Hi guys, I have read SW for quite a while now but this is my first post. I have worked at EB Games in Australia for 6 years watching all the trends of videogame sales down under. For the longest time IMO gaming has been something of a battle for maximising on the consumer dollar with the price of software and certain controversial value adding techniques all designed to make us spend more money. The current generation however has led to a new situation in which the big three are now all vying for our dollar at the expense of themselves.
With this in mind I wonder why people so vigorously defend their console of choice without actually challenging them to correct their faults. If you look at the history of videogames no single hardware manufacturer has manged to dominate the home console market for more than 3 generations. I do not believe that this is just some cyclical event more coincidence but we are already seeing it with Sony having a very slow start to the console race.
Back when ps2 launched not many people were interested with its AU$750 price tag. I had many customers and friends telling me how Dreamcast was going to destroy it, however a poor marketing campaign and terrible manufacturing runs caused it to never get off the ground. This left Sony with a clear window to create an install base before any competition was even announced. This led to Sony's success the software that came to the machine was the result of a large install base and nothing to do with hardware.
In this generation for the first time ever gamers are being offered a real choice; Wii, 360, PS3... IMO 360 never had a headstart because people knew ps3 and wii were coming. This is very clear in the massive slowdown in the sales of 360 since the launch of the other 2. Sony has suffered under its large price tag and lack of software but the sheer fact remains that 115000000 ps2 owners should not be ignored. Nintendo has enjoyed massive success but cannot get past its kiddy image. 360 has broken its nerdy image and is developing a large software library.
The main point here is that for us as gamers we should be making these companies work for our support, 360 fans should be up in arms about the incremental changes to Halo 3's graphics (game will be AAA nonetheless) and hardware defects, Nintendo owners should be pushing for greater efforts to receive PROPER 3rd party support and PS3 fans need to be given what they wanted.. a successor to the PS2.
I own all 3 they are all good machines but none are great. It is my belief however that this competition will create something special for all of us and maybe rather than worrying about which console gets what with that resolution blah blah blah we will be too busy playing and being completely satisfied and justified by our purchases.
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