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Games Analysts Weighs In On Console War
Gamaustra's latest in its 'Analyze This' series asks the question point blank: Which Console Will 'Win' 2007? The regular series puts weighty questions to business analysts who specialize in the games industry, to get a gestalt opinion on what's really going on. The well-respected Michael Pachter, of Wedbush Morgan Securities, had some of the most interesting comments to review. He says that Nintendo will 'appear' to win in 2007 because of its low price and innovative control scheme, but that Sony will be the winner in the long run. From the article: "My best guess is that Sony emerges as the winner of the movie format war in late 2008, and games start looking noticeably better in 2009. That's when Sony starts looking like the winner of the next generation battle. All of this is pretty far out, and a lot can happen with pricing to change things. For example, if Sony gets down the cost curve for Blu-ray and Cell processors, [the PS3] may be below $300 shortly thereafter. It's hard to say that this will happen before 2009, but it could. That would change everything."
Directly contradicting this story, I read the print edition of the Wall Street Journal (expensive subscription required) and it said that in point of fact - as also backed by articles in Fortune and Forbes - that Sony is losing the format war to HD-DVD, due to low adoption rates by pr0n providers, low sales of the PS3 consoles, and labels shunning the format. Perhaps if someone were prognosticating back in October 2007, such a forecast might have seemed reasonable, but the post-Christmas sales figures in the US and Japan as well as worldwide show that adoption rates are sub-par.
But, live in a dream world if you must.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I was surprised by how good the analyst opinions were. They all pretty much said the same thing: Wii is doing well, MS is on track, and Sony is lagging a bit now ... but it's still too early to say who the long-term market leader will be. I think that's definately the right approach to take.
In contrast, here's a typical fanboy view of all the consoles:
Wii
Pro: Wii-mote rules! It's all about the innovation and gameplay. Sony and MS have none of that, so they're doomed! Who cares about HD? Look at the holiday sales! We are DEFINATELY going to win.
Con: The Wii was doomed from the start when they released the hardware specs. HD is the wave of the future. The "waggle" is just a gimmick, no one is going to want a "GameCube 1.5" months from now. Nintendo is DOOMED.
Xbox 360
Pro: First to 10 million baby! Also, see how Sony is losing exclusives left and right. Xbox Live all the way. Finally, Halo 3 babeeee! We are DEFINATELY going to win.
Con: M$ should go back to making Windows. 360 is failing in Japan, and red-lights are everywhere! M$ is DOOOMED.
Playstation 3
Pro: Blu-ray all the way baby! PS3 is the real next-gen and HD. Also, the PS2 is still selling like hot-cakes. Finally, you can't deny the power of MGS4 and FFXIII. We are DEFINATELY going to win.
Con: Batteries exploding, root kits, and constant PR fiascos. Also, PS3s sitting on shelves everywhere? $ony is DOOMED!
Certainly, there are lots of both truth and falseness to the statements above, which is why fanboys keep making them. However, it's still way too early to tell anything, especially when consoles generally last for years and perceptions change quickly. Remember how doomed many people thought Nintendo was when they first announced the "Wii" name? Or how silly the DS seemed, compared to the sexiness of the PSP? Or about how solid the PlayStation brand was a year and half ago?
Yeah, go figure.
-- jchenx
If you change the search for PS3 instead of "playstation 3" and use "," instead of "." to seperate PS3 from Wii, the trend seem to be that PS3 is consistently above XBOX360, and almost identical to Wii. But in the very latest results, Wii has outrun PS3.
If you look at at the cities/regional/language bars below, PS3 is consistently in top for all cities, regions and languages, with Wii and XBOX 360 fighting for the second spot. However, Wii is seriously handicapped by being known under a different name for half the period.
It is amazing how such false and misleading information was modded Interesting. Before you call "bullshit", it might help if you provided evidence using more accurate test variables to trend popularity.
3 60),+(playstation+3)+%7C+ps3,+wii&date=all&geo=all &ctab=2&sa=N
a b=0&geo=all&date=all
Firstly, many people refer to the "Playstation 3" as the "PS3". Secondly, it _might_ help your test results if you used "Playstation 3, Wii" instead of "Playstation 3.wii". So, let's take a look at the _real_ trend:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=xbox360+%7C+(xbox+
Finally, before trending the HD formats, it would make your argument more convincing if you spelt "Bluray" correctly:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=bluray%2C+hddvd&ct
If there ever was a good example of skewing of test results to conform to ones own opinion, it would be your misinformed post.
You're absolutely right on the misspelling of "Blu-ray", except you spelled it wrong too! Check it out:
c tab=0&geo=all&date=all
http://www.google.com/trends?q=blu-ray%2C+hd-dvd&
Now who can say HD-DVD has the uncontested Google Trends lead (however much that means), looking at that graph with both terms spelled correctly?
"Sony is hanging by a thread financially."
That's not in any way true. Multiple Apple's sales by 3, and their profit by 4, and you got Sony. Sony has $32B in short term assets. Sony is quite healthy, financially. I don't know where you got your information.
I don't respond to AC's.
Is that the same WSJ article that quotes that sony is not allowing porn? If so they need to call up sony and do some fact checking. Would have taken a couple of hours TOPS. It was a internet rumor and was hogwash. The major press studios are saying 'no we dont do porn go to your normal people'. The normal people are usually flybynight and do not have BluRay setup yet. As HD-DVD was a small change to the process and BluRay was a major change.
5 .html. And by all accounts sony has stated that they have not met their numbers the numbers they have hit have been at least impressive for a next gen dvd format...
But think about this 800k total sales of BOTH hd-dvd and bluray at the end of dec. EXCLUDING PS3 HD-DVD is winning. Including it and BluRay is stomping it. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070115-862