Gloomy Outlook For Console Sales 39
Thanks to CNET News for their article indicating sales of consoles are predicted to slump until a new crop of machines is introduced. The article references a new survey from iSuppli which "expects [console] sales to be flat for the year and down as much as 10 percent in 2005", and points out that pressure will start to build to introduce next-gen hardware, quoting an analyst as saying "I don't think (that), when the companies developed this generation of consoles, they were prepared for it to be so short."
Too Many Consoles!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
NES (Score:5, Funny)
Price Cuts (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Price Cuts (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously now... Nintendo didn't get to be a multi-billion dollar company by making bad business moves. Now while the GC may be behind the PS2 in total sales and the Xbox in American sales, I'd still bet money that i
Re:Price Cuts (Score:3, Informative)
BTW, you are correct in your assumption about profit. The GC makes Nintendo cash on each sale, not like MS which loses money.
Re:Price Cuts (Score:2)
Re:Price Cuts (Score:5, Informative)
Nintendo only shipped 80,000 units this past quarter because they shipped a huge number right before Zelda came out the quarter before. They expected Zelda to make a huge jump in system sales, unfortunately, it resulted in a barely noticable jump, hence an oversupply of GameCubes.
Oh, take a look at the Japanese sales charts for the past few weeks. PS2 sales have been going down and GameCube sales have been going up. GameCube sales were higher than PS2 sales last week. Oh, and as tends to happen occasionally, the PS1 outsold the Xbox in Japan last week. Although the Xbox did beat the Wonderswan Crystal last week, it still couldn't beat the Wonderswan Crystal + Color models combined.
Re:Price Cuts (Score:2)
Re:Price Cuts (Score:3, Informative)
Makes sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I see no reason to upgrade to an Xbox or PS2, because all the latest games that I've wanted (GTA3/VC) are available on the PC (which work beautifully with my Radeon 9500 Pro), and as far as the PS2 goes, the only advantage I've seen of it over my Dreamcast is that it has full scene anti-aliasing. Otherwise, I'm perfectly happy with my PC and Dreamcast for my gaming needs.. and I'm not paying $50 for the games (I don't buy many PC games, and DC is cheap).
I will admit, however, that I'm tempted to get a GameCube, simply because they have some really high quality games available for that machine. I am just holding out for a little while longer, because it looks like they'll probably drop the price again on that device, and I'd rather buy new than used.
Re:Makes sense... (Score:1)
The Dreamcast has super sampling anti-aliasing and native support of 640x480 resolution for viewing on a PC monitor (though you need a VGA adapter, and not all games support it). That's part of why Soul C
Re:Makes sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean you have to be able to afford a new console when you buy it? Damn... I just put the XBox on my Visa...
Frankly, I see no reason to upgrade to an Xbox or PS2, because all the latest games that I've wanted (GTA3/VC) are available on the PC (which work beautifully with my Radeon 9500 Pro), and as far as the PS2 goes, the only advantage I've seen of it over my Dreamcast is that it has full scene anti-aliasing.
Normally, statements like "I see no reason to upgrade" really infuriate me, but I'll try to refrain from screaming profanities in your direction.
If the Dreamcast and the PC offer every game you want to play, then good for you. For the rest of us though, there are Exclusive games (with a little label on the box, too) that are only available for one console (hence the label Exclusive). For instance, the XBox still has Halo (although it will, eventually, come out for the PC), Fable, if it ever comes out, and Knights of the Old Republic. The PS2 has quite a few, including Final Fantasy X, and soon, X-2. It's also got the Gran Turismo series, which is always good. The GameCube has Zelda, Mario Sunshine, Metroid, and F-Zero. There are plenty of games that you'll never be able to experience if you don't have a console... and many of those experiences are worth far more than the $50 price tag.
I can understand that a lot of people don't have the money to spend $150-300 on a new console, and I can appreciate that. I certainly didn't have a GameCube the day it came out either... If money is the issue, that's one thing... but saying that there's just no reason to get one is just ignorant. I'm not saying that to be rude, I mean you literally don't know what's out there for each system until you take a good, long serious look at the options.
Missed the point (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Missed the point (Score:2)
What about the games then? (Score:5, Insightful)
An article none too well done, I'd say. Everyone knows that money isn't made by selling consoles an sich, but by selling the games that run on them.
The article makes it appear as if that analyst has been studying graphs, without taking into account any external factors. Now that I come to think of it, it is very much possible he did just that, and drew some silly conclusions out of it.
Re:What about the games then? (Score:4, Insightful)
How much work does it really take to assume that this generation's consoles' sales will decrease in the year that most people assume the next generation's consoles will arrive?
Of course console sales will be down (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Of course console sales will be down (Score:1)
Who Cares? I want more options and cheaper games. (Score:3, Interesting)
If I ever get a game cube it will be because of my kids. They are getting to the point were they like to play video games. I might not like the themes of Nintedo stuff in general, but hey its is stuff that I grew up on and I don't mind my kids playing on that platform. I'll most likely stick with Sony for my stuff though.
Re:Who Cares? I want more options and cheaper game (Score:3, Informative)
Basically, Nintendo set them up with a bunch of SGI workstations for N64 development, and Square then screwed Nintendo by jumping ship and taking as many developers as they could (Enix included) with them.
If *anyone* deserves scorn, it's Square for backstabbing the company that published their (could-have-been) last shot at a successful game: Final Fantasy.
--Jeremy
Skip the next gen. (Score:4, Interesting)
How long was it after these systems came out that people were already wondering about the PS3? It seems like we're always getting ready for the next big thing. The problem I have is that it seems like we're not using our current stuff to it's full potential. The cycle seems to move too fast.
I personally would be in favor of the big three just skipping the next generation and doing their best to work on the generation after that. Wait until we're running out of new ground to break on the GCN/PS2/XBox before we start rolling out new stuff.
As a side benefit, maybe toward the end of the cycle we'll see more better games come out instead of unfun flashy graphics, as by then we won't be as awed by the graphics that the system is capable of. And we also get to save money on that system we won't have to buy.
Unfortunately, the nature of the market means that the next gen systems will come as soon as possible to beat the other guys. Too bad the big three all can't agree to not release systems before some future release date. The could make some big media event of it: Fifth-gen release day! Geeks everywhere salivate in anticipation!
Really, I think the best thing would be for companies agree to such a date privately, and then not talk about next generation systems whatsoever, so that we keep demanding support of the current systems as long as possible instead of anticipating the next big thing. (That would probably be some kind of anti-trust collusion thing, though.) There were some great late era NES and Super NES games, but nobody was paying attention anymore when they came out.
I know many won't agree with me. Please reply.
Re:Skip the next gen. (Score:1)
Those games were largely due to the fact that Nintendo was a little behind in bringing out their next-generation consoles in both cases (ie the SNES was well behind the Turbo Grafx-16 and the Genesis, the N64 was introduced shortly before the PSX really took off, though the PSX had been in the market for quite a while). When the hardware starts showing it's age because newer hardware is avail
Re:Skip the next gen. (Score:1)
Something like this would most certainly wake up the FTC's antitrust lawyers as it borders on collusion. I think Nintendo has had quite enough of that kind of investigation.
Re: (Score:2)
80,000? More like 800,000 (Score:5, Informative)
To quote this article [ign.com]: "Amusingly though, it wasn't quite as bad for Cube owners as Reuters (and subsequently most of the Western world including the surely journalistically watertight BBC) reported - with 800,000, rather than the reported figure of 80,000, Cubes shifted in the last quarter."
It amazes me how uninformed people are about the sales of the Nintendo Gamecube. I sware I think they just want to see the worst happen. Almost every article I read that says the Gamecube is in third place is referring to U.S. sales. World wide, Nintendo is selling slightly more than the XBox. But you never read about the demise of XBox.
Re:80,000? More like 800,000 (Score:1)
Re:80,000? More like 800,000 (Score:3, Insightful)
And most people here or on VE3D, etc. that talk about Gamecube being third place are talking about the USA (or Europe), because that is where we live. This isn't the Playstation 1 or Super Famicom era - Japan is no longer the biggest or most important market for videogames (the world-wide best selling game last year, Vice City, wasn't even
Re:80,000? More like 800,000 (Score:1)
You said: Since Reuters reported 80,000 Gamecube consoles SHIPPED , not sold, they were accurate.
This reuters article [forbes.com] says: Japanese videogame maker Nintendo Co Ltd <7974.OS> said on Tuesday it SOLD 80,000 GameCube consoles worldwide in the latest quarter.
Do your homework next time.
Old Consoles (Score:1)
If they want to cut down on piracy, (Nintendo, that is, Sega doesn't care) then why don't they sell the old games at manageable prices like say $1-$5? I would buy lots of games if that was the situation. But it is not, and I will not pay $20.00 to get Rockman 5 for the PlayStation!
Re:Old Consoles (Score:1)
Also, "collection" titles such as Sonic/Sega Mega Collection/Mario All Stars, etc; have proven to be good sellers.
I do agree that they should sell the classics in their orginal form, I'd even pay $ 20 collections of 3-4 titles.
Re:Old Consoles (Score:2, Informative)
In Japan, a lot of used bookstores stock used copies of old games. Lately, used games are also spreading to video rental chains, such as GEO (the company that took over all of the bankrupt YES stores.)
You can find a lot of real gems for under 2,000 yen (about US$15). Then there are the few rare Super Famicon / SNES games that are still going for 6,000 yen (about US$40). (Most of those were published back when games used to cost over 10,000 yen.)
The real finds [slashdot.org], though, are for "dead" systems like the
this is strange? (Score:1)
Short Generation?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course they weren't. The people who developed the big three believed, as do I, that the generation would last just as long as the previous ones: 5-7 years. And by rights, they should-- there's no real reason to produce a new console machine for 2004-2005, primarily because the advances in the technology are not significant enough to warrant a whole new system purchase. Incremental upgrades and piece-meal improvements are fine for PC gaming, where consumers have less of a monetary risk ($175 for a video card upgrade vs. $300 for an entirely new system, plus the $50 game in either case). If PS3 were to come out next year with only a new video chipset and maybe two or three minor improvements-- which is what it looks like is going to happen-- I won't buy it, I doubt the majority of gamers would buy it, and Sony's console business would spiral down the toilet. The manufacturers need to learn a lesson from Sega and the Dreamcast, specifically-- the first man in rarely winds up being the one who survives 'till the end.
Who is responsible? (Score:1)
Lemme guess, its: