Topic: Wii U to Have $300 Price Tag, Simultaneous Tablet Play?

[Chocobo_Rider]

@ChozoGhost

Yea, but the unexpanded audience didn't hurt the PS2 much, now did it? 


@UncleBob

Yet the 360 is getting some major Kinect titles we're not getting on the Wii.

I don't pay attention to specific Kinect titles.  Let alone "major" ones.  What are they gettin'?

And the 360 has been outselling the Wii of late...
 

And what do you think is the bigger reason, Kinect or 1st/3rd party focus on the 3DS and Wii U (as opposed to the Wii)?

[Halbred]

So... you do or don't want Nintendo to put a 1-Tablet limit on the system?

That? Yes.  The thing I elaborated on from your prior post? No.

Maybe I'm just stupid, but I don't understand your answer here. YES, you want a one-tablet limit; or YES, you do support multiple-tablet support?

[Chocobo_Rider]

@Halbred

You're not stupid.  But, if you were to guess, what do you think my stance is?

[Halbred]

Dude, just...which one?

[Chozo Ghost]

@ChozoGhost

Yea, but the unexpanded audience didn't hurt the PS2 much, now did it? 

The PS2 also had about 90% market share, which is something none of the 3 consoles today have come close to grabbing (well, maybe the Wii in the early years, but the Wii's market share has since then shrunk drastically). The market 10 years ago was a lot smaller than it is today, but the PS2 had almost all of it to itself.

The unexpanded market didn't hurt the PS2, but if there was a system today which had 90% market share that would be like 200+ million units sold compared to the 100 million or so with the PS2.

Also consider the example of the NES which like the PS2 also had a near monopoly of the market in its era. But the NES only sold 60 million or so, and that's like half that of the PS2. So it shows how much the market has grown over the last 20 or so years. Apparently in the late 80s 60 million represented pretty much the entirety of the gaming market as it existed at that time. During the PS2's period it was about twice that... and now its about twice that of the PS2 era.

10 years from now the gaming market will probably have grown again to double what it is today.

[Mop it up]

If we're using total sales as the only indication of market size, then the market hasn't grown much since the last generation.

PS2: 154.4 million
XBox: ~24 million
GameCube: 21.74 million
Total: 201.14 million

Wii: 95.85
XBox 360: 67.2
PS3: 63.9 million
Total: 226.95

I'm not good at figuring out percentages, but I want to say that a 25 million increase is around 12.5%. Certainly not "a lot larger" than the previous generation, nor does it make the GameCube's low numbers seem any better. Conversely, I'm not convinced that "casual" gamers didn't exist before the Wii, they just had a PS2.

Of course, this doesn't factor handhelds into the equation. The DS and PSP combined sold over 200 million units, so when you combine that with home consoles, the market has definitely increased. But the home console market isn't much larger than it was last generation.

[Chocobo_Rider]

@Halbred

Am I the only one who doesn't want >1 tablet capability?

@Mop it up

Bingo!

[Chozo Ghost]

If we're using total sales as the only indication of market size, then the market hasn't grown much since the last generation.

PS2: 154.4 million
XBox: ~24 million
GameCube: 21.74 million
Total: 201.14 million

Wii: 95.85
XBox 360: 67.2
PS3: 63.9 million
Total: 226.95

I'm not good at figuring out percentages, but I want to say that a 25 million increase is around 12.5%. Certainly not "a lot larger" than the previous generation, nor does it make the GameCube's low numbers seem any better. Conversely, I'm not convinced that "casual" gamers didn't exist before the Wii, they just had a PS2.

Of course, this doesn't factor handhelds into the equation. The DS and PSP combined sold over 200 million units, so when you combine that with home consoles, the market has definitely increased. But the home console market isn't much larger than it was last generation.

A growth of 25 million isn't a lot? Also, how much of that PS2 sales occurred after that generation ended? Because its still selling even now. Also, this generation isn't technically over yet either. I'm not sure when you can call this generation officially over, but it would at least have to wait until the Wii U is out.

[Uncle_Optimus]

@Mop It Up while this makes for an interesting comparison, we must keep in mind that sales totals are still changing. For instance, we just received Sony's (very bad and sad) fiscal year earnings report and their projections for the next fiscal year. First of all, the last-gen PS2 continues to sell with Sony's revised total at 155.1 million.
At the same time of course this year will see significant unit sales of PS3, and while Sony combines PS2+PS3 projections! It is safe to say that they anticipate and hope for about 15.5 million PS3s sold.


Nintendo meanwhile has also rolled their console projections together estimating 10.5 million...of that we have to guess the split between Wii and WiiU. It is probably conservative to say around 6 million Wii will be sold.


Finally, Microsoft is on a different fiscal reporting schedule than it's Japanese competitors and they are due to report in July. However, given that they their sales totals are fairly in-line with the PS3 worldwide, we can conservatively estimate now that they would also project 14+ million units sold over this next year. Plus they now have that super-sweet $99 360 bundle to drive sales, Amirite?!


Anyway, it still too early to compare these console generations definitively, but I would say the final total will reflect significant industry growth and a large part of that has been due to the humble Wii.


Now the $100 billion challenge for the industry is to figure out if it can maintain their growth from this gen, much less make it grow further in the next cycle!


(numbers from the Internet)


Edit: my point has been USURPED by C. Ghost in FAR fewer words !!!!!!!1

[Chocobo_Rider]

We have to be careful about something here.  If I'm not mistaken, we're trying to use consoles sold as a reflection of total audience size, right?

That's good if you want to look at big picture numbers and say, "yes, the audience has definitely expanded."  Especially since the PS2, then of course the huge handheld market (mostly (3)DS).

However, we mustn't split hairs or risk losing the point of the conversation.  Yes, the PS2 is still selling, but how many of those are new customers?  How many of those are people replacing broken systems? How many of those are old customers upgrading to the sleek, sexy, and space-efficient PS2 slim?

What about the 360? How many of those are re-purchases from RRODs?

What about for the Gamecube? How many of those were purchased after its generation and duct-taped together to form the Wii?  : :    ahhh see? A sense of humor is good.


Anyway, what I'm getting at is, there are too many variables (as Optimus was beginning to summarize) so if we want to look at the big picture? Fine.  But beyond that it's very shaky ground.

Is the industry growing? Especially since the PS2? Based on my observations: yes.

Can it grow beyond this point? I believe it will eventually, but I think it will be more due to gamers getting older and new generations joining them.  I don't think we will see another "expanded audience" like we did with the PS2 and Wii anytime soon.

[Mop it up]

Well, the point that was originally brought up was that the gaming industry has grown, so the GameCube's sales aren't as bad as they seem because the market was smaller then.

So let's assume that when all is said and done, this generation will have 20% more systems sold than the previous generation. 20% of the GameCube's sales is around 4 million, so let's say that the GameCube would sell 25 million systems if the market were as large as it is today. Is 25 million systems really any better than 21 million, especially given the PS2's 150 million+ sales (which would be 180 million+ with a 20% increase)? To me, that's just as poor.

[Chozo Ghost]

What about the 360? How many of those are re-purchases from RRODs?

That is a good point, but it is cancelled out by the fact that the PS2 also had a fairly high failure rate, so of those 150 or so million sold, a good chunk of those were actually replacement systems and not actually an indication of the install base growing.

[Chocobo_Rider]

@Mop it up

Well said.

@ChozoGhost

Good point.

... is it weird that I do kinda want a sleek and sexy PS2 slim?  I just can't justify it while my PS2 can still (eventually) read discs just fine.  And I would never root for a console to die... that's just mean.

[Chozo Ghost]

From what I understand the Slim PS2s are mostly inferior to the one you already have. With the slim Sony stripped everything out to a bare minimum in order to reduce costs. This means it can't use things like the hard drive, for example, so the games which depend on that won't work with it.

[Oblivion]

If you want a PS2 to play games, then the Slim is just fine.

[NWR_insanolord]

Weren't there barely a handful of games that used the PS2 hard drive?  And what are the odds of finding one of those hard drives at this point anyway?

[nickmitch]

Yeah, it was like Final Fantasy XI and. . .uh. . .something else. . .probably

[broodwars]

Weren't there barely a handful of games that used the PS2 hard drive?  And what are the odds of finding one of those hard drives at this point anyway?

Yeah, IMO you can play all the best games on the PS2 right now without the HDD, at least when it comes to its extensive list of RPGs.  And it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to go back and get a PS2 to play something other than the RPGs, especially with Sony having PS3 HD versions of pretty much all the notable PS2 non-RPGs.  As for the Slim, that was the model I owned back when I had a PS2 and it's a fine machine.

[Chozo Ghost]

But wasn't RPGs the exact sort of games which DID require the HDD? Wasn't the HDD even bundled with a certain version of FF?

[broodwars]

But wasn't RPGs the exact sort of games which DID require the HDD? Wasn't the HDD even bundled with a certain version of FF?

Yeah, FF XI, the MMO.  And unless you really want to play a PS2 MMO, I think you can skip it.  I owned probably most of what I'd consider the best RPGs on PS2, and they all worked fine without a hard drive.  You'll just need to make sure you have a memory card.

[NWR_insanolord]

If someone wanted to go back and play FFXI, assuming the servers are even still up, there are better ways to do so.

[TJ Spyke]

If someone wanted to go back and play FFXI, assuming the servers are even still up, there are better ways to do so.

Like the Xbox 360 or PC versions of the game. And I believe the servers are still up.