and they’re not dragging near the bottom to be poked fun at by the industry and bloggers around the world (mainly, the United States.) They’re stealthing by with good sales compared to the last generation console by “improving its fortunes.” The Xbox 360 “sells 18 percent faster than its predecessor, according to NPD figures, and even turned a profit, something the original Xbox never did” according to VentureBeat.
The PlayStation 3 has many years ahead of it and we’re sure plenty of gamers will eventually buy into the console because the technology within that black box is designed to last many years. Considering only 30% of the United States is rolling with an HD-TV it’s not surprising they’re not jumping at the opportunity to own a PlayStation 3. Why is the news all over the PlayStation 3 and talking trash about it? Sony was the console to beat when the PlayStation 2 reigned the industry, to see the console go from #1 to #3 in a single generation is shocking but not new; we saw Nintendo suffer the same fate when the PlayStation originally launched.
But, is the PS3 like the GameCube? There are too many factors to make that comparison, especially considering the growth in the game industry, the growth of storage and video technology and the general acceptance of video games. Hell, you can buy video games at convenience stores in the United States now, the industry isn’t the same as it was in 2001.
Please discuss…but don’t shoot the messenger. 🙂
This week we’re on vacation but Don is not, so he took the time to build out a cool mashup of some of the podcasts most memorable “moments.” Of course, most of them are the strangest bloopers and oddities that we had a couple lol’s re-listening to them. Consider this the greatest moments in the last sixty episodes wrapped up in a 4-minute time period. Holy crap.
Hi guys,been too long,ive changed career paths during and before that time.
SO the PS4 is out,what featuresdo you think will be more prominent.
make that PS4 PLANS
@Sony unveils PS4 at “See the Future”
Hey, Radeon and games DO go together. I’m using Radeon cards since 2004, and I didn’t run into any issues.
@Sony: Pre-owned game blockage “up to publishers” on PS4
Translation: we’re just going to give the publisher all the tools they need in order to block used games, so that you’ll not blame us.
Despite the fact that it’s our hardware, and we’re the guys developing those tools. Riiight …
@Fans express outrage at offline/LAN play for console version of Diablo III
Outrage? Why?
Sure, they did give PC gamers enough reasons to be upset, but outrage? I for once vote with my wallet.
@QOTW:
Heh, PlanetAVP.com, but of course.
Hey guys, long time first time 😉
@Sony unveils PS4 at “See the Future”: I really don’t understand why Paul is so upset about Sony not showing the actual console. They told us some details of the specs so what difference does it make how it looks like. Maybe it’s the PS fanboy in me speaking but I really enjoyed most the show, I like the idea of integration of the PS4 with the Vita (which I own and which is not dead as you like to say 😉 ), I like the idea of Gaikai being an integral part of the system, I like the share button, etc. The tech demos were mostly unimpressive, especially the Media Molecule Move thingy but the Quantic Dreams old man demo was amazing.
I agree that knowing the price levels of the new hardware would be nice but I understand that there are still some things to be solved on Sony part and it’s simply not reasonable to more or less guess the price at this moment.
@Sony: Pre-owned game blockage “up to publishers” on PS4: I also believe the idea of getting a re-activation code from Sony or the game publisher is a good one, if it comes to it that the games will be blocked, which I don’t think is a real threat for now. As you mentioned, the fact that people are not buying new games now doesn’t mean they will once the used game blocking is implemented. They will wait for price cuts and that’s all. It’s the same story with movie and music piracy and how much the companies are ‘losing’ due to it. They always assume that people would buy the original CD/DVD if it wasn’t available for download.
@Rumor: Microsoft revealing next-gen console in April: I wonder if we’ll see a larger difference between the XBOX720 and PS4 than in the current generation. Sony’s conference focused mainly on games while the additional content was only briefly mentioned. I don’t own an XBOX but my impression is that it puts more emphasis on that additional content (i.e. not games) and maybe the new iteration will move even more in that direction.
@QOTW:
I’m from Poland and the one magazine I’ve been subscribed to for several years has been CD Action. They always put full games on their CDs and later DVDs and the reviews and additional in-magazine materials were of high quality.
@Sony’s blind vision of future
Stayed up till 1am to watch most of the show. It was very developer centred. If you don’t get off at PC specs, it will be mostly irrelevant. PS4 has a few interesting ideas (share button) but like many others I see it as bringing up the PS to the speed of Xbox. As someone who had an Xbox 360 for 3 years before PS3, I found Sony’s console a step backwards. Crappy on-line, no integrated party system/chat and a cross-media bar which loads every time you access it. PS4 is effectively getting everything that Xbox 360 had in 2006. Overall, I have seen Sony’s future. And I am not tempted to be a part of it.
@New Xbox rumors
It would make sense for them to show it off in April. Sony jumped the gun to grab the spotlight before the E3. Now Microsoft has to make a move. I have high hopes for Xbox. So far the future generation looks a lot like yesterday. Fingers crossed Microsoft will impress us with it’s show. Otherwise, things are looking bleak for the console gaming.
@Fans express outrage at Diablo 3
Diablo 3 was out?
@Gamespy good bye
I tried to use it to play PC games on-line but it never worked for me. It became largely irrelevant when Steam appeared. Steam has it’s own integrated system which allows you to fail to play games on-line without exiting the game. Progress…
@QOTW
I started using Gamespot around 2005. Since I was poor, I would only buy games after ensuring they are good i.e reading reviews. Gamespot was a good source. Stopped me from making a lot of stupid mistakes. It is often unnecessarily harsh but I like it nevertheless. I still use it because it has a good mobile website and I can read it anywhere via 3G.
@Arthur – I wonder if the fact that you had an XBOX and I own a PS3 has something to do with the fact how we saw the conference 😉 I am excited about the specs because I don’t own a powerful PC and I’d rather had a high-end console that last 6-8-10 years than an ultra-high-end PC I need to upgrade every year or two.
I don’t know if you guys come here for post-show replies but if you do there are a couple of things I’d like to add.
@Jonah – Why do you assume that something WILL go wrong with the locking the disc to the console mechanism, if it comes, which I don’t think it will? Anyway, doing this would be like shooting yourself in the knee (with an arrow). If Sony does it and Microsoft doesn’t this is the worst think Sony could bring upon themselves. If they all do it it sounds like collusion. As far as I am concerned, I almost never buy used games and I don’t trade them in for new ones (call me sentimental… 😉 ) so I’m not that worried about all this, personally. Still, I think it’s a bad marketing direction if they are contemplating it.
@Paul – you replied that you had felt everything about the PS4 had been rushed and unprepared. I didn’t see it that way and I guess it’s just a matter of perspective. I’m 100% sure the console isn’t done yet but who cares about the hard drive size at this point? There will probably be different versions so why talk about it? Tweaking the hardware a little bit here, a little bit there is going to happen but we saw what the console can do and that’s the most important part, not the size of the drive, the number of USBs or what it comes bundled with. There will be variants and retailers will also come up with something.