Clearly the only big winner for 2007 so far is Nintendo. Sony has yet to sell the PlayStation 3 hardware in any numbers and is instead leaning on its successful PS2 and PSP business to see it through, a strategy with a relatively short half-life. The 360 doesn't look so hot with middling sales numbers, a very public black eye with the red ring of death issue, and the loss of one of the most public faces of the business, Peter Moore. While overall sales are up, the market is at a very uneven place right now, and it's unclear if consumers are spending these huge amounts on the gaming industry in general, or simply on Nintendo. We look forward to seeing forward movement from the PlayStation in July.
Honestly, PS3 is only 500k in sales behind the 360. That's not really a huge gap. And I'm sure they'll make up some of that with the recent price cut. PS2 is also selling quite well. I think that the PS2 and the Wii are good evidence to support the fact that people are more concerened with price than they are with having the latest and greatest system.
Was going to add pictures here as attachments but that ability doesn't seem to exist in this forum!
I think the cost is part of it. I think that what it really shows is that Sony and Microsoft are DRASTICALLY overestimating the extent to which their target market is comprised of the tech nerd / AVphile crowd, and drastically overestimating the extent to which graphics are important to those who play console gaming systems. For every Winnow out there, there's 10 people who don't know what a component cable is but think that Wii Tennis looks like an awful lot of fun. Many of the tech features that make the PS3/XBOX360 so expensive are utterly immaterial to the majority of people who play console games.
I don't know a lot of technerd/avphile folks myself. I think that I know 2 (one of whom is probably reading this-- hello!) and I think they both own XBOX360's. They are the only people I know who own an XBOX360. I don't know anybody who owns a PS3. I know probably 5-10 people who own a Wii. And I think that my experience is much more representative of the average american than is the experience of someone who is immersed in a community (both on and offline) largely comprised of tech junkies / video gamers / etc. If you know what slashdot is, you're probably out of the mainstream.
The only time I even hear people talking about getting an XBOX360 or PS3 is in the context of using it as an inexpensive HD-DVD or BluRay player.
I'm not saying that the Wii is going to be a long term juggernaut or that the 360 and PS3 are doomed to miserable failure or anything. But I really hope that this generation alters MS and Sony's images of what their consumer base looks like. Because it should.
