PS3 Delay To Have Little Impact?

According to analyst firm Strategy Analytics, the PS3's delay is unlikely to have much of an effect on the next-gen race, reports GameDailyBiz. From the article: "While 2006 sales will clearly fall short of previous expectations, Strategy Analytics maintains its previous forecast of PS3 sales of 121.8 million units through 2012 ... This compares to expected sales of Microsoft's Xbox 360 of 58.8 million units over the same period." Gamasutra reports that, from Steve Ballmer's perspective, the opposite is true. From that article: "In every other generation, the first guy to 10 million consoles was the number one seller in the generation ... Did we just get an even better opportunity to be the first guy to 10 million? Yeah, of course we did." This all assumes the console launches this year.

delay, shmelay

I don't see anyone who wants a PS3 not waiting a few extra months. I doubt anyone who wants a PS3 will decide to buy a Revolution or 360 just because they're out earlier. I know people are mostly impatient, but if that's what you really want, you'll wait.

installed user base

the ps installed user base is too big to overcome. most ps2 owners will re up and get a ps3. most ps2 owners are satisfied with their gaming experience, and I have no reason to believe that this will change between now and when the ps3 is released.

the ps3 will do well. how well the 360 does isn't dependent on what Sony does, more on what microsoft does. they have been marketing the 360 poorly in my opinion, thus limiting the reach of the console.

History can repeat itself, though...

Indeed, but the original PlayStation came out at a time when people had been VERY satisfied with their previous Nintendo system, the SNES. In fact, the first PlayStation was originally going to be a collaboration between Nintendo and Sony as a CD-ROM drive for the SNES [wikipedia.org]. Nintendo pulled out, Sony continued developing it, and the cancellation of that contract turned out to be the worst decision that Nintendo ever made.

My point is, at some point in time, the "popular" brand of systems always falls. Atari, Nintendo (and Sega?), and Sony's time will eventually come... It might not happen with the PS3, but the important thing to remember is that can happen, and eventually will. All empires are eventually toppled.

Re:History can repeat itself, though...

You (and a lot of other people) seem to have a really funny definition of hardcore gamer, in my mind.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years. I've played systems from the Atari 2600 and Intellivision era through the current console generation. I've been playing PC games since my first 8088. I've played every genre. I am very good at games. I consider myself as hardcore as they come.

But I'm bored to tears with what most people consider 'hardcore' games. Seriously, fuck every FPS from now until infinity until someone introduces something *new*. Fuck every sports and racing sim out there. Fuck every "line up 3 and they disappear'" puzzle game. Stealth action games can go to hell -- new ways to hide and/or be detected ain't a new game, nor is a new (usually stupid, tired, cliched -- thank you Tom Clancy!) story. 1-on-1 Fighting games are getting extremely tired (I pumped hundreds of dollars into Mortal Kombat machines over 10 years ago).

In the last generation, I could probably count the number of unique, interesting games on my fingers. All these moron 10-18 year olds who think they're "so hardcore!" are just playing new versions of the same stuff that I mastered in the '80s and '90s.

I think that any truly hardcore gamer is probably as bored as I am with what's out there and wants something new to try. I'm not talking about high resolution or 5.1 surround, either -- those are nice, and I certainly enjoy a polished presentation as much as the next guy -- but the only next-gen system I'm really interested in (and that includes my gaming PC) is the Revolution. Everything else is just more of the same.

--Jeremy

121.8 and 58.8? Bah!

Those analyst forecasts are way off.

By my calculations, it's 121.6 (they must have forgotten to take into account leap year, tax increases, etc).

How can somebody make predictions on the sale of a new piece of technology, projecting 6 years into the future, and to be so arrogant that they use the tenth's decimal place to make their forecast? Whatever...

Both are wrong.

I don't think Ballmer is exactly right, nor whoever wrote the article either. If Microsoft starts really hammering it in that the "next generation" is here, people will get sick of waiting for the PS3 and get a 360. It's common sense. If you are putzing along on a PS2 and get sick of waiting for the PS3, you'll get the itch and pick one up. Sad but true.

Replacements

I guess this is as good an article to make this comment. As someone who has worked in retail for 6 years (Gamestop and now Gamecrazy) I am eternally amused that no analyst (that I've read, at least) has ever once mentioned that the installed PS2 user base is grossly overstated. Yes, the PS2 has sold well over 100 million units, but I would be very conservative in estimating that at least 30 million of those units(AT LEAST) are replacements for broken PS2's. It's really quite amazing to me that I've sold quite a few customers their 4th PS2 since 2001. The thing is, they're so invested in games, that they simply must replace their PS2 when it breaks, and they break... gosh, seems yearly.

Besides the replacements, there are tons of users that have second and third machines. Much like the GBA buyers, they just had to get the special edition units, or the slimmer unit, or... whatever, you get it.

I'd say that the installed user base for PS2s, based on my own experience, is overstated by 40-50%. The PS2 won the last console war, but not by nearly as much as the sales figures show.

(and, yes, the Xbox had quite a few return customers due to broken hardware, but not nearly as many. The Gamecube appears to be indestructible)

Price?

How can you predict that 121.8 million consoles will be sold if the price is not known.

Bigger Impact

I think the delay will have some impact, just not alot. I think the key factor for Sony will be price and the quality of the launch titles. I do beleive Microsoft and Nintendo are both primed to take a pretty good chunk of the market. I still beleive the launch price of the PS3 may seal its fate.

Wow, 121.8 million units? Not in this decade.

I just finished talking to a "normal" gamer buddy of mine today. You know, he likes to game, and his kids like to game. He was telling me about how much he and his kids love Call of Duty 2, and how smooth and amazing it looks on a Radeon 9200. As I sat there fighting to keep my mouth closed, he went on to mention he was buying a gaming PC "just for him," with a fancy new GeForce 6600 (no, not the 6600 GT).

I almost laughed at him, but then I realized: he doesn't care about fancy TRMSAA or Angle-dependent Anistropy, he doesn't really notice fancy real-time lights or shadow-maps. The only thing that matters to him and his kids is the game looks decent (ie, at least 640x480 resolution, reasonable resolution textures, and billinear filtering).

And why not? A whole half of the gaming population bought into the PlayStation all because it could do fancy new 3D rendering, even though the unfiltered textures and 100 polygons per scene looked like crap. Most of them traded up to the Playstation 2 because it could do much better polygonal detail and allowed higher video and texture resolutions, plus DVD.

So, here's the problem: most people think that the PS2 looks great, and it is in fact almost as good as you can get on a standard TV. So, why should people upgrade when the current console does everything they think they need?

If you don't have an HDTV, the PS3 doesn't really offer anything over the PS2 except Bluray, and again, the DEMAND for Bluray depends on you having an HDTV. All the selling points for the PS3 come back to this HDTV thing.

And normal people don't care about HD. Take my sister and her husband: they have Sony everything, a nice Sony DLP widescreen, plus a matching Sony 5.1 receiver and speaker set. It's great, except most of the things they watch are in SD, and the speakers are set up in two clumps on either side of the room. The closest they get to watching HD is through their DVD player, but I know better than to argue with them.

Look at the XBox 360. IT LOOKS MUCH BETTER THAN PREVIOUS GENERATION CONSOLES, there is no doubt of that. The problem is, it doesn't look GOOD ENOUGH to warrant the upgrade, so people stick with their current-generation consoles and games. You can be sure that the PS3 will encounter the same problem.

I mean, people convince themselves all the time that Sony equipment is somehow "better" than other brands, but what happens when it's Sony versus Sony? I expect all those eagar PS2 buyers won't be so eagar to go PS3. The only console to offer anything really DIFFERENT is the Revolution, but that gives it as much risk of sinking as swimming. One thing I am sure of: console sales this generation, overall, will be lower than last generation.

Re:X-Mas season is irrelevant

Yeah, that's true. They are manufacturing 1 million per month across three regions. There is no way that's enough.