Is the Playstation 4 About to be announced??

[Mr. Adventure]

Robert Maxwell wrote:

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The PS3 itself began making a profit after 4 years--a bit longer than usual. But I think you can primarily blame that on the initial sluggish sales, and the extra expenses of the proprietary architecture and BR player.

And adding the Emotion Engine and GPU chips needed for backward compatibility with the PS2....

[Kelthaz]

You know, despite the success of the PS1 and PS2, I don't think Sony has any idea what they're doing. They only succeeded with the PS1 because Nintendo shot themselves in the foot going with cartridges on the N64 and Sega fired a BFG 9000 at themselves. And with the PS2 they had no competition. I think Sony just got damn lucky and doesn't know how to compete with equals. Think Rocky VI. I'm expecting Microsoft to win the upcoming generation.

[AlphaMan]

Kelthaz wrote:

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You know, despite the success of the PS1 and PS2, I don't think Sony has any idea what they're doing. They only succeeded with the PS1 because Nintendo shot themselves in the foot going with cartridges on the N64 and Sega fired a BFG 9000 at themselves. And with the PS2 they had no competition. I think Sony just got damn lucky and doesn't know how to compete with equals. Think Rocky VI. I'm expecting Microsoft to win the upcoming generation.

I think that you will see very little change in who adopts what next generation console. Xbox Live and Playstation Network tracks purchases, achievements and game history. Not to mention, your online friends. Unless you're already on both, these things make it less likely for someone to switch.

So what you say about Microsoft winning next gen may very well be true, but its not like Microsoft's success with Xbox 360 was because they were so awesome. They benefitted mostly from mistakes made by Sony and they only managed to dominate US marketshare while Sony still dominates the rest of the world.

If I were to bet, I'd say Steam has a good chance to win this gen for reasons I've already stated.

[Kelthaz]

AlphaMan wrote:

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So what you say about Microsoft winning next gen may very well be true, but its not like Microsoft's success with Xbox 360 was because they were so awesome. They benefitted mostly from mistakes made by Sony and they only managed to dominate US marketshare while Sony still dominates the rest of the world.

Why are you excluding the Wii? Nintendo dominated all three markets.

[Mr. Adventure]

Kelthaz wrote:

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You know, despite the success of the PS1 and PS2, I don't think Sony has any idea what they're doing. They only succeeded with the PS1 because Nintendo shot themselves in the foot going with cartridges on the N64 and Sega fired a BFG 9000 at themselves. And with the PS2 they had no competition. I think Sony just got damn lucky and doesn't know how to compete with equals. Think Rocky VI. I'm expecting Microsoft to win the upcoming generation.

Not sure what you mean with the cartridge comment but I think it goes beyond the storage capacity limitation. I think Nintendo burned bridges with third-party publishers with being the source of those cartridges and charging much higher publishing fees just to make a game for their console.

Everyone I knew that bought a PSX was because it was a hot machine at the time. It was the first time that home conversions were getting close to their arcade counterparts.

Were the X-Box and GameCube not competition for the PS2?

[Bob The Skutter]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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Not sure what you mean with the cartridge comment but I think it goes beyond the storage capacity limitation. I think Nintendo burned bridges with third-party publishers with being the source of those cartridges and charging much higher publishing fees just to make a game for their console.

Everyone I knew that bought a PSX was because it was a hot machine at the time. It was the first time that home conversions were getting close to their arcade counterparts.

Were the X-Box and GameCube not competition for the PS2?

Dreamcast too. They were all the same generation but what happened was Dreamcast came out well in advance and a lot of people were waiting on the PS2 before buying. Also the Dreamcast was very easy to pirate for and lost out very quickly. The Gamecube and Xbox came later, but the Gamecube was hampered by being seen as "Kiddy" and the disc only had 1.2gb compared to 4.5gb on the PS2 and Xbox.

Then we come to the Xbox, well that was starting to do fairly well but launched late, so was only 2/3 years from the launch of the 360 but still managed to sell around 25m, by comparison the Gamecube sold 21m in around the same time frame and the 360 has been out 7 years now and has sold around 75m.

[Haggis and tatties]

Its going to be intresting this time round.........i hope Sony and MS allow me to bring my massive digital catalogue of games with me onto the next system....i have far too many digital games to simply dump them all and jump onto a new system.

So whoever allows this will get my money.......plus on a side note the PS4 needs some sort of private chat in and out of games this time round......i dont care if this requires the PSN to become sub like xboxlive, but this time round they really need it.

They could add a private/party-chat into Ps+ subscription, that would be a instant win for me with Sony.

[Kelthaz]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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Were the X-Box and GameCube not competition for the PS2?

Meh, they were competition for the PS2 like the Game Gear was competition for the Game Boy.

[AlphaMan]

Video Game Industry Can't Catch a Break, Still Struggling
CNBC.com | February 03, 2013 | 03:07 PM EST
January was not kind to the video game industry.

One major publisher was split into pieces. One high profile development studio was shut down and another seems likely to be headed in that direction. And another publisher is trading in the Nasdaq red zone. What's going on?

Very interesting read.


Mod Edit: As a general rule we don't post entire articles. A link for others to click and brief snippet on what it's about will work. And it is an interesting read. Thanks. -Akiraprise

[AlphaMan]

Kelthaz wrote:

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Why are you excluding the Wii? Nintendo dominated all three markets.

They did indeed and may very well again... but the success of the Wii was based in the gimmick of motion gaming. Unless some similar killer software comes out to help the second screen experience gaming, I don't see them doing it again with hardware that's basically an entire generation behind.

[MacLeod]

AlphaMan wrote:

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I think that you will see very little change in who adopts what next generation console. Xbox Live and Playstation Network tracks purchases, achievements and game history. Not to mention, your online friends. Unless you're already on both, these things make it less likely for someone to switch.

So what you say about Microsoft winning next gen may very well be true, but its not like Microsoft's success with Xbox 360 was because they were so awesome. They benefitted mostly from mistakes made by Sony and they only managed to dominate US marketshare while Sony still dominates the rest of the world.

If I were to bet, I'd say Steam has a good chance to win this gen for reasons I've already stated.

No Sony does not dominate the rest of the world, it dominates in some areas of the world.

In the UK the Xbox 360 is the best selling console with some 29% of the market whilst the PS3 has around 23% of the market.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/console-sal...7.html#wSNi7eo

Europe as a whole may favour the PS3, but Europe is made up of dozens of countries, and is some of those the Xbox will be favoured.

[Robert Maxwell]

AlphaMan wrote:

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They did indeed and may very well again... but the success of the Wii was based in the gimmick of motion gaming. Unless some similar killer software comes out to help the second screen experience gaming, I don't see them doing it again with hardware that's basically an entire generation behind.

That's not really true. The gimmick helped, but the Wii's success wasn't based solely or even mostly on that. Instead, it succeeded largely due to price and appeal to more casual gamers. It's the "family console," and had a lot of games designed to be played by up to four people. Sony and Microsoft had the hardcore market locked up between them, so Nintendo wisely went after an entirely different demographic. It paid off big time for them.

They don't seem to be modifying that strategy substantially this generation, either, they've just added some more social features, new peripherals, and somewhat better graphics hardware. They're still going after the cost-conscious casual market.

[Sheep]

Robert Maxwell wrote:

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That's not really true. The gimmick helped, but the Wii's success wasn't based solely or even mostly on that. Instead, it succeeded largely due to price and appeal to more casual gamers. It's the "family console," and had a lot of games designed to be played by up to four people. Sony and Microsoft had the hardcore market locked up between them, so Nintendo wisely went after an entirely different demographic. It paid off big time for them.

They don't seem to be modifying that strategy substantially this generation, either, they've just added some more social features, new peripherals, and somewhat better graphics hardware. They're still going after the cost-conscious casual market.

The Wii sold like gangbusters (and then proceeded to collect dust in most people's closets once the novelty wore off) due to motion controls that appeal to those who are intimidated by a controller with a dozen buttons. So what does Nintendo do for a sequel? Release a system that features a controller with a dozen buttons and a screen and barely even advertise the fact that this is an entirely new system and not an add-on for the Wii. I don't have much faith in the WiiU garnering anywhere near the level of sales that the Wii did just because it's not as accessible to casuals.

As for handhelds, even though I absolutely loathe touchscreen gaming with the fire of a thousand suns, I think the Vita and the 3DS are in for a world of hurt from iOS and Android devices in the next few years.

[Ood Sigma]

I use my Wii a lot more than I use Kinect. Actually the only thing I really like about Kinect is the voice commands. The games I have for Kinect are either boring, repetitive, or suffer from poor detection of my movements.

[Mr. Adventure]

Kelthaz wrote:

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Meh, they were competition for the PS2 like the Game Gear was competition for the Game Boy.

All because of luck? I don't think that's entirely fair.