Good Article on Who’s winning the console fight?
02-02-02 | 10:31 PM
#27
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From: New York, NY
Originally posted by Gallant Pig
Scandal and Spiff:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=172249
Scandal and Spiff:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=172249
02-03-02 | 12:46 AM
#29
DVD Talk Legend
Looking at the list of upcoming games all three consoles have their share of exclusives. Some may get ported over later to other consoles, but I really don't want to wait six months or longer just to play it on another console. Basically its going to be tough not to have at least 2 of the three consoles and I'm having a hard time resisting the urge to own all three. Yes, it sucks having to go to the expense to buy all the new hardware, but I'm loving the selection of games available now and whats coming in the next year looks great as well.
Who's winning the console fight? Anyone that owns a PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube in my opinion. There is more great stuff coming out in 2002 than I could ever hope to afford.
Nintendo may end up in third place, but they struggled with the N64 and they still turned major profits because their first party games are always top sellers no matter what. The only reason they seem to be stuggling now is lack of merchandise to sell. If they had more consoles available I think they could easily sell as many as Microsoft.
The true battle in this war is between Sony and Microsoft and I really don't know how that will end up. Sony's lead is probably impossible to overcome, but in a year or two the more powerful Xbox may catch up fast. It may end up like the Genesis vs SNES battle where when it was all said and done the were both very successful. The Genesis was the early leader, but by the end the SNES had pretty much caught up. I think it may take until the Xbox 2 vs PS3 war for someone to get knocked out of the business.
Who's winning the console fight? Anyone that owns a PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube in my opinion. There is more great stuff coming out in 2002 than I could ever hope to afford.
Nintendo may end up in third place, but they struggled with the N64 and they still turned major profits because their first party games are always top sellers no matter what. The only reason they seem to be stuggling now is lack of merchandise to sell. If they had more consoles available I think they could easily sell as many as Microsoft.
The true battle in this war is between Sony and Microsoft and I really don't know how that will end up. Sony's lead is probably impossible to overcome, but in a year or two the more powerful Xbox may catch up fast. It may end up like the Genesis vs SNES battle where when it was all said and done the were both very successful. The Genesis was the early leader, but by the end the SNES had pretty much caught up. I think it may take until the Xbox 2 vs PS3 war for someone to get knocked out of the business.
02-03-02 | 03:05 AM
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Originally posted by ScandalUMD
Naughty Dog and Polygamy are Sony the same way that AM2 and Sonic Team are Sega, or the way that EAD and Factor 5 are Nintendo.
Naughty Dog and Polygamy are Sony the same way that AM2 and Sonic Team are Sega, or the way that EAD and Factor 5 are Nintendo.
02-03-02 | 10:55 AM
#32
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From: HB, CA
Ask and ye shall receive:
Who’s winning the console fight?
MSNBC.com looks at how the game makers stack up
The fight for gaming supremacy is far from over, with Sega's most-anticipated game, Virtua Fighter 4, set to be exclusive to PlayStation 2.
By Steven Kent
SPECIAL TO MSNBC.COM
Jan. 31 — This month will mark the three-month anniversary of the launches of Microsoft’s Xbox and Nintendo’s GameCube. Last year’s war of words is over, and now gamers can finally compare the systems, look at their respective libraries, and decide which console they like for themselves. The last three months have also given industry insiders a chance to see how each company and console behaved. How does GameCube stack up against Xbox? How does Microsoft stack up against Nintendo? And how in the world, having entered the market one year after PlayStation 2, can either company hope to compete with Sony?
MSNBC.COM SPOKE WITH executives at all three console manufacturers, several game publishers, retailers, and industry insiders, and this is how the new consoles stack up against each other and the established competition:
A RETAILER’S EYE VIEW
Both Xbox and GameCube were virtual sellouts through the holidays; but in the eyes of retailers, Xbox clearly holds the momentum.
“I think Xbox has a lead over GameCube right now,” says Ron Luessen, owner of Famcom Games, a small chain of stores in western Washington that rents, buys, and sells video games. “We’ve been selling a lot more GameCubes when we have them, but I think that might be because of price point.”
(MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)
Luessen, who has been involved with the game industry since the days of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System, takes a very pragmatic stance as he views the market. As the owner of a small chain, he does not have the space or the money to invest in large inventories.
“Right now PlayStation 2 has the [most] momentum because of software,” says Luessen. “Grand Theft Auto III has been very popular. State of Emergency for PlayStation 2 will be the next big thing. A lot of people are looking forward to that game. To the average person who bought Xbox or GameCube, the question is, “Where are the games?”
But at least one of the bigger retailers has a more positive view.
According to Peter Roithmayr, vice president of merchandising for video games at Electronics Boutique, Xbox is off to a very strong start.
“For us, the Xbox launch went smoother than the launch of PlayStation 2,” says Roithmayr. “We had product flowing to us on a regular basis. We can actually restock stores on a scheduled basis.”
Roithmayr has good reason to sound jubilant. Like the manufacturers themselves, retailers make little or no profit selling video game hardware.
The money is made selling software; and in 2001, software sales were good.
“Electronic Boutique’s software-to-hardware sales ratios are very strong,” says Roithmayr. Their Xbox tie ratio, for instance, is 4 to 1. “Actually, in January, it started at 6.2-to-1,” says Roithmayr. “With titles like NBA Inside Drive, which just shipped last week, and Halo… Halo has been strong from the beginning. Remember, though, Electronic Boutique tends to lead the pack on tie ratios.”
But Xbox is not the only console with strong software-to-hardware tie ratios. According to Electronics Boutique’s January sales data, PlayStation 2 software-to-hardware sales ratios are running at an amazing 12-to-1.
When it comes to tie ratio, much of Sony’s success comes from its one-year head start into the market. Consumers could only begin purchasing Xbox and GameCube software last November. By comparison, PlayStation 2 hardware and software had been on the market for more than one year.
“PlayStation 2 is right up there in momentum with Xbox,” says Roithmayr. “Post Christmas, PlayStation 2 sales have actually been a little ahead of Xbox.”
When it comes to Electronics Boutique, GameCube is lagging in third. “We are still being allocated GameCubes,” Roithmayr points out. “We are a much smaller share of Nintendo’s business than we are of Sony’s or Microsoft’s. We still experience out-of-stocks on GameCube as opposed to PS2 or Xbox.”
WHAT THE GAME PUBLISHERS SAY
For the most part, game publishers are happy to see three systems competing. According to Peter Moore, president of Sega of America, having access to multiple platforms helps amortize costs. “After you spend $5 million making a game, you can double your audience by porting it to additional platforms for another $500,000.”
"Like any third-party, we're trying to find balance without exposing ourselves too greatly on any one platform," says Peter Moore, president of Sega of America.
The key to success, according to Moore, is knowing the audiences for each system. “We are spreading ourselves around well as a company. In Xbox’s case, we announced 11 titles, and that roster continues to grow. Like any third-party, we’re trying to find balance without exposing ourselves too greatly on any one platform.”
Like retailers, game publishers noticed the strong launch Xbox had in North America.
“Everybody has been pleasantly surprised by both the quantity and the logistical quality with which Xbox has serviced the marketplace,” says Moore. “Questions we had were can they supply the marketplace week in and week out with consistent supplies. They have exceeded everybody’s expectations. And third-parties are starting to give them more support than they may have prior to the Christmas period. They continue to gain both respect and support from people who may have been on the fence. That does not include us. We never were on the fence.”
At Microsoft, the goal is to cash in on North American success to drive interest in Xbox for the February launch in Japan and the March launch in Europe.
“Our strategy has always been built around the belief that the most important key to success on a worldwide basis is a really strong launch in North America,” says John O’Rourke, director of Xbox sales and marketing. “We delivered on that, and the buzz and excitement is flowing over boundaries. People in Japan and Europe are very excited about it. We said 1.5 million was our goal through the holiday season. Instead, we reached it by the end of the year.”
Japan, which generally has the highest software-to-hardware tie ratios, is traditionally the most lucrative market. In recent years, however, the Japanese market has hit a slump. The Japanese economy is slow, and a large portion of the people who make up the conventional gaming demographic are now spending their money on cellular phones instead of games. According to
O’Rourke, Japan still means more than just sales to Microsoft.
“Each region is very important,” says O’Rourke. “You cannot get to the scale you want if you are a one-country wonder. Japan is as important from a pure market perspective as it is the fact that you have a tremendous amount of game developers who do great games for other markets.”
Xbox’s success has touched off new excitement in Japan. A survey given at last year’s Tokyo Game Show revealed that attendees were more curious about Xbox than GameCube or PlayStation 2. And Xbox has a high-profile evangelist in Japan — Tomonobu Itagaki, executive officer of Tecmo’s Team Ninja and lead designer of the Dead or Alive series of fighting games.
While Itagaki has remained somewhat silent about GameCube, he has vociferously attacked PlayStation 2, calling it a “last generation” game console.
Sega of Japan has nine core design groups. Among those nine groups, two groups seem to have adopted systems of choice.
Sega's most anticipated game, Virtua Fighter 4, will be exclusive to PlayStation 2.
“Amusement Vision has had great success with Super Monkey Ball and they also did Virtua Striker for GameCube,” says Moore. “Mizuguchi [Tetsuya Mizuguchi, president of United Game Artists] is focused on PlayStation 2. We are in a unique position because we have enough talent with our many studios to allow designers to focus on one platform, then discuss porting the games to other platforms later.”
Capcom, one of Japan’s most successful companies, has also got an unofficial evangelist. Shinji Mikami, creator of Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, and Devil May Cry, has become an outspoken supporter of GameCube.
“No one at Capcom has adopted the Xbox cause,” says Capcom Entertainment (of America) president Bill Gardner. “But then, we have not been enamored with the problems of creating games for PlayStation 2.”
Last year, Capcom announced that Mikami’s popular Resident Evil games would only be released for GameCube. That announcement was made a few days before GameCube’s disappointing Japanese launch last September. As an artist, Mikami may like the way his games look on GameCube, but executives at Capcom watch the bottom line.
“If Nintendo cannot get its numbers up, particularly in Japan, we may need to reconsider keeping Resident Evil exclusive to GameCube,” Gardner recently admitted in a recent interview with MSNBC.com.
The good news for both Capcom and Nintendo is that in Japan, GameCube sales have improved.
“As you may recall, we delayed our launch a few weeks [last November],” says outgoing Nintendo executive vice president of sales and marketing, Peter Main. “My hope was to pick up the quantity from 400,000 up to 700,000, which we did. But hidden in that decision was the hope that if there was any softness in the Japanese market, the extra weeks would allow them to divert GameCube production from the Japanese model to the model for our market.”
In an interview with MSNBC.com held two days before his departure from Nintendo, Main admitted that part of the reason Nintendo of America delayed the launch of GameCube was to take advantage of the weak Japanese market.
“Even though their launch was incredibly soft up through October, Mr. Yamauchi [Nintendo Company, Limited (NCL) chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi] made a call to us in October and said that he was going to bet that the release of the games Super Smash Bros. Melee and Pikmin would resuscitate what had been a very, very soft launch. And that, in fact, took place. Between launch in September and early November, they had shipped just about 400,000 units and the sell-through was about 280,000. It exploded in November.”
By the end of the year, NCL shipped just over 1.3 million GameCube consoles in Japan and had a 90 percent sell-through. Nintendo got off to a slow start with GameCube, then improved sales with the release of two big titles. Even so, Nintendo’s selling of 1.3 million consoles in four months does not qualify GameCube as a great success.
But Nintendo knows how to work patiently and thrive in the Japanese market. Microsoft will need more immediate sales to succeed.
“I think Microsoft is quietly confident about Japan,” says Sega of America’s Peter Moore. “They realize that they need to reach out to the Japanese gaming community as well as the publishing community… and the retail community. I think the unexpected surprise of their success in the U.S. has benefited them. Their success in the U.S. has changed people’s perspective over there. Marketing Xbox is going to be a challenge in Japan; but the thing that makes me feel more confident about it is the fact that they [Microsoft’s Xbox team] do not pretend otherwise.”
The way Moore sees it, it is too early to predict the loser of this three-way race, but he concedes that Sony’s head start into the market has placed PlayStation 2 solidly in the lead.
“Who might get knocked out? I don’t know. Sony has a lead that is probably insurmountable,” says Moore. “Sony has a great head start, content that is flowing through, and great support from the publishing community.”
“Nintendo seems to run hot and cold over in Japan. You can point your finger at some of their platforms that have been very successful and others that have struggled. If you look at GameCube right now, it’s doing okay, but nothing like I might have hoped… and any problems GameCube has had in Japan have been without the challenge of Xbox entering the marketplace,” says Moore.
“As an executive in a Japanese company, I hope three consoles can survive; but I am less optimistic for Japan than I am for here,” he added.
Most people questioned seem to agree, however, that whatever happens to GameCube, Nintendo is not about to drop out of the marketplace.
“Nintendo could become a content publisher and just get out of the hardware business, God forbid. One or two companies have done that lately,” says Moore, who presided over Sega of America as Dreamcast was discontinued and Sega left the hardware business. “That would play to their strength. It would be huge.”
“But there is a certain amount of egotistical swagger in Redmond, and I do not see Microsoft or Nintendo giving in easily, even if they do lag behind,” he added.
EDITORS WITH INSIDE VIEWS
Editors for platform-specific gaming magazines get access to upcoming games ahead of the rest of the world. Part mercenary, part fanatic, most of these editors feel enthusiastic about the various platforms they cover.
“Xbox and PlayStation 2 have the same momentum at this point,” says Frank O’Connor, executive editor of the Official Xbox Magazine. “PlayStation 2 has the install base, and their software numbers are larger; but I’m still arguing that the quality [among PlayStation 2 games] is not what it should be.”
“The only one who is trailing in mindshare is Nintendo, and it’s only trailing a little bit. I still think it has time to catch up,” O’Conner added.
But Andy McNamara, editor-in-chief of the non-aligned Game Informer Magazine, says Nintendo is well-positioned already.
“GameCube, when you look at it as a plan, you can actually see Nintendo’s strategy,” says McNamara. “Is the GameCube the best accessory for Game Boy Advance? I can see Nintendo establishing franchises on Game Boy Advance, then moving them to GameCube.”
As to Xbox’s prospects in Japan, McNamara sounds cautious. “You don’t see a lot of Cadillacs around Tokyo. Microsoft needs to establish some Japanese franchises.”
But if Microsoft needs more Japanese franchises to succeed, Nintendo needs to give more options to older players, according to Matt Casamassina, editor-in-chief of IGNCube.
“I would say that GameCube is in third place right now. It depends how you look at it. Considering what Nintendo could have done… Nintendo has a solid brand, they are a major player in the video game industry, and Microsoft came out of nowhere.”
“Nintendo needs to do two things. One, Nintendo must continue to rely on the younger audience and push out those franchises that appeal to the younger gamer. Mario and Zelda are going to be huge, so will Pokemon, when they finally bring it out,” Casamassina said. “But Nintendo has to recognize the older market. I looked at the TRST Data (marketing research published by the NPD Group) for the week after Christmas. It had Max Payne, Grand Theft Auto 3, Max Payne for PlayStation 2, and Agent Under Fire—clearly an adult-targeted lineup. Nintendo still fails to recognize that, and it baffles me.”
Like software publishers and retailers, most editors seem to agree that in sheer console placements, Sony’s lead may be insurmountable.
“I do not think Microsoft or Nintendo can catch up to Sony,” said Casamassina. “Sony seems to do no wrong, even when it is quite obviously very wrong. It has hardware that is widely accepted as inferior from a development standpoint if not from a power standpoint, and still people are snapping it up and going crazy about it.”
“This could be a big year for Nintendo if it plays its cards right. The problem is that neither Microsoft nor Nintendo have anything big planned for the first half of 2002,” he added.
AND FROM THE MANUFACTURERS...
“I guess we feel that we stand alone,” says Sony Computer Entertainment America senior vice president Jack Tretton, when asked about the closest competition. “I don’t know that we have anybody that I feel will ever be a neck-and-neck competitor with us. The competitor that goes for the closest demographic is Microsoft.”
“Everybody says that this is a marathon and not a sprint and that really is true. We left the starting line a year before they did. If you call it a five-year race, then we were 20 percent into the race before they got out of the blocks.”
If executives at Sony Computer Entertainment America sound smug, they have a right to be. Even with all of the excitement over the launches of Xbox and GameCube last November, PlayStation 2 consistently outsold both systems over the holiday season.
“I think Nintendo and Microsoft have to close the gap at some point, but the reality is that we’re pulling farther ahead. You only get to be new once. You only get to attract those hardcore new consumers once. They’ve had that, and we’ve widened the gap,” Tretton said. “In terms of quantifying that, during the period between Nov. 15 when they launched and Dec. 31, we sold 2.8 million PlayStation 2s. Those were sold through to consumers, not shipped. Compare that to GameCube or Xbox, and you will see that we had a commanding lead before they shipped, and we widened that lead since they shipped.”
Sony may have sold more hardware than Nintendo or Microsoft, but it also had more hardware to sell. More than 90 percent of the Xbox and GameCube inventory that was shipped was sold, making the consoles virtual sellouts. PlayStation 2 consoles, on the other hand, remained readily available.
“Right now retailers are not happy with us or Microsoft,” Nintendo’s Peter Main told MSNBC.com. “They would like more inventory. Anywhere from a low of 20 to a high of 35 percent of stores throughout the country are out-of-stock. The shipments just go in and out. Every week we are selling 15,000 to 18,000 pieces, which is reflecting basically what we shipped. That’s a little calamitous.”
There is little question that Nintendo is lagging behind Microsoft in the U.S. market by most measures. With 1.5 million Xboxes sold, Microsoft has sold 200,000 more consoles than Nintendo. According to the TRST Data, GameCube has a 2.7-to-1 software-to-hardware tie ratio, compared to the 3.3-to-1 ratio for Xbox. Moreover, Microsoft currently has over 40 games available for Xbox, while the GameCube library is only up to 23 titles.
From a gamer’s perspective, the Xbox library has more peaks and valleys. Many gamers see Halo, Dead or Alive 3, and Max Payne as better than any games on GameCube; but Xbox is also the home of Shrek, Azurik, and Kabuki Warriors.
“If you hold up TRST to the light of day,” said Main, “you would say that we are clearly behind Microsoft by a couple of hundred thousand units. We’ll see how they do in Japan in the next month. From a corporate standpoint, we’re thinking about it globally, and we’ve shipped 2.6 million. We rolled all the dice last year in both re-launching Game Boy and launching GameCube in two different markets.”
For Nintendo to succeed, it will need to rely on its established game properties, and one piece of news that will come as a relief to many gamers is that Nintendo is re-thinking the cel-shaded version of The Legend of Zelda that was unveiled last August at its Spaceworld trade show. “You mean that contentious look? What Miyamoto [Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s top game designer] ends up with will truly reflect all of the words he has heard, but the sentiments that he holds true to make sure that Zelda continues to titillate all the fans that it has attracted over the years,” said Main.
In the meantime, attitudes around Microsoft are ecstatic. The feeling seems to be that the launch went better than expected and the market for Xbox is wider than hoped for.
“We found through post-launch research that we have younger gamers who are very excited about Xbox,” says O’Rourke. “Our stated audience was 16- to 26-year-olds — what most people call ‘hardcore gamers’ but we call ‘passion players.’ We extended beyond that core audience. Not quite half of the people who bought Xbox during the holidays were younger than our target market.”
“The sheer awareness of Xbox has exceeded our goals. I cannot share the specific number publicly, but the amount of awareness that we have for Xbox is significantly higher than it is for GameCube. Even at an unaided level, nine out of ten people who are gamers are aware of Xbox.”
Who’s winning the console fight?
MSNBC.com looks at how the game makers stack up
The fight for gaming supremacy is far from over, with Sega's most-anticipated game, Virtua Fighter 4, set to be exclusive to PlayStation 2.
By Steven Kent
SPECIAL TO MSNBC.COM
Jan. 31 — This month will mark the three-month anniversary of the launches of Microsoft’s Xbox and Nintendo’s GameCube. Last year’s war of words is over, and now gamers can finally compare the systems, look at their respective libraries, and decide which console they like for themselves. The last three months have also given industry insiders a chance to see how each company and console behaved. How does GameCube stack up against Xbox? How does Microsoft stack up against Nintendo? And how in the world, having entered the market one year after PlayStation 2, can either company hope to compete with Sony?
MSNBC.COM SPOKE WITH executives at all three console manufacturers, several game publishers, retailers, and industry insiders, and this is how the new consoles stack up against each other and the established competition:
A RETAILER’S EYE VIEW
Both Xbox and GameCube were virtual sellouts through the holidays; but in the eyes of retailers, Xbox clearly holds the momentum.
“I think Xbox has a lead over GameCube right now,” says Ron Luessen, owner of Famcom Games, a small chain of stores in western Washington that rents, buys, and sells video games. “We’ve been selling a lot more GameCubes when we have them, but I think that might be because of price point.”
(MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)
Luessen, who has been involved with the game industry since the days of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System, takes a very pragmatic stance as he views the market. As the owner of a small chain, he does not have the space or the money to invest in large inventories.
“Right now PlayStation 2 has the [most] momentum because of software,” says Luessen. “Grand Theft Auto III has been very popular. State of Emergency for PlayStation 2 will be the next big thing. A lot of people are looking forward to that game. To the average person who bought Xbox or GameCube, the question is, “Where are the games?”
But at least one of the bigger retailers has a more positive view.
According to Peter Roithmayr, vice president of merchandising for video games at Electronics Boutique, Xbox is off to a very strong start.
“For us, the Xbox launch went smoother than the launch of PlayStation 2,” says Roithmayr. “We had product flowing to us on a regular basis. We can actually restock stores on a scheduled basis.”
Roithmayr has good reason to sound jubilant. Like the manufacturers themselves, retailers make little or no profit selling video game hardware.
The money is made selling software; and in 2001, software sales were good.
“Electronic Boutique’s software-to-hardware sales ratios are very strong,” says Roithmayr. Their Xbox tie ratio, for instance, is 4 to 1. “Actually, in January, it started at 6.2-to-1,” says Roithmayr. “With titles like NBA Inside Drive, which just shipped last week, and Halo… Halo has been strong from the beginning. Remember, though, Electronic Boutique tends to lead the pack on tie ratios.”
But Xbox is not the only console with strong software-to-hardware tie ratios. According to Electronics Boutique’s January sales data, PlayStation 2 software-to-hardware sales ratios are running at an amazing 12-to-1.
When it comes to tie ratio, much of Sony’s success comes from its one-year head start into the market. Consumers could only begin purchasing Xbox and GameCube software last November. By comparison, PlayStation 2 hardware and software had been on the market for more than one year.
“PlayStation 2 is right up there in momentum with Xbox,” says Roithmayr. “Post Christmas, PlayStation 2 sales have actually been a little ahead of Xbox.”
When it comes to Electronics Boutique, GameCube is lagging in third. “We are still being allocated GameCubes,” Roithmayr points out. “We are a much smaller share of Nintendo’s business than we are of Sony’s or Microsoft’s. We still experience out-of-stocks on GameCube as opposed to PS2 or Xbox.”
WHAT THE GAME PUBLISHERS SAY
For the most part, game publishers are happy to see three systems competing. According to Peter Moore, president of Sega of America, having access to multiple platforms helps amortize costs. “After you spend $5 million making a game, you can double your audience by porting it to additional platforms for another $500,000.”
"Like any third-party, we're trying to find balance without exposing ourselves too greatly on any one platform," says Peter Moore, president of Sega of America.
The key to success, according to Moore, is knowing the audiences for each system. “We are spreading ourselves around well as a company. In Xbox’s case, we announced 11 titles, and that roster continues to grow. Like any third-party, we’re trying to find balance without exposing ourselves too greatly on any one platform.”
Like retailers, game publishers noticed the strong launch Xbox had in North America.
“Everybody has been pleasantly surprised by both the quantity and the logistical quality with which Xbox has serviced the marketplace,” says Moore. “Questions we had were can they supply the marketplace week in and week out with consistent supplies. They have exceeded everybody’s expectations. And third-parties are starting to give them more support than they may have prior to the Christmas period. They continue to gain both respect and support from people who may have been on the fence. That does not include us. We never were on the fence.”
At Microsoft, the goal is to cash in on North American success to drive interest in Xbox for the February launch in Japan and the March launch in Europe.
“Our strategy has always been built around the belief that the most important key to success on a worldwide basis is a really strong launch in North America,” says John O’Rourke, director of Xbox sales and marketing. “We delivered on that, and the buzz and excitement is flowing over boundaries. People in Japan and Europe are very excited about it. We said 1.5 million was our goal through the holiday season. Instead, we reached it by the end of the year.”
Japan, which generally has the highest software-to-hardware tie ratios, is traditionally the most lucrative market. In recent years, however, the Japanese market has hit a slump. The Japanese economy is slow, and a large portion of the people who make up the conventional gaming demographic are now spending their money on cellular phones instead of games. According to
O’Rourke, Japan still means more than just sales to Microsoft.
“Each region is very important,” says O’Rourke. “You cannot get to the scale you want if you are a one-country wonder. Japan is as important from a pure market perspective as it is the fact that you have a tremendous amount of game developers who do great games for other markets.”
Xbox’s success has touched off new excitement in Japan. A survey given at last year’s Tokyo Game Show revealed that attendees were more curious about Xbox than GameCube or PlayStation 2. And Xbox has a high-profile evangelist in Japan — Tomonobu Itagaki, executive officer of Tecmo’s Team Ninja and lead designer of the Dead or Alive series of fighting games.
While Itagaki has remained somewhat silent about GameCube, he has vociferously attacked PlayStation 2, calling it a “last generation” game console.
Sega of Japan has nine core design groups. Among those nine groups, two groups seem to have adopted systems of choice.
Sega's most anticipated game, Virtua Fighter 4, will be exclusive to PlayStation 2.
“Amusement Vision has had great success with Super Monkey Ball and they also did Virtua Striker for GameCube,” says Moore. “Mizuguchi [Tetsuya Mizuguchi, president of United Game Artists] is focused on PlayStation 2. We are in a unique position because we have enough talent with our many studios to allow designers to focus on one platform, then discuss porting the games to other platforms later.”
Capcom, one of Japan’s most successful companies, has also got an unofficial evangelist. Shinji Mikami, creator of Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, and Devil May Cry, has become an outspoken supporter of GameCube.
“No one at Capcom has adopted the Xbox cause,” says Capcom Entertainment (of America) president Bill Gardner. “But then, we have not been enamored with the problems of creating games for PlayStation 2.”
Last year, Capcom announced that Mikami’s popular Resident Evil games would only be released for GameCube. That announcement was made a few days before GameCube’s disappointing Japanese launch last September. As an artist, Mikami may like the way his games look on GameCube, but executives at Capcom watch the bottom line.
“If Nintendo cannot get its numbers up, particularly in Japan, we may need to reconsider keeping Resident Evil exclusive to GameCube,” Gardner recently admitted in a recent interview with MSNBC.com.
The good news for both Capcom and Nintendo is that in Japan, GameCube sales have improved.
“As you may recall, we delayed our launch a few weeks [last November],” says outgoing Nintendo executive vice president of sales and marketing, Peter Main. “My hope was to pick up the quantity from 400,000 up to 700,000, which we did. But hidden in that decision was the hope that if there was any softness in the Japanese market, the extra weeks would allow them to divert GameCube production from the Japanese model to the model for our market.”
In an interview with MSNBC.com held two days before his departure from Nintendo, Main admitted that part of the reason Nintendo of America delayed the launch of GameCube was to take advantage of the weak Japanese market.
“Even though their launch was incredibly soft up through October, Mr. Yamauchi [Nintendo Company, Limited (NCL) chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi] made a call to us in October and said that he was going to bet that the release of the games Super Smash Bros. Melee and Pikmin would resuscitate what had been a very, very soft launch. And that, in fact, took place. Between launch in September and early November, they had shipped just about 400,000 units and the sell-through was about 280,000. It exploded in November.”
By the end of the year, NCL shipped just over 1.3 million GameCube consoles in Japan and had a 90 percent sell-through. Nintendo got off to a slow start with GameCube, then improved sales with the release of two big titles. Even so, Nintendo’s selling of 1.3 million consoles in four months does not qualify GameCube as a great success.
But Nintendo knows how to work patiently and thrive in the Japanese market. Microsoft will need more immediate sales to succeed.
“I think Microsoft is quietly confident about Japan,” says Sega of America’s Peter Moore. “They realize that they need to reach out to the Japanese gaming community as well as the publishing community… and the retail community. I think the unexpected surprise of their success in the U.S. has benefited them. Their success in the U.S. has changed people’s perspective over there. Marketing Xbox is going to be a challenge in Japan; but the thing that makes me feel more confident about it is the fact that they [Microsoft’s Xbox team] do not pretend otherwise.”
The way Moore sees it, it is too early to predict the loser of this three-way race, but he concedes that Sony’s head start into the market has placed PlayStation 2 solidly in the lead.
“Who might get knocked out? I don’t know. Sony has a lead that is probably insurmountable,” says Moore. “Sony has a great head start, content that is flowing through, and great support from the publishing community.”
“Nintendo seems to run hot and cold over in Japan. You can point your finger at some of their platforms that have been very successful and others that have struggled. If you look at GameCube right now, it’s doing okay, but nothing like I might have hoped… and any problems GameCube has had in Japan have been without the challenge of Xbox entering the marketplace,” says Moore.
“As an executive in a Japanese company, I hope three consoles can survive; but I am less optimistic for Japan than I am for here,” he added.
Most people questioned seem to agree, however, that whatever happens to GameCube, Nintendo is not about to drop out of the marketplace.
“Nintendo could become a content publisher and just get out of the hardware business, God forbid. One or two companies have done that lately,” says Moore, who presided over Sega of America as Dreamcast was discontinued and Sega left the hardware business. “That would play to their strength. It would be huge.”
“But there is a certain amount of egotistical swagger in Redmond, and I do not see Microsoft or Nintendo giving in easily, even if they do lag behind,” he added.
EDITORS WITH INSIDE VIEWS
Editors for platform-specific gaming magazines get access to upcoming games ahead of the rest of the world. Part mercenary, part fanatic, most of these editors feel enthusiastic about the various platforms they cover.
“Xbox and PlayStation 2 have the same momentum at this point,” says Frank O’Connor, executive editor of the Official Xbox Magazine. “PlayStation 2 has the install base, and their software numbers are larger; but I’m still arguing that the quality [among PlayStation 2 games] is not what it should be.”
“The only one who is trailing in mindshare is Nintendo, and it’s only trailing a little bit. I still think it has time to catch up,” O’Conner added.
But Andy McNamara, editor-in-chief of the non-aligned Game Informer Magazine, says Nintendo is well-positioned already.
“GameCube, when you look at it as a plan, you can actually see Nintendo’s strategy,” says McNamara. “Is the GameCube the best accessory for Game Boy Advance? I can see Nintendo establishing franchises on Game Boy Advance, then moving them to GameCube.”
As to Xbox’s prospects in Japan, McNamara sounds cautious. “You don’t see a lot of Cadillacs around Tokyo. Microsoft needs to establish some Japanese franchises.”
But if Microsoft needs more Japanese franchises to succeed, Nintendo needs to give more options to older players, according to Matt Casamassina, editor-in-chief of IGNCube.
“I would say that GameCube is in third place right now. It depends how you look at it. Considering what Nintendo could have done… Nintendo has a solid brand, they are a major player in the video game industry, and Microsoft came out of nowhere.”
“Nintendo needs to do two things. One, Nintendo must continue to rely on the younger audience and push out those franchises that appeal to the younger gamer. Mario and Zelda are going to be huge, so will Pokemon, when they finally bring it out,” Casamassina said. “But Nintendo has to recognize the older market. I looked at the TRST Data (marketing research published by the NPD Group) for the week after Christmas. It had Max Payne, Grand Theft Auto 3, Max Payne for PlayStation 2, and Agent Under Fire—clearly an adult-targeted lineup. Nintendo still fails to recognize that, and it baffles me.”
Like software publishers and retailers, most editors seem to agree that in sheer console placements, Sony’s lead may be insurmountable.
“I do not think Microsoft or Nintendo can catch up to Sony,” said Casamassina. “Sony seems to do no wrong, even when it is quite obviously very wrong. It has hardware that is widely accepted as inferior from a development standpoint if not from a power standpoint, and still people are snapping it up and going crazy about it.”
“This could be a big year for Nintendo if it plays its cards right. The problem is that neither Microsoft nor Nintendo have anything big planned for the first half of 2002,” he added.
AND FROM THE MANUFACTURERS...
“I guess we feel that we stand alone,” says Sony Computer Entertainment America senior vice president Jack Tretton, when asked about the closest competition. “I don’t know that we have anybody that I feel will ever be a neck-and-neck competitor with us. The competitor that goes for the closest demographic is Microsoft.”
“Everybody says that this is a marathon and not a sprint and that really is true. We left the starting line a year before they did. If you call it a five-year race, then we were 20 percent into the race before they got out of the blocks.”
If executives at Sony Computer Entertainment America sound smug, they have a right to be. Even with all of the excitement over the launches of Xbox and GameCube last November, PlayStation 2 consistently outsold both systems over the holiday season.
“I think Nintendo and Microsoft have to close the gap at some point, but the reality is that we’re pulling farther ahead. You only get to be new once. You only get to attract those hardcore new consumers once. They’ve had that, and we’ve widened the gap,” Tretton said. “In terms of quantifying that, during the period between Nov. 15 when they launched and Dec. 31, we sold 2.8 million PlayStation 2s. Those were sold through to consumers, not shipped. Compare that to GameCube or Xbox, and you will see that we had a commanding lead before they shipped, and we widened that lead since they shipped.”
Sony may have sold more hardware than Nintendo or Microsoft, but it also had more hardware to sell. More than 90 percent of the Xbox and GameCube inventory that was shipped was sold, making the consoles virtual sellouts. PlayStation 2 consoles, on the other hand, remained readily available.
“Right now retailers are not happy with us or Microsoft,” Nintendo’s Peter Main told MSNBC.com. “They would like more inventory. Anywhere from a low of 20 to a high of 35 percent of stores throughout the country are out-of-stock. The shipments just go in and out. Every week we are selling 15,000 to 18,000 pieces, which is reflecting basically what we shipped. That’s a little calamitous.”
There is little question that Nintendo is lagging behind Microsoft in the U.S. market by most measures. With 1.5 million Xboxes sold, Microsoft has sold 200,000 more consoles than Nintendo. According to the TRST Data, GameCube has a 2.7-to-1 software-to-hardware tie ratio, compared to the 3.3-to-1 ratio for Xbox. Moreover, Microsoft currently has over 40 games available for Xbox, while the GameCube library is only up to 23 titles.
From a gamer’s perspective, the Xbox library has more peaks and valleys. Many gamers see Halo, Dead or Alive 3, and Max Payne as better than any games on GameCube; but Xbox is also the home of Shrek, Azurik, and Kabuki Warriors.
“If you hold up TRST to the light of day,” said Main, “you would say that we are clearly behind Microsoft by a couple of hundred thousand units. We’ll see how they do in Japan in the next month. From a corporate standpoint, we’re thinking about it globally, and we’ve shipped 2.6 million. We rolled all the dice last year in both re-launching Game Boy and launching GameCube in two different markets.”
For Nintendo to succeed, it will need to rely on its established game properties, and one piece of news that will come as a relief to many gamers is that Nintendo is re-thinking the cel-shaded version of The Legend of Zelda that was unveiled last August at its Spaceworld trade show. “You mean that contentious look? What Miyamoto [Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s top game designer] ends up with will truly reflect all of the words he has heard, but the sentiments that he holds true to make sure that Zelda continues to titillate all the fans that it has attracted over the years,” said Main.
In the meantime, attitudes around Microsoft are ecstatic. The feeling seems to be that the launch went better than expected and the market for Xbox is wider than hoped for.
“We found through post-launch research that we have younger gamers who are very excited about Xbox,” says O’Rourke. “Our stated audience was 16- to 26-year-olds — what most people call ‘hardcore gamers’ but we call ‘passion players.’ We extended beyond that core audience. Not quite half of the people who bought Xbox during the holidays were younger than our target market.”
“The sheer awareness of Xbox has exceeded our goals. I cannot share the specific number publicly, but the amount of awareness that we have for Xbox is significantly higher than it is for GameCube. Even at an unaided level, nine out of ten people who are gamers are aware of Xbox.”
02-03-02 | 06:35 PM
#33
DVD Talk Legend
Originally posted by ScandalUMD
Also, while many "exclusives" eventually go multiconsole, they're exclusive for as long as they matter. The other consoles, though they may get an extra sidequest, or bonus levels, or slightly refined visuals, are still getting a 6-month old game. This is why Metal Gear Solid helped the PS2, but an XBox release over the summer probably won't be terribly high profile. By that time, PS2 gamers will be months past MGS2, and gearing up for something else.
Also, while many "exclusives" eventually go multiconsole, they're exclusive for as long as they matter. The other consoles, though they may get an extra sidequest, or bonus levels, or slightly refined visuals, are still getting a 6-month old game. This is why Metal Gear Solid helped the PS2, but an XBox release over the summer probably won't be terribly high profile. By that time, PS2 gamers will be months past MGS2, and gearing up for something else.
11-06-02 | 12:53 PM
#34
DVD Talk Legend
Interesting BusinessWeek article including an interview with the same Sony VP quoted above. I was going to start a new thread, but found it interesting to read through what was said on this topic 9 months ago and what has happened since.
http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...02116_8930.htm
(my own emphasis added)
NOVEMBER 6, 2002
PlayStation2: Killing the Competition
<small>Sony's Jack Tretton explains how getting out first gave PS2 a big advantage over Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube consoles
Is the game over? A year ago, consumer-electronics giant Sony spent the holiday season smacking down rumors that it would be supplanted by two new video-game consoles, Microsoft's (MSFT ) Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube. This year, Sony is sitting pretty. Its PlayStation2 is still the hottest-selling game machine. To date, Sony has shipped 40 million PS2s worldwide. Compare that to Microsoft and Nintendo, which have each shipped about 4 million consoles.
What's Sony's secret? For one, PS2 launched in October, 2000. That extra 12 months on retailers' shelves earned Sony the largest installed base, which has given game designers strong incentives to build their hottest offerings for PS2. Sony's speed to market also allowed it to cut prices on its console long before its competitors did the same.
On Oct. 29, BusinessWeek Online technology reporter Jane Black talked with Sony Computer Entertainment's Executive Vice-President Jack Tretton about how Sony plans to keep PS2 ahead of the pack. Following are edited excerpts of the interview:
Q: Analysts had great expectations for the gaming market this Christmas -- until, that is, game publisher THQ (THQI ) warned it wouldn't match its own bullish projections (see BW Online, 8/22/02, "It's 'Gold Rush' Time for THQ").
A: Absolutely, [the holidays will be bullish for Sony]. We expect to bring in $6.5 billion at retail on our platform in North America [this Christmas season].... The consumer is on board. We continue to get more people jumping on the bandwagon. I don't envision anything happening in the near future that could derail that.
To your point, THQ is now coming in at 15% growth, the low end of their projections. But that's not necessarily bad news in this economy. If you do the math, we have about 70% of the market. Nintendo and Microsoft share the other 30%. If we deliver our numbers and exceed a little bit, 70% of the market delivers on target. Even if the other two come in a little bit [down], the gaming industry as a whole will do just fine.
Q: Who's buying PlayStation2? How have gamers changed over time?
A: When we launched PlayStation1 in 1995, most gamers were teenage boys. But if you look at our platform today, only 30% are under the age of 18. The sweet spots are 22 to 25, and 25 to 35. Those two demographic segments represent almost half of all gamers on our platform. The PlayStation2 really has brought mature gamers to the marketplace by offering them compelling storylines and sophisticated graphics.
Q: Microsoft's Xbox also targets mature gamers. What have you done to compete with Xbox?
A: The onus was really on Microsoft because they were going after the exact same demographic as we were. They had to take our strengths and show consumers that they had more beyond [what we had].
If you look at their early ads, they tried to do that by going into explanations of processors and polygons. But the consumer couldn't care less about that. Their attitude is: "I don't care what's inside the box. Just show me the game." So Microsoft focused on the game library. And it wasn't a bad start. But they never built on it. Over time, they've failed to offer anything compelling enough to convince people to buy a second gaming system -- or to choose Xbox as their primary console. And it only gets harder to do that as time goes by.
Q: Why?
A: People buy consoles for the games. As we pull significantly farther ahead, we're the de facto standard. Third-party publishers [such as Electronic Arts (EA ), Activision (ATVI ) and THQ] are going to build games for our platform first because that's where the dollars are.
Q: So will this year be a better year for Sony than last year?
A: I'm a big believer in comparing products in reality. The most frustrating experience for me last year was selling the reality of PlayStation2 against the promise of Xbox and GameCube. The reality of Xbox and GameCube was never anything I was really concerned about. But it was hard to compete against the hype.
Q: This holiday season was also supposed to be the time when online gaming took off. What trends have you seen?
A: So far, 400,000 PlayStation2 players have signed up to participate in online gaming. It's still a small percentage of the millions of gamers, but it's a start. In fact, at nearly half a million, we now have the largest online-gaming community in the world.
One of the reasons we've seen our online games take off is...simplicity. All you need to play online with a PlayStation2 is buy a network adapter for $39.99. You don't have to have a broadband connection as you do with Microsoft. You don't have to subscribe to an ISP [Internet service provider] as you do with Microsoft. Any gamer who bought PlayStation2 since October, 2000, is a potential online player for us.
Microsoft's mistake was limiting online gaming to broadband users. In our experience, there are fewer hard-core gamers with broadband than you might think. Of the first 100,000 or so people who bought our network adapters in August, 43% are playing with a narrowband connection. So almost half of the early adopters, the ones you'd think of as hard-core gamers, don't have broadband at all. That group would be cut off if they were Xbox players.
We've also generated interest in online games through one of our hottest selling titles, SOCOM U.S. Navy Seals. In this game, you don't only use the controller. The game lets you deploy your troops through a headset. In the online environment, you can communicate with other players through the headset to decide who should send which troops where.</small>
PlayStation2: Killing the Competition
<small>Sony's Jack Tretton explains how getting out first gave PS2 a big advantage over Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube consoles
Is the game over? A year ago, consumer-electronics giant Sony spent the holiday season smacking down rumors that it would be supplanted by two new video-game consoles, Microsoft's (MSFT ) Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube. This year, Sony is sitting pretty. Its PlayStation2 is still the hottest-selling game machine. To date, Sony has shipped 40 million PS2s worldwide. Compare that to Microsoft and Nintendo, which have each shipped about 4 million consoles.
What's Sony's secret? For one, PS2 launched in October, 2000. That extra 12 months on retailers' shelves earned Sony the largest installed base, which has given game designers strong incentives to build their hottest offerings for PS2. Sony's speed to market also allowed it to cut prices on its console long before its competitors did the same.
On Oct. 29, BusinessWeek Online technology reporter Jane Black talked with Sony Computer Entertainment's Executive Vice-President Jack Tretton about how Sony plans to keep PS2 ahead of the pack. Following are edited excerpts of the interview:
Q: Analysts had great expectations for the gaming market this Christmas -- until, that is, game publisher THQ (THQI ) warned it wouldn't match its own bullish projections (see BW Online, 8/22/02, "It's 'Gold Rush' Time for THQ").
A: Absolutely, [the holidays will be bullish for Sony]. We expect to bring in $6.5 billion at retail on our platform in North America [this Christmas season].... The consumer is on board. We continue to get more people jumping on the bandwagon. I don't envision anything happening in the near future that could derail that.
To your point, THQ is now coming in at 15% growth, the low end of their projections. But that's not necessarily bad news in this economy. If you do the math, we have about 70% of the market. Nintendo and Microsoft share the other 30%. If we deliver our numbers and exceed a little bit, 70% of the market delivers on target. Even if the other two come in a little bit [down], the gaming industry as a whole will do just fine.
Q: Who's buying PlayStation2? How have gamers changed over time?
A: When we launched PlayStation1 in 1995, most gamers were teenage boys. But if you look at our platform today, only 30% are under the age of 18. The sweet spots are 22 to 25, and 25 to 35. Those two demographic segments represent almost half of all gamers on our platform. The PlayStation2 really has brought mature gamers to the marketplace by offering them compelling storylines and sophisticated graphics.
Q: Microsoft's Xbox also targets mature gamers. What have you done to compete with Xbox?
A: The onus was really on Microsoft because they were going after the exact same demographic as we were. They had to take our strengths and show consumers that they had more beyond [what we had].
If you look at their early ads, they tried to do that by going into explanations of processors and polygons. But the consumer couldn't care less about that. Their attitude is: "I don't care what's inside the box. Just show me the game." So Microsoft focused on the game library. And it wasn't a bad start. But they never built on it. Over time, they've failed to offer anything compelling enough to convince people to buy a second gaming system -- or to choose Xbox as their primary console. And it only gets harder to do that as time goes by.
Q: Why?
A: People buy consoles for the games. As we pull significantly farther ahead, we're the de facto standard. Third-party publishers [such as Electronic Arts (EA ), Activision (ATVI ) and THQ] are going to build games for our platform first because that's where the dollars are.
Q: So will this year be a better year for Sony than last year?
A: I'm a big believer in comparing products in reality. The most frustrating experience for me last year was selling the reality of PlayStation2 against the promise of Xbox and GameCube. The reality of Xbox and GameCube was never anything I was really concerned about. But it was hard to compete against the hype.
Q: This holiday season was also supposed to be the time when online gaming took off. What trends have you seen?
A: So far, 400,000 PlayStation2 players have signed up to participate in online gaming. It's still a small percentage of the millions of gamers, but it's a start. In fact, at nearly half a million, we now have the largest online-gaming community in the world.
One of the reasons we've seen our online games take off is...simplicity. All you need to play online with a PlayStation2 is buy a network adapter for $39.99. You don't have to have a broadband connection as you do with Microsoft. You don't have to subscribe to an ISP [Internet service provider] as you do with Microsoft. Any gamer who bought PlayStation2 since October, 2000, is a potential online player for us.
Microsoft's mistake was limiting online gaming to broadband users. In our experience, there are fewer hard-core gamers with broadband than you might think. Of the first 100,000 or so people who bought our network adapters in August, 43% are playing with a narrowband connection. So almost half of the early adopters, the ones you'd think of as hard-core gamers, don't have broadband at all. That group would be cut off if they were Xbox players.
We've also generated interest in online games through one of our hottest selling titles, SOCOM U.S. Navy Seals. In this game, you don't only use the controller. The game lets you deploy your troops through a headset. In the online environment, you can communicate with other players through the headset to decide who should send which troops where.</small>
(my own emphasis added)
Last edited by Y2K Falcon; 11-06-02 at 12:56 PM.
11-06-02 | 12:59 PM
#35
DVD Talk Reviewer/ Admin
Joined: Sep 1999
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From: Greenville, South Cackalack
Sony's speed to market also allowed it to cut prices on its console long before its competitors did the same.
11-06-02 | 01:16 PM
#38
Retired
Originally posted by Y2K Falcon
they've failed to offer anything compelling enough to convince people to buy a second gaming system -- or to choose Xbox as their primary console. And it only gets harder to do that as time goes by.
they've failed to offer anything compelling enough to convince people to buy a second gaming system -- or to choose Xbox as their primary console. And it only gets harder to do that as time goes by.
I mean there's not enough games that interest me on the X-box to justify me buying one, but for someone else, there might be 20 games they think are worth buying.
Just typical corporate propaganda.
Last edited by Josh Hinkle; 11-06-02 at 01:46 PM.
11-06-02 | 01:29 PM
#39
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I'm a big believer in comparing products in reality. The most frustrating experience for me last year was selling the reality of PlayStation2 against the promise of Xbox and GameCube. The reality of Xbox and GameCube was never anything I was really concerned about. But it was hard to compete against the hype.
When any of the three get just one of the following, then this might not seem so incredibly ironic:
1. Neutral gaming journalists publishing far and wide that their new console is 20x the power of the next-most powerful competitor (66 million polygons vs DC's 3 million)
2. These same journalists reporting for months that this new console is so powerful, it's a threat to Wintel.
3. A free cover story/ad in a major US news mag (Newsweek, wasn't it)?
4. George Lucas announcing that the Star Wars just produced in two+ years can now be done in real-time on their new console
5. Ex-head of the largest third-party publisher (and current head of largest Army Men publisher
) saying it's the most important invention since the printing press.6. Numerous reports (springing up months apart) that their console is so powerful Iraq wants it for missile guidance.
And that doesn't even include direct, unfiltered PR from Sony employees... 'it's like jacking into the Matrix'.
11-06-02 | 01:34 PM
#40
Retired
I'm not seeing the irony.
He didn't say there was anything wrong with the hype around the GC and X-box, just that it was tough to compete with.
He mentioned that he wasn't that concerned about it, but that ties into what he said earlier about gamers not caring any more about specs which they probably found out when they tried to push the PS2 with Specs and a crappy first year line up.
I mean the PS2 sold very well from the get go, but really began flying off shelves when the good games like GTA3 and FFX started coming out.
He didn't say there was anything wrong with the hype around the GC and X-box, just that it was tough to compete with.
He mentioned that he wasn't that concerned about it, but that ties into what he said earlier about gamers not caring any more about specs which they probably found out when they tried to push the PS2 with Specs and a crappy first year line up.
I mean the PS2 sold very well from the get go, but really began flying off shelves when the good games like GTA3 and FFX started coming out.
11-06-02 | 03:19 PM
#41
DVD Talk Gold Edition
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The pre-launch tech hype for PS2 was just ridiculous.
The games are just now starting to look like a real improvement over the DC.
As phony as that guy is he is right about the fact that the Xbox and GC really don't compete with the PS2 anymore.
The games are just now starting to look like a real improvement over the DC.
As phony as that guy is he is right about the fact that the Xbox and GC really don't compete with the PS2 anymore.
11-06-02 | 04:26 PM
#42
DVD Talk Legend
Originally posted by Ralph Wiggum
As phony as that guy is he is right about the fact that the Xbox and GC really don't compete with the PS2 anymore.
As phony as that guy is he is right about the fact that the Xbox and GC really don't compete with the PS2 anymore.
He is right about the online thing to.
