Next Gen Consoles?
Sunday, February 2nd, 2003 - 7:06pm
One of Elysium's comment's about Xbox news piece on the front page kinda got me wondering about how things will play out the next generation of consoles.
The comment I'm talking about was about, "Sony being so far ahead this round that they can sit back laughing", or something to that affect.
If all three come out within a few months of each other in 2005/06 do you guys think that Sony will be as dominant the next go around? I think it's a given they will do well and most likely stay in the lead, but personally, I think they will have to work a hell of a lot harder to do that. Especially if they have as lousy a launch lineup as they did with PS2!
"Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin
Sony will start out better because developers will make their games for Sony''s next system before any other system.
For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance. ~Ron Shelton, Bull Durham, 1988
I think the next generation from any comany is going to have network capabilities right out of the box. MS especially seems to want to take their console to a monthly subscription thing. Either way, if all three come out about the same time, I think it''s going to come down to games and extras. MS is in a prime position to have lots of exclusive titles, so they might have an edge. As ar as extras go, DVD playback is in the current batch, and I assume that will continue. Basically, all three need to find a way to differentiate themselves from the competition.
"Anakin, as embodied by [Hayden] Christensen, is the kind of needlessly moody kid you might see getting punched out in a Dairy Queen parking lot."
"”Paul Tatara on SW:Episode II
Sony may have better third party support at the beginning, but MS and Nintendo have better first party support. What''s Sony going to do, put Sly Cooper up against Halo and Mario, I think not.
It doesn''t matter. Sony has GTA locked up for like three more years. MS and Nintendo won''t be able to compete right out of the gate with the PS3. Maybe if one of them left it would help the other console but with three in the race it will be that much harder to top Sony.
For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance. ~Ron Shelton, Bull Durham, 1988
I think Sony have been incredibly lucky this round - the PS2 hardware is seriously questionable, their advertising has been limited and unimpressive, and they have very few quality exclusives, save the GTA series.
Their master-stroke, however, was launching PS2 far before the GC and Xbox. I''m convinced that, if the systems had launched simultaneously, the race would have been much closer.
Sony are going to have to work 10 times harded in order to maintain their lead during the next bout. They will no-longer have a significant headstart on launch, and will face a Microsoft that is wiser, with better developer relations and with a sizeable user base.
Call me a mindless MS fanboy, but I think Microsoft has done incredibly well with the Xbox launch. The company has succesfully carved itself the #2 position in the notoriously hostile videogame market. In addition, they''ve got a string of excellent exclusives, own some of the top dev studios and market the most future-proof and versatile hardware. Most importantly, the Xbox Live! infrastructure is looking like a seriously good investment.
I think Sony would be foolish to sit on their laurels - when it comes to the next-generation of consoles, Sony''s offering will have to be considerably more competitive. The Cell Processor had best be more than marketing nonsense, their online strategy must be clearer and they must co-ordinate their marketing more effectively.
Viva competition!
I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
-Johnny Cash
Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo should skip the next generation, there''s no way in hell they''re going to beat the Phantom.
I''d be more worried about this beast, however:
http://famiclone.emucamp.com/polystation3/polystation3.htm
Set to take the world by storm. I saw a couple of these puppies for sale in Vietnam last month...
If you say ''Polystation'' really fast and in an oriental accent, it almost sounds like you''re saying ''Playstation''...!!
I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
-Johnny Cash
Ulairis right, thats why Sony is so dominant at the moment. Sony''s launch line up of games was V.poor and there were complaints that the machine was going to be very hard to code for but still games developers were developing for it because it was the first of the current crop of consoles to turn up, it may be technically behind the X-box and Gamecube but it does have a huge range of games for it. I''ll be the first to admit that a lot of them are crap but so are a lot of current X-box and Gamecube titles it''s just that Sony got there first.
But at what cost? and how long is Mr Gates going to be willing to support a console where at current estimates the company actually loses money on every X-box sold? and this is well after the X-box has been established.(see Reuters for the articles)
But I hope that we don''t lose anymore companies as competition amongst manufactures is good for us all.
MUST...STOP ...PLAYING ....SWG! MUST GET REAL LIFE BACK AGAIN!
Kegboy: MS was (and possibly still is) the largest company in the world by capitalisation. While the Xbox may be losing vast amounts of money, I doubt it''s of great concern to Microsoft.
These guys are in it for the long game, and have cash reserves that make Fort Knox look like a pauper''s piggy-bank.
Microsoft are ultimately trying to convert themselves into a subscription-based company - - instead of buying a piece of software on CD, as has been their staple, they want all sotware to be delivered over the Internet via their .NET platform, and charged for on a subscription basis. Xbox Live is the first example of this business model.
For Microsoft''s management, the Xbox represents a beach-head into the living room. They may lose a lot of money on each unit sold, but ultimately will recoup this.
LB.
I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
-Johnny Cash
Revived!
What do you guys and gals think about the console wars now, one year out?
Personally, I think Microsoft dropped the ball a bit, releasing some buggy titles, and pre-announcing the possibility that NextBox, or Xbox2 might not be backward compatible.
Sony seems to be resting on their laurels, without any major game or hardware advances to be seen for 2003. Some new games, some pointless peripherals (eye toy?), and the promises of what''s to come.
Basically, Sony has a huge backlog of games available, since the PS2 is backward compatible, but face it, only 20% of those games are worth playing. And, alot of those games, like Silent Hill, GTA III, Vice City, etc., can be played on XBOX or PC, if via ports.
Nintendo made soem great strides this year, but at what cost, I wonder. Overall, the game list is small, but stacked: Metroid, Eternal Darkness, Mario, Zelda. But as the game list is getting larger, there seem to be more hasty PS2 ports, which brings down the overall level of quality IMHO.
The $99 price point is hard to beat, however.
So, what''s next true believers?
Blog: GameFinance
Twitter: justinmwhitaker
Man, you gotting stop reviving year old threads, it''s really freaking me out when I start reading them!
I think 2003 has shown three consoles can survive in the marketplace and it brought about a subtle change that people now accept they will own multiple consoles. It kind of killed the idea of ""there can be only one"" console that has to do everything.
Sorry. Can''t help myself.
Blog: GameFinance
Twitter: justinmwhitaker
The one thing that''s freaking all the console makers out is that their profitability is way below what they thought it would be at this point. They should be raking in money from royalties on the titles for their systems, while their hardware reached the break-even point and it stopped costing them money to produce the consoles. Instead, they''re caught up on a three-way race that''s killing the profits for the entire industry. I believe that both Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are in the red at this point, and having to produce three versions of each game that they put out (only one of which a given gamer will buy) can''t be making publishers like EA very happy.
I wonder what impact that''s going to have on the next generation -will someone drop out, or combine forces with another console maker? Microsoft has by far the biggest losses, and has been making noise about making the next version of its operating system more game-oriented... Hmmm...
Everything can be debated, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's debatable.
--Chuck Klosterman, Fargo Rock City
Bah if MS does indeed fail to support back wards compatibility they will be dealing themselves a major blow. The minute they do that the consumer no longer has any investment in continuing the relationship, they loose everything no mater what they do so they might as well buy somebody else''s hardware, gamers suffer generally from the grass is always greener syndrome, it only take a nudge for most of us. They would have to be 100% certain to be able to win on hardware/price/titles across the board and even then it would be a bad move.
-Griffon
Did Samurai Jack ever get back to the past?
Being able to play known good last gen software would be one of the few reasons to pick a next gen console up right away. If MS was to skip that by not allowing backward compatability they would pay huge for it.
Hell even nintendo has likly learned it. Look at all the old title that are on the GBA. And these are titles that are 10 years old. People like the classics.
The voices say hello.
Every console company needs an exclusive mascot or franchise that everyone knows.
EVERYONE, even non-gamers knows about Mario and, to a lesser extent, Zelda.
Every teenager knows about Halo. I''ve heard little thirteen and fourteen year old girls talking about Halo because their bothers or boyfriends play it. My girlfriend''s brother, who rarely plays video games, bought an X-box just to play Halo.
Sony doesn''t really have a truly great excusive. I mean, I''ve never seen Tekken sell a PS2. Sony lost their Ace-in-the-hole when GTA went to X-box.
It did for me. I''ve played every Tekken since Tekken 2.
I think you have all hit it on the head. Backwards compatability is where it all lies.
Money can't buy you happiness...but it can buy you a boat big enough to sell right up next to it!-David Lee Roth
Sony had better enjoy their current position while they can. I believe Microsoft will continue to use their classic assimilation tactic: Get in with an adequate (or in some cases, downright bad) product, capture market share, and by the time you get to version 3 the product will be good enough that no one would want to bother using anything else.
Resistance is futile.
I never minded piracy. Anyone who minds about piracy is full of sh*t. Anyone who pirates your game wasn't going to buy it anyway! -Warren Spector
You know, it''s so easy to crow on about ""M$ iz TEH BORG!!!11"" etc., but let''s recognize that the xbox is hardly a mediocre product. It''s a solid platform with good exclusive games, is easy do develop for, and has better hardware specs than its competitor. Calling it ""adequate"" or ""downright bad"" is merely doing so because it''s a Microsoft product. Xbox and PS2 are both quality platforms, and each person will have their preference of one over the other. In the end, though, they''re both great and we get to reap the benefits of intense competition in terms of price *and* quality of games. Savor it while there are still 3 systems around!
I generated a virtual world in the toilet bowl this morning.
-- Podunk on the PS3's mystical, magical abilities
There are two parts to the whole backwards compatibility thing though, isn''t there?
Nintendo gets to double dip on N64 titles that have essentially been revamped for the ""more powerful"" Gamecube simply because the cartridges no longer work on Nintendo''s new hardware (See ZELDA, FF Crystal Chronicles, Resident Evil, Mario Cart, etc.).
Mining your back catalog is a powerful branding tool, ofcourse, but there isn''t the same sort of Love for XBOX games that Nintendo garners, (noone is looking for Tao Feng 2006, for example, even if Jade is a hottie).
I''m wondering what sort of factor that is in today''s market?
I think that those old titles, while great for nostalgia, aren''t what the greying gamers are looking for-they are looking for something new and fresh, or at least a fresh take on an old title (Prince of Persia is a great example).
Simply revamping the game for the new system might cover it for Nintendo diehards, but that is obviously a niche market.
Blog: GameFinance
Twitter: justinmwhitaker
Sega is still alive isn''t it? I''m wondering what they are going to try.
Rogue
Mage
Shaman
Not that they probably ever will again, but I''d never buy a console from Sega again. I still have a Dreamcast in my closet collecting dust. I had only had it for a month when I heard they were dropping that platform. Man, was i pissed.
Wait awhile to see how a console is doing before you buy one. I bought my Dreamcast after it was droped for $50 and a crapy Playstation that worked if you turn it upside down.
I still use my Dreamcast, the graphics aren''t half bad and the games are cheap.
Rogue
Mage
Shaman
Sega is technically alive, but they got seriously spanked in the console market. Their new parent, Sammi, wants Sega to focus on Arcade games, and forget the loss leading console titles.
My take is, other than some ""sure things"" from sega, that is, sequels to existing Sega hit titles, don''t expect to see much from them.
Blog: GameFinance
Twitter: justinmwhitaker
I haven''t (and don''t intend to) accepted the idea of owning multiple platforms. Since there is more than one available, I took the only sensible path, and decided to stick with PC games. Although I actually have a PS2, I only bought one game for it (and rented one once), and use it to play DVDs. In the two years I''ve had it I''ve spent less than 10 hours total playing games on it.
-A''kin, the Friendly Fiend
Even if three new consoles come out together I''d expect Sony to enjoy a hefty advantage. They already claim a vast majority of the console market, and a PS2 fan is more likely to buy a PS3 than an Xbox2. If they have backwards compatibility with their existing games then they''ll really be able to clean up, because PS2 owners will have everything to gain and nothing to lose. On the other hand, I''d still expect the other consoles to make a stronger showing than they did the first time around, simply because they won''t be entering the market so far behind the PS2 and will be able to convince more developers to do multi-platform games before they become dedicated PS3 developers.
It should actually be a good time for console owners, as I''d expect more titles to be developed for all consoles, allowing us to go with a console that appeals to us rather than being pigeonholed into a specific choice in order to play the games we want. There will always be exclusives for each platform, and Sony will still enjoy market domination, but I think we''ll see a little more equality next time around. Just my opinion of course.
Graktar, Orc Hunter
QUIT BUMPING!
I thought this was a new thread and saw how old it is.
For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance. ~Ron Shelton, Bull Durham, 1988
Friend of GWJ and Greatest Living Englishman (besides myself, of course;)) Jake Simpson wrote a great essay on this, detailing his opinions/concerns on the PS3 design and how it relates to Sony''s quest for global dominance over on http://www.jakeworld.org/...click on Editorials, go to 20/07/03. It''s a good read.
"Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness" -- Pablo Picasso
I could not agree with you any more
"Poor Eli Nooo... *child starts crying*"
"Come on now, there's no need to make that kind of noise. It sounds awful and you'll upset other people." - Ionae from Spirit Engine 2