Which CONSOLE!?

[mikeszekely]

Well, we do know one thing. MW members pick the PS3 over the Xbox 360 at a 3:1 ratio. Every gaming site I have seen running polls has it atleast at 2:1. tells you all you have to know right there. In Japan I would *guess* that number runs somewhere between 5:1 to 10:1.

Yes, Duke, you've offered this tidbit at least once before, as has MGREXX. And I've told you before that all that proves is that people like you will buy the PS3 simply because it says "PlayStation" on the side.

Bottom line is that when Microsoft threw their hat into the console ring, most people thought it was a joke, and that the Xbox was going to tank faster than the Dreamcast did. And yet, it went on to carve out a piece of the market for itself that's bigger than Nintendo's. The Xbox team is gunning for first, and while they aren't likely to take it anytime soon, they will close the gap.

I see what you're saying, Mike - but I think you're missing the point I tried to make earlier. Your average consumer will likely buy one console - I happen to fall into that majority. Video games just really aren't important enough to me to see spending more than the price of one console and a few games.

Playstation has brand loyalty and they earned it with the two very solid game machines, a variety of titles, and compatability with their friend's consoles (for borrowing games, etc...)

There is a difference between brand loyalty and fanboyism, but I don't think you're seeing that.

I see what you're saying too, but the difference between brand loytalty and fanboyism is that brand loyalty assumes the brand is better until proven otherwise, while fanboyism holds out that their brand is better in the face of proof otherwise.

Thing about what you're saying about your brand loyalty. Two very solid game machines? What do you mean by solid? I personally went through two original PlayStations, and I'm on my second PS2. Is shoddy hardware what you mean by solid? And how did that earn your loyalty? It's true though, that the PS2 has had more games, especially from Japan. But it seems like most of the games developed by American or European studios end up on at least the PS2 and the Xbox... with the Xbox version often looking better and having better load times. (For the future, Microsoft seems to be working much harder to woo some Japanese developers).

And what's this compatibility with friends' consoles? It's true that almost everyone I know has owned a PS2 at some point, but many of them chose not to buy another when theirs died. Most of my close friends got an Xbox instead (or like me, got another PS2 but still got an Xbox). End result? I know more people with an Xbox today than I do with a PS2.

Like King Nor said, go where the games are. When I voted in this poll, I picked the "more than one" option, because, as a gamer, I think there will be some games I want to play on probably all the new consoles. Even as a casual gamer, you should really look and see what games might appeal to you on each console. If you really don't find anything you like on the Xbox 360, and the games that are going to be coming out for the PS3 look good to you, you might still decide that the PS3 will be the only next-gen console for you. But at least at that point, you'll have made an informed decision instead of just following the PlayStation brand into whatever gutter Sony decided to take it.

On a side note, the only thing I really show any brand loyalty toward is cars. I like Mitsubishi, because I own one, and it's held up amazingly. If I were going to judge a console that way, my first next-gen choice would be the Revolution, because I know Nintendo's products are damn near eternal.

[mikeszekely]

Except the SNES was THE 16-bit system. I mean, everybody had a SNES. You are trying to portray it as some sort of failure, when you couldn't be farther from the truth.

I knew as many people with the Genesis as I did with the SNES, if not more. In fact, it seemed like the people who were more into gaming wanted an SNES, but the more casual gaming crowd began their tradition of buying annual Madden updates with the Genesis.

And JB0 isn't saying the SNES is a failure. He's saying, truthfully, that they were in decline.

But the POINT is ...they went from 95% market share to 50% in the 16-bit era.

During the NES years, seriously everyone had one. It wasn't until I was older that I even realized that Sega had a system before the Genesis.

But a lot of people bought the Genesis. Sonic became a household name, and the infamous rivalry between Segan and Nintendo began.

[Duke Togo]

Just for the record, though I own a PS2, I rarely play it. I consider my PC to be my main gaming system of choice. I am not a fanboy, I am a realist. And, being a realist, I can look at the numbers and I see that the PS2 outsold the Xbox by tens of millions. I also see the numbers when talking about the Xbox 360 and PS3 and its quite obvious to me that Sony will continue to dominate the console gaming market.

Maybe its just me, but its seems that Xbox fanboys are little more than SEGA fanboys who never got over getting trounced by Nintendo for all of those years, and even when they tripped up, they still ended up playing second fiddle to Sony.

Look at the numbers, guys, and wake the hell up.

[Duke Togo]

Ok, let's throw some hard facts in here:

Total sales figures:

NES: 61,780,000

Sega Master System: 13,000,000

Nintendo SNES: 49,020,000

Sega Mega Drive (Genesis): 30,750,000

Sony Playstation: 100,000,000

Nintendo 64: 32,930,000

Sega Saturn: 9,260,000

Sony Playstation 2: 81,390,000

Microsoft Xbox: 19,900,000

Nintendo Gamecube: 18,030,000

Sega Dreamcast: 10,600,000

Nintendo clearly dominated SEGA from the NES to the Gamecube. Sony outsold all of its generation's systems combined with the PSX and PS2.

[Radd]

Playstation has brand loyalty and they earned it with the two very solid game machines, a variety of titles, and compatability with their friend's consoles (for borrowing games, etc...)

I'm not so certain about that. The PSX came out with the Sega Saturn as it's only real competition. The Saturn was a beast of a machine, and could boast more power than many consoles before or since. However, the majority of that was geared towards 2D gaming.

The PSX suffered in that department by a wide margin, but was noticibly better in the 3D department. It still wasn't pretty, but it was affordable hardware accellerated graphics for pretty much the first time, and people loved it. I will never understand what it is about polygons, but they wow the masses. To top it all off, the PSX was a lot cheaper than the Saturn, and Sega had suddenly stopped the advertising campaign that won them the 16 Bit generation, and replaced it with guys in styrafoam cone hats. Worse yet, Sega replaced the perfectly fine Japanese Saturn controller with a crappy one for its American release. 10 minutes of gaming would give you blisters. Not cool.

So Sony had the 3D games people wanted to play. The 3d graphics (the only graphics the majority of consumers were interested in) were better, the hardware cmore affordable, the commercials were on MTV. so people followed.

The PSX hardware was prone to breaking down, and it was not unusual to meet people that were on their third or forth Playstation just a few years down the road.

For the next Generation, Sony really starts the PS2 hype machine. They promise it will give all consumers a million dollars, a beautiful girlfriend, multiple orgasms, the works, all while providing movie quality 3D graphics.

They didn't really deliver on any of that, and while the PS2 had better graphics than the Dreamcast, it couldn't deliver graphics nearly as good as the Cube or the XBox. On top of that, until the Cube and XBox were out, good games for the PS2 were few and far between. Still, they retained the lead, and because they had the highest install base, most developers stuck with them and did little for the other two consoles.

The PS2 hardware was prone to breaking down, and it was not unusual to meet people that were on their second or third PS2 a few years down the road (IMPROVEMENT!). Not to mention their much vaulted DVD capabilities were often...not so good. Sometimes it would play DVDs poorly, and sometimes it just wouldn't play them at all, though this was apparently improved with later itirations of the hardware.

Now Sony is working the PS3 hype, making all the same promises as before, but this time they're not full of it (really!). Of course, they also won't have the headstart they had last time, and at least at first they may not have quite such a significant lead in developer support. If the 360 does well early on, developers could head over there.

So the only reason Sony has held onto developer support is because of its consumer support, and the only reason it's held onto its consumer support is because of its developer support.

Sounds like a recipe for quality to me!

[Duke Togo]

I'm not so certain about that.

The sales numbers I posted say otherwise. Too bad you spent all that time typing all of that up, when all iI did was a little copy and pasting.

Edited June 16, 2005 by Duke Togo

[Duke Togo]

My my, those sales figures sure shut everybody up.

[JB0]

Ok, let's throw some hard facts in here:

Total sales figures:

NES: 61,780,000

Sega Master System: 13,000,000

Nintendo SNES: 49,020,000

Sega Mega Drive (Genesis): 30,750,000

Sony Playstation: 100,000,000

Nintendo 64: 32,930,000

Sega Saturn: 9,260,000

Sony Playstation 2: 81,390,000

Microsoft Xbox: 19,900,000

Nintendo Gamecube: 18,030,000

Sega Dreamcast: 10,600,000

Nintendo clearly dominated SEGA from the NES to the Gamecube. Sony outsold all of its generation's systems combined with the PSX and PS2.

Your numbers for the 16-bit era(where most of the Sega fanboys came from) kinda make my point, actually. Nintendo went from total mastery of the market to a close race in 5 years.

...

These worldwide sales?

I can't think of how the Master System could get that big a % otherwise.

And I know the Genesis wasn't very popular in Japan, which would explain the disparity. The 50% #s I was quoting for the 16-bits was US-only.

I feel obliged to note that the Genesis, Saturn, and Dremcast were all 3 killed while still in demand in one region(Genny in America, Saturn and DC in Japan).

Though I wouldn't call your #s "clearly dominated" on the current-gens(particularly since Sega just shouted "Screw it, we give up, and I hope you get AIDS, Sony!" early into the current gen). 8-bits and last-gen, though... yeah, they got trounced bad.

16-bits was 3-5(ish). That's not that bad, especially for going up against THE competition. It's like if Apple took a third of the market from Microsoft over the next 5 years. It's DAMN good.

[Duke Togo]

These worldwide sales?

Yes, and the Genesis was the only time Sega was ever close to Nintendo (or anybody else for that matter). And the SNES still outsold it by 19 million units. That's more than the amount of Saturn's and Dreamcast's sold. That's more than Xbox's that have been sold. Really, the Genesis was never that close.

Anyways, these numbers pretty much kill the Sony/Xbox argument. Any other discussion on this point is well, pointless, if not plain stupid.

[JB0]

Playstation has brand loyalty and they earned it with the two very solid game machines, a variety of titles, and compatability with their friend's consoles (for borrowing games, etc...)

I'm not so certain about that. The PSX came out with the Sega Saturn as it's only real competition. The Saturn was a beast of a machine, and could boast more power than many consoles before or since. However, the majority of that was geared towards 2D gaming.

The PSX suffered in that department by a wide margin, but was noticibly better in the 3D department. It still wasn't pretty, but it was affordable hardware accellerated graphics for pretty much the first time, and people loved it.

Actually, the Saturn's more powerful in BOTH regions, though it's less pronounced in 3D.

But Sony focused on pushing polygon games while Sega focused more on the old standby of sprite/tile.

To top it all off, the PSX was a lot cheaper than the Saturn,

That was a REALLY big factor.

and Sega had suddenly stopped the advertising campaign that won them the 16 Bit generation, and replaced it with guys in styrafoam cone hats.

Funny, I was being hammered with the same Sega Scream ads as hit me later in the Genesis' life. Of course, I hated those ads.

So Sony had the 3D games people wanted to play.

Mainly beause htey marketed them better.

The PS2 hardware was prone to breaking down, and it was not unusual to meet people that were on their second or third PS2 a few years down the road (IMPROVEMENT!).

*chuckles*

So the only reason Sony has held onto developer support is because of its consumer support, and the only reason it's held onto its consumer support is because of its developer support.

IMO, it's more because they have a really, really good ad team.

[Duke Togo]

[Gaijin]

Slightly OT, but there was a PS game commercial once for a boxing game where people just started duking it out on the street for no reason. I particularly remember the two women standing on a street corner and just going at it. It was the funniest game ad I ever saw...anyone know what game it was for? I forget.

[Ladic]

Genesis Outsold SNES atleast in the states

[Duke Togo]

Genesis Outsold SNES atleast in the states

No, it didn't. SNES outsold it 31.67 million in the US to Genesis' 27.17 million.

Do any of you bother to check yoru facts?

Interesting tidbit, the Genesis only sold 3.58 million units in Japan.

[Duke Togo]

[Duke Togo]

Once again, this was the closest Sega ever came to Nintendo or any of game console. That is, if you call a 19 million difference "close".

So, come on Sega/Xbox fanboys, surely you can do better than this.

[JB0]

Genesis Outsold SNES atleast in the states

No, it didn't. SNES outsold it 31.67 million in the US to Genesis' 27.17 million.

Do any of you bother to check yoru facts?

Interesting tidbit, the Genesis only sold 3.58 million units in Japan.

Translation: Basically equal.

And yes. The japanese Megadrive was a disaster.

[JB0]

Once again, this was the closest Sega ever came to Nintendo or any of game console. That is, if you call a 19 million difference "close".

So, come on Sega/Xbox fanboys, surely you can do better than this.

For the challenging of a virtually absolute monopoly, I call it a damn fine job.

[Duke Togo]

Once again, this was the closest Sega ever came to Nintendo or any of game console. That is, if you call a 19 million difference "close".

So, come on Sega/Xbox fanboys, surely you can do better than this.

For the challenging of a virtually absolute monopoly, I call it a damn fine job.

Being a fanboy, you would.

BTW, you are no longer allowed to talk gaming consoles here, this is now officially another Batman Begins thread.

[KingNor]

Do any of you bother to check yoru facts?

don't forget, they PERSONALLY KNEW people who had a Genisis.

thus making any claim utterly true!

actually knowing a few people is way better than actual sales stats. sheesh duke.

[JB0]

Once again, this was the closest Sega ever came to Nintendo or any of game console. That is, if you call a 19 million difference "close".

So, come on Sega/Xbox fanboys, surely you can do better than this.

For the challenging of a virtually absolute monopoly, I call it a damn fine job.

Being a fanboy, you would.

BTW, you are no longer allowed to talk gaming consoles here, this is now officially another Batman Begins thread.

Actually, I was a devout Nintendo loyalist in the 16-bit era, as well as the early 32-bit stuff, at which point I shifted to hardware neutrality(wouldn't you after seeing the N64?).

[Duke Togo]

I dunno, Zelda 64 was onie of the best games I've ever played. And don't get me started on Rogue Squadron!

[mikeszekely]

Personally, I'd like to see Sony's numbers adjusted to take into account how many consumers had to buy more than one. I'd like to cut their numbers in half (two per consumer... I think that's fair, considering that I know more people on their third PS2 than I know who are still only on their first)... still something like double their closest competion, but more realistic. Even Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami has spoken out on Sony's lack of QC.

But Duke, your numbers only show that Sony dominated this round, which is a fact that no one disputes. You want to take those numbers as proof that Sony will continue to dominate. But look at the trends in your own data! Nintendo went from moving 62,000,000 units during the NES era, to a mere 18,000,000 Gamecubes. Today's winners are not always going to be on top. The original PlayStation managed to move 100,000,000 units. The PS2 is going to be close to that, but I don't know for sure that it'll hit that mark. And mind you, that's with serious QC issues on both consoles, but I think the problems were more pronounced in the PS2.

And again, Microsoft went from an industry joke to a solid second place. If they can get into the Japanese market better, the Xbox 360 will surely sell better than the original.

Which, again, brings me to my point... the Xbox 360 may not outsell the PS3, but it's definately going to close the gap. And in the generation after this next-gen? Who knows? Maybe then it'll be Microsoft's time to shine.

[JB0]

I dunno, Zelda 64 was onie of the best games I've ever played. And don't get me started on Rogue Squadron!

Zelda 64 was going to be one of my reasons to get an N64.

But then the system got pushed back a year, and the game got pushed back 2 more, if I recall.

[Duke Togo]

Personally, I'd like to see Sony's numbers adjusted to take into account how many consumers had to buy more than one. I'd like to cut their numbers in half (two per consumer... I think that's fair, considering that I know more people on their third PS2 than I know who are still only on their first)...

This has got to be one of the stupidest things I've ever read on MarossWorld.

[Gunbuster]

I'm actually on my forth PS2, damn freaking drive keep on dying on me (and no, I did not mod the PS2 or play it 24/7). That's Sony quality for ya

I still say it's too early to judge something that's not even out yet @_@;;

I just hope someone kick Sony in the b@lls, so all 3 system will have a fair chance of getting good developers. I plan to pick up all 3 system, so in the end I win

[Radd]

I'm not so certain about that.

The sales numbers I posted say otherwise. Too bad you spent all that time typing all of that up, when all iI did was a little copy and pasting.

How did your sales figures contradict what I posted in any way shape or form? I have not questioned Sony's success, only the reasons for the brand loyalty it has garnered.

[Radd]

I dunno, Zelda 64 was onie of the best games I've ever played. And don't get me started on Rogue Squadron!

Hey, don't forget Mario 64, that was the best 3D platformer around for many, many years after.

I'd go so far as to say the N64 had a solid first party lineup, but that overall it had far fewer worthwhile games than the PSX, and possibly the Saturn.

[Uxi]

I'm still on my first (and one of the first release) PS2's. I've heard about the people who are on their second and third (and beyond) though can't say I've ever actually heard it first hand... (not that I don't believe it, though).

Course Sony stuff has generally been friendly to me, though... from my P900 to my VAIO to my HDTV...

[Jolly Rogers]

Ok, let's throw some hard facts in here:

Total sales figures:

NES: 61,780,000

Sega Master System: 13,000,000

Nintendo SNES: 49,020,000

Sega Mega Drive (Genesis): 30,750,000

Sony Playstation: 100,000,000

Nintendo 64: 32,930,000

Sega Saturn: 9,260,000

Sony Playstation 2: 81,390,000

Microsoft Xbox: 19,900,000

Nintendo Gamecube: 18,030,000

Sega Dreamcast: 10,600,000

Nintendo clearly dominated SEGA from the NES to the Gamecube. Sony outsold all of its generation's systems combined with the PSX and PS2.

Just wondering, where did these numbers come from, and what were the years these figures account for?

[Duke Togo]

Various online sources, I found more than one. And I believe the numbers are from 1985 - 2005 (Spring 2005, I believe), if I recall correctly.

[Duke Togo]

I'm still on my first (and one of the first release) PS2's. I've heard about the people who are on their second and third (and beyond) though can't say I've ever actually heard it first hand... (not that I don't believe it, though).

Course Sony stuff has generally been friendly to me, though... from my P900 to my VAIO to my HDTV...

Same here. I did have one friend who's PS2 finally went out last year, but he also used it as his DVD player, so it got twice the use as it normally would.

[Wes]

I think they're old, becuase Sony was just talking about selling their 90 millionth PS2.

[mikeszekely]

Personally, I'd like to see Sony's numbers adjusted to take into account how many consumers had to buy more than one.  I'd like to cut their numbers in half (two per consumer... I think that's fair, considering that I know more people on their third PS2 than I know who are still only on their first)...

This has got to be one of the stupidest things I've ever read on MarossWorld.

Then I strongly suggest you go back and re-read your last 25 or so posts.

[Duke Togo]

Personally, I'd like to see Sony's numbers adjusted to take into account how many consumers had to buy more than one.  I'd like to cut their numbers in half (two per consumer... I think that's fair, considering that I know more people on their third PS2 than I know who are still only on their first)...

This has got to be one of the stupidest things I've ever read on MarossWorld.

Then I strongly suggest you go back and re-read your last 25 or so posts.

LOL, why, all I have to do is read your one.