PS3 sales... good or bad?

[takao]

But in my eyes, Sony and Microsoft are competing directly against one another
(let's face it, their consoles are very similar)
While Nintendo is competeing in the gaming market, they have alwasy been profitable and have always had somewhat of a niche place. Granted the Wii could(and is) changing a lot of that, but I don't think Ninty winning in profits and market share(instead of jsut profits) would have too much of an affect on what developers do between say PS3 and Wii or even 360 and Wii. A decision like that is probably made before market share is even considered.

sony and microsoft are competing directly but i think Nintendo simply can't be left out of the equation especially in japan because japan is the market where Sony has a huge mind share lead over microsoft: ifsony get's into more problems because of a strong Nintendo, like because of some important japanese developers bringing their future series to the wii instead of ps3, or to the DS like it happened with dragon quest 9 (dragon quest was the best selling ps2 and ps1 game over there) they get get into mroe problems international not only because of those games lost but also in terms of sales towards microsoft which is really strong in US/UK

if now microsoft/nintendo came to the glorious/obvious idea to create their own versions of singstar/buzz or other versions of music/quiz games etc. then suddenly the european casual market might be not so sure for the PS too especially at the higher price point

it's the usual: 1 bite here 1 bite there and suddenly a company can be in problems
and we all know that financially Sony can't beat Microsoft
MS could very likely burn their money for producing electricity for free for their xbox customers and still wouldn't have money problems

 

[Coded-Dude]

very good points......(keep in mind that I am speaking of home consoles only)

My only concern about Nintendo is their previous gen results and their history of 3rd party dev support(or lack thereof).
PlayStation was a phenom, and it didn't affect SNES/N64 sales too much. PS2/Gamecube...different story. NOTE: both gens also had other influences(not just each other)

Anywho, what interests me the most is what happens after the dust settles.
Wii sales have to die down soon.....unless everybody in the world decides they need 10 each and just keep buying them. I also want to see how Nintendo drives the innovation of the Wii-Mote. For the sake of profit do they keep tech to themselves, or do they take a card from Sony and try and continually provide updated support for every aspect of developing on the respective platform.

Oh and MS can only burn so much money before said division starts going under the microscope. Investors don't like losing billions and billions of dollars year after year, and borrowing from profitable divisions is not a robust contingency. It affects things(like delaying OS release dates, etc.)

Not saying Ninty is not part of th equation, but that they are more of an assumed/implied factor.
They are here and here to stay, and I can say that(about Ninty) with more confidence, they I can with the other two(since they are in more of a direct completion)

The whole console war is now being fought by two of the three companies in one region(at least this gen).

 

[Sparky8]

very good points......(keep in mind that I am speaking of home consoles only)

My only concern about Nintendo is their previous gen results and their history of 3rd party dev support(or lack thereof).
PlayStation was a phenom, and it didn't affect SNES/N64 sales too much. PS2/Gamecube...different story. NOTE: both gens also had other influences(not just each other)

Anywho, what interests me the most is what happens after the dust settles.
Wii sales have to die down soon.....unless everybody in the world decides they need 10 each and just keep buying them. I also want to see how Nintendo drives the innovation of the Wii-Mote. For the sake of profit do they keep tech to themselves, or do they take a card from Sony and try and continually provide updated support for every aspect of developing on the respective platform.

Oh and MS can only burn so much money before said division starts going under the microscope. Investors don't like losing billions and billions of dollars year after year, and borrowing from profitable divisions is not a robust contingency. It affects things(like delaying OS release dates, etc.)

Not saying Ninty is not part of th equation, but that they are more of an assumed/implied factor.
They are here and here to stay, and I can say that(about Ninty) with more confidence, they I can with the other two(since they are in more of a direct completion)

The whole console war is now being fought by two of the three companies in one region(at least this gen).

Pretty much spot one.

MS recently made the claim that they'll be profitable next year, but the fact that with even 11 million 360 sales and the high level of Gold subscriber, they STILL (to what stretches back to the Beginning of the Xbox) aren't making a profit will have to worry some people eventually. Yes $5 billion isn't a lot to a company making 10 times that each year. But something' has got to give eventually

 

[sikkinixx]

On the original question, I think the PS3 is doing okay, not great but okay. 3 million units 6 months in isn't all that awesome but it did just launch in Europe a few months ago and it is expensive for the majority of people.

I think the lack of games is magnified because the 360 has a fairly strong library that it is pushing and the Wii has a few very solid games (and then a pile of crap) but if people remember back to last year the 360 had Oblivion and maybe Ghost Recon to tide us gamers over until summer and even then MS dropped the ball and didn't release a solid line up of killer games in the fall. And Nintendo fanatics who like so many of whom populate this forum (*coughjimbocough*) don't help it much in the PR department either (that and Sony kicking themselves in the ass a lot )

Obviously when price drops a bit and some more games funnel out things will pick up but Halo 3 will help the 360 sales and Mario, if it is released, will help the Wii (not that it seems to need it right now).

I think the more shocking thing is how the 360 is selling right now, didn't they 'sell' 10 million by December? And now according to nexgenwars.com they are only at 10.7 million. Oh yeah, thats right. MS shipped out TONS of units to mask their sales to meet that goal....

Sony better hope that Home rocks the socks off of people and they get some damn good games out before xmas or Kaz is getting a lump of coal in his stocking.

 

[takao]

I think the more shocking thing is how the 360 is selling right now, didn't they 'sell' 10 million by December? And now according to nexgenwars.com they are only at 10.7 million. Oh yeah, thats right. MS shipped out TONS of units to mask their sales to meet that goal....

well in some cities it _looked like that_ especially over here in europe where there are no unified "sales counting" thing where it's easier to cheat a little

the big electronics chain in my hometown got like 250 last year in november and got paid to dedicate a whole long shelf to just the 360 boxes
but the shelf wasn' enough so they had additional piles in the coffee machine department, in the TV department and in the DVD department

and now half a year later they are perhaps halfway through their stock: you know my hometown has only 47.000 people it's not a big town where you sell 250 399 dollar consoles in christmas shopping season

in innsbruck it was similar except the piles got smaller faster (since it's bigger)

sure perhaps it makes business sense to have stock for half a year sitting on the shelves/in stores and not needing to ship for another half year, i don't know i'm not an expert
or perhaps they thought that a lot people would buy the 360 instead of the ps3 since it got delayed until march

i don't know the real total numbers but i suspect they aren't massively off
it's the old problem that you only got precise sales numbers from japan and the US and none from europe and europe is a market where a lot is decided this time because here the xbox isn't as strong as in the US but still selling okay

what's the installed 360 user base in the US ? no matter the number i can assure you it's 30% smaller here (360 goes best in UK,France and Spain afaik) add the two and add another 750k for the rest of the world including japan and you are quite close to the real number (i have now idea how high the NPD numbers are currently)