Sony To Go From First To Worst?

There have been many analyst predictions in the early days of the next-gen consoles, but rarely have they been so direct. DFC Intelligence President David Cole has gone on record saying there's a very real possibility Sony could lose this leg of the race to Microsoft and Nintendo. From the article: "Sony's clear strength is the first factor: brand strength and current market position. The glaring weakness of the PlayStation 3 is price, especially when compared to the competition. However, it is more than just an issue of whether the PlayStation brand strength can justify a premium price. Of course, Sony would like to point to the hardware horsepower and extra features like Blu-ray. The problem is that is only one factor in our forecasting matrix. Furthermore, with the competition having features like Xbox Live and the Nintendo Wii controller, the PS3 may not have that much of an advantage in the elusive 'Wow Factor.'" 1up Editor Sam Kennedy has further musings on this subject, with Next Generation reporting that there may be a problem getting high yields in the PS3 production process.

Comments

What I don't understand...

[Lave]

...Is why it's this expensive in the first place. If they had released a PS3 with exactly the same or slightly less power than the XBox 360 but at the same price - they would have cleaned up. There wider variety of games, and actual presence in Japan would have let them get a huge market share again.

Instead they say the same Lies they said when defeating the dreamcast, and release a slightly more powerful but not in any significant way PS3 to fight the XBox at pushing twice the price (in the UK) a year later.

But this time we know that Sony is dicking us around. It won't go well for them.

P.S. I haven't ignored the Wii - I just don't believe it relates to these two machines anymore. Thankfully - which will hopefully means more people will give nintendo a chance this time round.

Re:I disagree: market segmentation

[Lave]

I think it's fair to argue crass generalisations with simplistic anecdotes and opinion. So lets begin:

Nintendo is still for the kiddies. They have gimmicky controllers with a Fisher-Price look and feel.

The Lite and Wii do not look like a fisherprice toys. This only shows you bias.

More importantly, most grown-ups don't want to play Mario anything

My flatshare consists of mid-twenties adults, and my girlfriend, all of who aren't geeks (I hide my true self from them). And they almost only play games with Mario in. Mario Kart, Super Mario Bros, Wario Ware etc. And even games with silly little kiddy Monkeys like Monkey Ball. An Aside: Monkey Target is the most popular game I have even seen with actual Adults - I have seen it devour entire weekends of non-gamers.

I'm talking about MOST adults.

No. You. Are. Not.

Nintendo focuses on twitch games that generally skip story altogether, or have some bizarre Japanese theme that most adults can't figure out.

Fire Emblem, Zelda, Advance Wars, Geist, Metroid, Paper Mario (though that is a bit bizzare) all disagree. You also seem to forget that other people deveolpe for Nintendo consoles: Resident Evil 4, Phoenix Wright, Trauma Centre, Second Sight, Prince of Persia, Killer 7 and so on.

Also there seems to be a big theme of hating Japanese games through your post - but you do realise that Sony and most of it's "AAA" games are in fact Japanese?

The X-Box has moved in to the mainstream generic person arena

That doesn't even make sense. The XBox is a great machine - but you can't pretend it's in anyway mainstream - like I would be fool to pretend the gamecube was. But still I would expect mainstream to at least mean it also appealed to women, and men.

Also, people like me, who want more out of a video game than a twitch reflex also want a good story with movie level production value. I'm not interested in the typical Japanimation demon/dragon/kid hero story that is as embarrassingly bad as it is incomprehensible. I want good gameplay out of a game, of course, but I also want mind-blowing graphics and sound (The PS3 is supposed to be, unquestionably, the most powerful system). My game system gets plugged into a high-end amp and speaker system, and a high-end TV. I want all of that, packaged with a story that was written and created by somebody who speaks English (not Engrish), and some good Hollywood actors. I could care less about $600 or even $800 for a game box. And, I couldn't care less if the games are $70 each. It's worth it because 1. I've seen more games than most people have and 2. money really isn't an issue to me at this point. I just want the best.

I think that speaks for itself - get over yourself. Your awesome - we understand.