PS3 Delay To Have Little Impact?

According to analyst firm Strategy Analytics, the PS3's delay is unlikely to have much of an effect on the next-gen race, reports GameDailyBiz. From the article: "While 2006 sales will clearly fall short of previous expectations, Strategy Analytics maintains its previous forecast of PS3 sales of 121.8 million units through 2012 ... This compares to expected sales of Microsoft's Xbox 360 of 58.8 million units over the same period." Gamasutra reports that, from Steve Ballmer's perspective, the opposite is true. From that article: "In every other generation, the first guy to 10 million consoles was the number one seller in the generation ... Did we just get an even better opportunity to be the first guy to 10 million? Yeah, of course we did." This all assumes the console launches this year.

Comments

121.8 and 58.8? Bah!

[ThisIsForReal]

Those analyst forecasts are way off.

By my calculations, it's 121.6 (they must have forgotten to take into account leap year, tax increases, etc).

How can somebody make predictions on the sale of a new piece of technology, projecting 6 years into the future, and to be so arrogant that they use the tenth's decimal place to make their forecast? Whatever...

History can repeat itself, though...

[babbling]

Indeed, but the original PlayStation came out at a time when people had been VERY satisfied with their previous Nintendo system, the SNES. In fact, the first PlayStation was originally going to be a collaboration between Nintendo and Sony as a CD-ROM drive for the SNES. Nintendo pulled out, Sony continued developing it, and the cancellation of that contract turned out to be the worst decision that Nintendo ever made.

My point is, at some point in time, the "popular" brand of systems always falls. Atari, Nintendo (and Sega?), and Sony's time will eventually come... It might not happen with the PS3, but the important thing to remember is that can happen, and eventually will. All empires are eventually toppled.

Re:History can repeat itself, though...

[scot4875]

You (and a lot of other people) seem to have a really funny definition of hardcore gamer, in my mind.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years. I've played systems from the Atari 2600 and Intellivision era through the current console generation. I've been playing PC games since my first 8088. I've played every genre. I am very good at games. I consider myself as hardcore as they come.

But I'm bored to tears with what most people consider 'hardcore' games. Seriously, fuck every FPS from now until infinity until someone introduces something *new*. Fuck every sports and racing sim out there. Fuck every "line up 3 and they disappear'" puzzle game. Stealth action games can go to hell -- new ways to hide and/or be detected ain't a new game, nor is a new (usually stupid, tired, cliched -- thank you Tom Clancy!) story. 1-on-1 Fighting games are getting extremely tired (I pumped hundreds of dollars into Mortal Kombat machines over 10 years ago).

In the last generation, I could probably count the number of unique, interesting games on my fingers. All these moron 10-18 year olds who think they're "so hardcore!" are just playing new versions of the same stuff that I mastered in the '80s and '90s.

I think that any truly hardcore gamer is probably as bored as I am with what's out there and wants something new to try. I'm not talking about high resolution or 5.1 surround, either -- those are nice, and I certainly enjoy a polished presentation as much as the next guy -- but the only next-gen system I'm really interested in (and that includes my gaming PC) is the Revolution. Everything else is just more of the same.

--Jeremy