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Japanese Gamers' Post-E3 Reversal
Castar writes "Prior to E3, Famitsu readers were interested in the PS3, and Final Fantasy. Post E3, while there's still some excitement over Final Fantasy, they seem to be very interested in the Wii, and concerned about the PS3's high price. It certainly seems that in Japan, at least, Nintendo and Sony's fortunes have reversed. Will this hold through the launch and the succeeding years?" From the article: "Nearly 70% of readers said they are most looking forward to Wii. 21% voted for PlayStation 3, while the others voted for systems already released. 88.4% of readers believe PlayStation 3 is too expensive, while 10% believe it's 'about right'."
I'm not sure if this demonstrates that the price is too high for the PS3 as much as it shows that there is no compelling reason to own a PS3 and the price is too high.
Seriously, when you compare the Wii and the PS3 what you notice is that practically every game on the Wii looks interesting enough to make you want to (at least) try it whereas every game on the PS3 seems like you've played the exact same game before; also the Wii is releasing many of their largest franchises (Metriod, Zelda, Mario, Smash Bros.) within the first 9 months, where the PS3 has none of it's major titles due out before next E3.
Why would you be interested in a $600 game machine which has no interesting games?
As a long time gamer I have never owned a console. I have always followed the matra: "Anything your console can do, my PC can do better". So, yet again, my PC is already out-performing the Xbox and Sony offers nothing but more beef -- and my PC will just pack on a few more pounds itself. But the Wii... wow. This thing touches on something that the new Hollywood-like gaming industry has fogotten. Hardware specs and graphics do not make a game... any more than a pile of icing makes a cake. The Wii, imho, is tapping back into the idea of "gaming" and then taking it in its logical direction (which is not better rendering speeds). For the first time ever, I will be buying a console system. I finally see a system that says "I am a gamer" and is backed by a company which, in taking such a risk, is making obvious its understanding of gaming. The view from here is that the Wii will be a helluvalotta fun. Sony and Microsoft, well you can kiss my PC's shiny metal ass.
I am European, so I was guessing for the other territories. (note: living in Brussels, Belgium btw)
Little background:
In Europe, Nintendo is known as "the gameboy company".
Nintendo never had the base it had in the USA with the NES. Not that it flopped badly, but it was way too expensive compared to the Sega MasterSystem. The SNES did ok, N64 flopped. Finding a Gamecube or Gamecube games was really hard the last couple of years. At least were I live, only specialised shops carried Gamecube stuff.
Playstation is what put console gaming back in business after Sega released a heap of crappy games. As to the price, both PS1 and PS2 cost around 500 euros at launch, which is a lot. Somehow though, they managed to stick around long enough to capture the market. Massive adoption happened only after the price dropped.
XBox came too late. Microsoft also has its bad name going against it. Their marketing is over-the-top American, which goes against what most Europeans hold dear. Maybe they will learn this time?
Anyhow, market penetration of consoles depends mostly on pricing. Nintendo has an additional penalty that it has no brandname recognition. "A console from Nintendo? What's next, food from McDonalds?"
If the past few months have shown us anything about Japan, it's that they dig innovation. Do you know what the recently surpassed #2 selling video game of all time for the first day is in Japan? Brain Age. That's right, the simple, yet highly addictive game that could have been done by one programmer in a few months sold 415,000 copies in Japan on the first day.
What's this tell us? That the Japanese are ready for innovations in games. And honestly, the only system so far to show any innovation is the Wii. The 360 is going to flop in Japan. The PS3 in my opinion is just offering the same games that only look prettier.