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(Why again are we so hostile against eachother? Was there a memo I missed?)

I know it's popular to bash Zoink right now for being so biased (typically biased towards the XBox) but I don't think that it is really fair. For the most part, at this point in time there are far more positive stories for the Wii and XBox 360 than there are for the PS3; and there are far more negative stories for the PS3 than there are for the Wii or XBox 360. Just a quick look at google news and you get the following stories:

Testing Sony
I remember those being my first thoughts as I learned of Sony's ambitious goals for the launch of the PS3. 2 million units shipped and a worldwide launch? Pretty sweet. Sony's plan looked like a good thing, too -- there'd be enough PS3s to go around, and everyone in the world could lay hands on the company's next-gen console. But things don't always go as planned, and it seems like Sony's in a bit of a pickle right now.
http://www.gamersmark.com/articles/206

Sony Doesn't Even Have Dev Kits Anymore
And just when you thought things can't get any worse for the guys at Sony... I'm no big Sony fan, but i honestly feel kinda bad for them, they've been running into alot of trouble lately... Yesterday their PAL release issues and the dramatic cut in numbers of PS3s available at launch... And today an even more shameful event: Sony don't even have enough dev kits to supply game-developers.
http://www.playfuls.com/news_7071_Sony_Doesnt_Even _Have_Dev_Kits_Anymore.html

Game Delay Hits Sony's Shares
TOKYO -- Sony Corp. shares fell 1.6% in Tokyo on concerns that a four-month delay in the launch of its PlayStation 3 game console in Europe could damage the Japanese electronics giant's earnings.
http://online.wsj.com/google_login.html?url=http%3 A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB11576590436725 6693.html%3Fmod%3Dgooglenews_wsj

Sony Setback Will Help Rivals
Sony Corp.'s disclosure Wednesday that manufacturing problems will diminish the launch of its PlayStation 3, slated to be the market's most expensive and advanced videogame player, will give rivals more time to establish their consoles in the market.
http://online.wsj.com/google_login.html?url=http%3 A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB11575827587965 5647.html%3Fmod%3Dgooglenews_wsj

The truth is that the Playstation 3 went from being the golden child of the videogame industry (where everyone was certain of it's success before it's launch), to being a console which many gamers want to see fail. I know, you'll say "But the opinion of people online doesn't matter, just look at 'snakes on a plane' or Microsoft's Windows." to which I would reply:

There are certain similarities between the Movie (operating system) market and the videogame market; in these markets it is the uninformed consumers who (simply through their massive numbers) makes most of the purchases. The difference though is that for (about) the first 12-18 months the only people who buy a videogame system are the informed customer (who will spend their time online chatting in forums about the fate of a product); in order for a console to attract exclusive third party development the console's manufacturer has to sell vast quantities of systems to the informed consumer.

No matter what you think, it is clear that Sony is in trouble and no ammount of spin or bias on their behalf will actually help them; Zoink isn't going out of his way to publish bad Sony stories and Positive Wii/XBox 360 stories, those are just the stories that exist.

Oh come on, Gran Turismo 3 has sold almost 14.5 million copies worldwide and GT4 has sold more than 6 million copies. In what world are those niche games?

http://www.gamersmark.com/news/2005/08/1/6543

They were up to a million as of a year ago (prior to Halo 2 or EA Sports).

What's odd about Nintendo's online stance is that they actually produced a broadband adapter, but then only a single game that actually works with it (Phantasy Star, as I recall). I'm not sure what you see as their strategy was as much intentional as it was a flameout.

Xbox Live is, I'd argue, the thing that pushed the Xbox past the Gamecube in sales. The top-selling games are consistently online-enabled and it's a real point of differentiation for that console. It's a very well-executed service.

"Battery life has been measured at 5.5 hours when playing Ridge Racers (one of the more disc intensive games)."

Q: How long does the PSP's battery last?
A: The short answer is that it depends on what you're doing. The longer answer is that Sony has stated that the battery should last around six hours. With simpler-looking games, like Lumines or Mahjong Fight Club, that definitely seems to be the case. But with more graphically intensive games, like Ridge Racers, the battery doesn't last quite as long. Based on our estimates and a few battery-draining tests, Ridge Racers seems to last somewhere between 90 minutes and three hours. Playing with the wireless networking switch flipped on will also further reduce your battery life. The system has an auto-sleep function that stops the wireless drain, but that switch is there for a reason. Turn it off when you're not using it.

"The flying disc thing is something you can _make_ it do if you try really hard. It's not something which happens in normal use."

"The square button is something which some people complain about, but most don't even notice."

"Personally, given the US launch price of $250, I'm even more glad I imported mine from Japan for $350 and got it early."

The sales for 2004 (from here appear to agree fairly well with the overall numbers the previous poster had, with the PS2 just barely outselling the GBA (note: you'll have to add the GBA and GBA SP sales yourself) in 2004, and both of them putting the smack down on everything else.

System - Sales this week - Total this year
Nintendo DS - 221,625 - 889,400
PlayStation 2 - 112,970 - 2,503,532
PSP - 85,059 - 245,078
Game Boy Advance SP - 80,271 - 2,340,693
GameCube - 29,991 - 588,528
Game Boy Advance - 1,270 - 194,148
Xbox - 499 - 36,379
Swan Crystal 70 - 7,388
PSone 40 - 13,939

Overall numbers for the year are available here and agree with what the previous poster had:

Worldwide Hardware Sales (End of 2004)
PlayStation 2 - 81.39 million
Xbox - 19.9 million
GameCube - 18.03 million
Game Boy Advance - 65.74 million
Nintendo DS - 2.84 million
Sony PSP - 0.51 million
N-Gage - 1.3 million
PSone - 101.73 million

I'm too lazy to cut and paste any more, but everything I turned up from a quick google search seemed to agree fairly well. Overall-- PS1 is in the lead, PS2 is in second, GBA is third, followed by the Xbox and the Gamecube.

GameCube is a close #3 in the US. You'll se that the GC comprises 20% of the US home console userbase.

And here you will see the japanese sales charts. For this year the GC sales are about 25% of the PS2 sales.

So judging by sales numbers, about 20% cares about the GC because they own one. It is the #2 home console world wide you know.

You'd think hardware manufacturers would make dev kits that make it easy to make games. That way games could be produced faster, hence cheaper.

I remember talk of Nintendo's kit that they used to build Wind Waker and FF:Crystal Chronicles. They were supposed to be able to build games in under a year with it. Anyone know if it is working?

Also, the recently resigned Nintendo president set up some sort of fund to help pay for games:

As reported last year, Yamauchi-san announced plans to establish a game development fund in Japan. Thereby, Yamauchi-san will invest venture capital into budding game developers and related visionaries.

I've seen press releases that he is on the Infinium Labs advisory board. I've looked on his website and searched google, etc, but I can't find any information about what if anything he may have done there.

Does anyone know what the advisory board did, or knew about? Is that where some of the $350,000 in "advisory fees" went? That's about $50,000 each. I wonder what all that advising bought them.

According to an article on GamersMark.com, the corporate HQ for Infinium is in downtown Sarasota, Florida.

Also, a link provided from an earlier /. article shows that Mr. Roberts lives on Longboat Key, which is also in Sarasota County (link is in Roblimo's story).

The point: I live in Sarasota. I could drive to Infinium's HQ in less than 5 minutes, his house in about 15... What do I get for posting snapshots ? :)

MRE

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As a momentary exercise in completely extraneous hypotheticals, and to drive the point home with much more force (given the audience), imagine for a moment that MS had decided to acquire Squaresoft instead of Bungie ... *shuter*

Oh, you mean like Sony bailing Squaresoft out of the post-movie-blues and eventually becoming the second largest shareholder of Squaresoft? That kind of completely extraneous hypothetical?

Pokemon [for GameCube] will not REQUIRE [a GBA, a GCN/GBA cable, and Pokemon for GBA] to be played.

Are you claiming that this page, this page (which directly quotes a Nintendo press release), and this page are all inaccurate?

Release dates do play a big part in who buys what system, but Nintendo doesn't sound like it's accounting for why or how their consumers make decisions to pick a console! Honestly if they had released the GameCube closer to the unveiling of the Playstation 2, how many more sales would they have generated? How many additional impulsive buys would that have accounted for? How many people would still buy the Playstation 2 for GTA?

The biggest question on the minds of my friends back in '95 was, "Do I buy a Sega Saturn now, wait for Sony's first console system, or preorder an N64?"

My buddies started to fall in to three distinct camps. First there were the impatient gamers that wanted to satisfy a fix right now! Naturally they snatched up the Saturn and voiced no regrets. The next bunch were the tech savvy spec hunting gamers that assumed the market would follow whichever system had the best hardware (please don't remind me of the 3DO). Even after the Playstation was released, and it was becoming obvious that Nintendo was going to take a lot longer to ship, there were still countless people that I knew that stuck with the philosophy that if Nintendo was taking it's time to do things right it was probably worth it to wait for their system(even if it meant waiting another year)! Last, but not least, there's the slow-to-let-go, trend-following fan-boys-and-girls that were too leary to fork over hundreds of dollars to a company that was just getting it's feet wet in the game biz. As would be expected the last bunch became product loyalists, either standing devoutely behind Nintendo and their SNES's or advocating the virtues of buying the already-here Sega Saturn system. To be fair, there were those that just wanted to wait to see which developers would sign up with which systems. And others who just wanted to make sure that the system they bought had GOOD games worth playing, developers be damned! That's probably another camp or two entirely, but who's counting?

So you have players operating on indulgence/instant-gratification, product superiority, product loyalty, the number of developers backing the console (which probably has it's roots in the adage, "a 1000 monkeys all banging away at a 1000 keyboards for a 1000 years, and eventually you have to get something good"), and what seems most important, IMHO, GOOD titles worth playing.

It just rather irked me that Iwata sounded so desperately clueless in this interview! Yes, getting it out the door sooner would be great, as long as you don't compromise any of the other things needed to sustain your system! Duh! If they're trying to finger why their sales are low they should look towards their software and hardware. For having spent as long as they did to release, they only surpass the PS2 by a foot on the yard stick.