[QUOTE="ZIMdoom"]
Your "research" is faulty as you seem to confuse correlation with cause and effect. Not to mention to fail to take into account the widely acknowleged view that consoles don't hit mass market appeal until they are AT LEAST $299, if not less. You fail to mention that this is the first time both consoles have, and WILL BE, selling at the same price for the main sku.
Second, The PS3 has only ever had one $100 price drop and during that price drop, although it was still $100 more than a 360, it outsold the 360 for half the year. This during a time when people said it had no games. So I fail to see how you can claim "things stay the same" with a straight face. I also find it funny you refer to "every time Sony dropped" when they've only ever had one single price drop compared to two for MS.
The fact you would refer to this as "research" is even funnier.
gamecubepad
Sony supporters will always revert to personal attacks when presented with facts, then try to enforce some made up standard of what a price drop is. MS dropping the Elite from $399 to $299 would be a price drop, just like Sony replacing the 20GB with the 40GB, and later the 80GB is a drop in it's own way.
The important part is not the what the definition of a drop is, it's that price doesn't sell consoles, games do. The last 2 times Sony dropped their price or upgraded an existing unit MS matched them and there was no significant impact on the market.
The release of MGS4 was the only time there was a significant effect. Now with MS matching the Slim and the reality that it's going up against Halo and Forza, what is the "X" factor that is going to make this PS3 drop any different than the times before?
It's not an attack, it's a honest question.
1) I strongly disagree. I gaurantee that, in the eyes of the general customer (someone who doesn't hang around GS all day), the 360 has gone from $399 to $349 to $299. The PS3 has gone from $499 to $399 and now $299. They don't care that the hard drive has changed. If you count new HDDs are a "price drop", you may as well also include bundles, etc. as "price drops". Therefore the definition of a price drop is VERY important. Now customers are able to get the PS3 at $299 which is seen as the start ofacceptable console pricing since the SNES days...if not sooner. Although, the slim has a price drop AND a bigger HDD...so do you count that as two price drops at once?
2) First, I would argue that the PS3 beating the 360 for 6 months in MS's single biggest market (NA) is a significant impact. Granted, it was only a short term impact, but it is still significant because people thought it would be impossible. Second, one could easily make the case that the market didn't see any long term impact because the PS3 was still seen as too expensive for the mass market. When a console drops its price, a certain percentage of gamers are willing to buy it. That percentage get higher as the console gets lower. If you did research, you would see that every console pretty much ever, has seen increased sales as it gets lower in price. Therefore, clearly, price does matter for sales. The question is will it matter equally for the 360 and PS3 as they now compete on equal pricing from this point on?
3) While games DO sell consoles, I would argue two things. 1) That only applies once the console is at a price the mass market deems acceptable, and 2) the number of games each gen that are proven to be "console sellers" can be counted on one hand. We saw this with Halo, and to a lesser extent MGS4. However those are two of the biggest games expected for the respective consoles. Other games do not "sell consoles" and you can tell this by looking at console sales during most game releases. 99% of individual games released in any gen do no move consoles when they come out. There are really only 1 or 2 games in a consoles lifespan that are proven to cause a sales spike when they release. That's it.
What matters more is the total game library, not individual exclusives, that has built up over time as the console gets cheaper.Not all libraries appeal to everyone equally. There is plenty of evidence that the 360, while it has an impressive library, only seems to move shooters and the console mainly appeals to fans of shooters. What about everyone else? What about all those PS2 owners who bought a wide variety of games? Where are they? What console will they eventually move to because they haven't all jumped abourd this gen yet. Not even close. One could easily argue that the PS3 library and features, has a broader appeal to the mass market, and that as the console hits $299 and lower, it will start to attract more and more of that casual, mass market that supported the PS2. Meanwhile, the 360 shooter audience who want halo, have already bought the console, and MS is strangely quiet on what else they have that will bring in more people in the future. And sorry, I don't think more Halo is going to cut it.
That is why I mock your claims of "research", because all you've done is look at what happened during the ONE SINGLE PS3 price drop, looked at the result long after, then jumped to a meaningless conclusion. Realresearch would have looked not JUST at PS3, but the impact of sales drops throughout previous gens. It would have looked at sales rates during price drops in all gens. Itwould have looked at console sales rates formore than one gen as well as market shares.You didn't do any of that. You looked at one single incidence and then claimed to be an expert on console sales.
Now let me once again clarify that I am simply saying what I believe is possible...not what I think wil actuall happen. As a Sony fan, clearly I hope the PS3 sees much greater success. I hope the PS3 beats the 360. But as a gamer, I've already bought the PS3 and Wii and I have more games than I have time to play. I'm content and the future price drops have no real impact on me. Maybe I will be wrong and Sony will remain in third. Whatever. I just strongly disagree with people who say it is impossible for PS3 to catch up, let alone surpass the 360.
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