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Next Generation Not Official Until PS3
Gamespot has word that a Wedbush Morgan analyst has advised investors to hold off on throwing money at the gaming market, because the rapid growth prompted by the next generation consoles may not materialize until the PS3 launches late in 2006. He also makes some other forecasts for sectors of the gaming market. From the article: "Elsewhere in the memo, Pachter predicts that console and PC sales will finish the year up 10 percent over 2004, that a price cut for the redesigned PlayStation 2 will be enacted 'no later than fall,' and that the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS will have similarly successful years, moving 3.5 million and 3.6 million units, respectively."
So the man is advising that investors hold off on investing right now , a time when the market is mostly weaker and ripe for investment at a cheap price and Telling people to invest when the new consoles are out ,you know the time that stocks and many other things will skyrocket...
.. This is why i never listen to analysts
Perhaps yes they may peak then dip towards the end of the year , but they should definantly skyrocket around the release of the new consoles, holding off is possibly only wise if you intend on investing during the calm before the storm(probably about the same position the market will be in right now , missing out on a chance to take advantage of an expected mid-end of year high).
It hapens every time a new set of consoles are released , the market take very positive swing
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
"buy high, sell low" school of market investment?
Going back to school for entry-level jobs?
Actually, Japan hasn't been the largest market for games for quite a few years now... When Sony made the PS1 cool for non-gamers to get on board, America's sales soared. The US has the largest portion of the market these days (development as well), while the Japanese market continues to shrink each year. Apparently the Japanese care about quality and so they realize that 90% of games coming out are crap unlike the consumers over here. ;)
As far as Xbox 360 being successful in Japan this time, it looks like they've gotten some pretty important Japanese developers on board to make it more appealing there. Many developers begrudgedly designed games for the PS2 because it was a nightmare to program on, but still had the largest market share. If there is anywhere near a tie for first place, the system that is easier to develop for will surely win out, although all 3 systems look to be pretty much the same machine...all 3 have IBM power-based processors and a next-gen PC graphics card. I personally think it's time for a console standard to be developed instead of all this non-sense...
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
The problem with Microsoft, with the XBox especially, is that they didn't cater to the Japanese market. While I will certianly grant that there are good games coming out of the U.S. houses, now moreso than ever, the majority of console games are still translations of Japanese titles. As long as Microsoft doesn't cater to the Japanese market, they will suffer the "less titles" fate, and possibly relive the one-trick horse lifestyle it had for a long time with Halo. Certianly there were other games for XBox (and even other excellent titles), but for the longest time, everyone only knew the XBox for Halo. A good strategy for Microsoft could be partnering with anime production companies. Anime is not only a staple of Japanese entertainment, but extremely hot in the U.S. right now. DBZ aside, there is more demand for anime-based games then there are games in the U.S., and this is a niche market that Microsoft could clean up in on both sides of the Pacific. Microsoft has to also accept the idea of the throwaway title, something very hard for them to swallow. Because the business model for the XBox was making money on the software, the price of games always remained relatively high. Some PS2 games, by contrast, shot down quickly in price. (Look at the Greatest Hits series.) Furthermore, lots of Japanese titles cater to niche markets, and if Microsoft wants to be a success in Japan (a HUGE gaming market) they need to embrace these niche developers. These companies make games like "Super Kanji Quiz 2000" and "Makoto-chan's Wonder Kitchen" that like 10000 people buy, yet the companies that make them are small enough that they still turn a profit. Mist Walker and Sega are powerful additions to the XBox lineup...I'm especially excited to see what Mist Walker will come up with (and how Square Enix will fare without Hironobu Sakaguchi's creative direction.) I think in the end it really does come down to the games and not the hardware. There are games for the Super NES/Super Famicom that are still incredibly fun to play. Has there really been a better puzzle game than Tetris? (I've heard Lumines for the PSP comes close.) And there have been games with great graphics and absolutely atrocious gameplay for modern consoles. For many people, the decision to buy a game console will be based on "does it have the games I want to play?"
Going back to school for entry-level jobs?
If as noted Cell is as powerfull as they say it will be then nothing will be touching the ps3
g -highdef-output graphics are, one thing that most developers have forgotten is how to make a game.
Power is nothing. The PS1 was integer based, non-texture-blending, nasty resolution, bitch to program for. The N64 was FAR superior in every respect than storage. Full screen anti-aliasing, bilinear filtered textures, the works. Xbox is far superior to the PS2. Who's winning?
By the same token: which systems were released first, and won market share? Which systems had a multi-national market? Those are much more important than processing speed, though the systems do have to be roughly comparable.
1:Will cell live up to the hype
No. Cell processing, as an idea and method, are better, but this particular processor are not as powerful as people would like to believe.
2:Can MS market to the japanese crowd
They sure are trying really hard to. With some of the developers they've got, and their system coming out first, they may just win it.
3:What the hell are nintendo up to
Long as it's not another Virtual Boy, I think it's safe to know they're going to stick in the game/toy market, because MS and Sony are obviously trying to reach different types of audiences. Why people even bother comparing Nintendo to MS and Sony is beyond me. As cool as super-awesome-3D-shader-blended-real-time-lightin
Making a game used to be about making it fun. But with the race to make the hardware more powerful to provide a more immersive experience, I think they forgot why they were making games in the first place. They're just making really fancy toys, but most come out like it's this really serious issue. That's not to say that there's no place for that, but what have all the most successful and super-popular games have in common? They're games! Not "experiences". Fun first, atmoshphere last.
Digital Sailor
This guy does not know that he is talking about. Agreed that the gaming market will (theoretically) be busting at its seams after the release of the next generation of gaming consoles but the hardware is not the main revenue generator, its the software. Look at all the quality games that have come out recently and are coming out, ratchet: Deadlocked, Jak X Racing, Sly 3 etc. Not to leave out Age of Empires 3 (yes, i know it is on the PC), gamespy has wonderful previews, interviews, hands-ons and whatnots here
Not to mention the ongoing lukewarm sales of PSPs and DSes. The market is still making a huge profit, period. And anyone who invests in this is in for getting a little richer.
My last sig was ridiculed
Don't buy cars! the next generation wont start until the 2006 models come out! Oh No! You mean my car wont work as well then?
i honestly don't know how Wedbush Morgan goes about reaching these conclusions, but if i were to guess, it'd be largely a statistical method, perhaps with a little research into the procuding companies. i would NOT expect wm to have the slightest awareness of any of the gaming culture: we're widgets and cattle to them. so laugh while they try to understand our whim.
"PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS will have similarly successful years, moving 3.5 million and 3.6 million units, respectively."
I don't understand where those numbers are coming from. Are they predicting that the DS is only going to sell 3.6 million units? That's already not true according to this article, which says that the DS has already sold over 5 million units. Or, if they're saying that these numbers are what each unit is going to sell this year, well then I still can't really believe that the DS will outsell the PSP, or that the PSP will be limited to under 4 million sales. Could someone translate all this marketing and sales analysis mumbo-jumbo?
Apparently the Japanese care about quality and so they realize that 90% of games coming out are crap unlike the consumers over here. ;)
:D
I know you are semi-joking, but it's always amusing to look at the best-selling games every week in Japan. They buy a lot of shitty games, just like gamers in other countries.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
...I mean "business analyst"
Jokes aside, it does make sense, Xbox had (really) bad sales in Japan and theres little to indicate that will change to a point where the xbox 2 becomes japan top console (in MS dreams perhaps), and then on the other hand Nintendo next console just doesnt sound promising enough, we know little about it, but what we know is old hat tech (hard drive, wi fi, gyroscope controls) and is unlikely for it to be the console wars winner.
So theres a good chance of Sony winning the console wars again. Not because its necesarily better, but due to its competitors not beating it in its own game: the Japanese market and the huge array of japanese developers and fanbase behind it. I mean, Right now MS is celebrating just because they have one of the creators of FF in the payroll, while Sony has FF as a pseudo exclusive franchise.
Theres a chance that xbox2 might come second in Japan but it depends on Nintendo next gen performance. we shall wait and see.
Go ahead MOD my day!
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