PS2 hits 40, GC 10
 

News Story

Reports that Sony has shipped 40 million units and Nintendo has (basically) produced 10 million.

For those wondering about recent numbers. :)

I found this interesting:
Wowsers...

I just saw projections somewhere yesterday that Nintendo is projected to ship 16 million Gamecubes worldwide by next spring.

They'll never catch Sony, but that's pretty impressive and bodes well for them staying in the hardware business next generation, assuming that they can continue to build a larger audience over the next couple of years.

agree with josh.

i'm all for systems staying alive as long as possible.

makes for better games and lower prices.

Who would have ever thought that there would be not two, but three quality systems on the market?

These past couple of years have been a gamer's nirvana....

I wouldn't call it Nirvana. I would call it Gamer's hell!!! So many games coming out for the different systems, getting way too damn expensive to get them all. I feel like the games are being dangled in my face to taunt me that I can't afford to have them all. Have to work overtime just to afford my game addiction and then I don't have time to play.

I wouldn't call it nirvana as well. I currently have a GC, but really want to play Vice City, and really want to play Halo 2 and the Rare games on the XBOX. Thank God for friends and their consoles, but still, I can barely afford all the games I want for the Cube.

Having good games divided between 3 consoles and PC is nirvana?

Not in my mind...

it isn't nirvana...

but if you can afford all 3 consoles + a sooper dooper PC, it is gaming heaven.

40 million units shipped is pretty sick. That is a lot of people who own a PS2, making for a pretty respectable online community if estimations hold true. That is also a good openning market for the PS3 to work with.

Nirvana/heaven- I only meant that this is an exciting time for gamers. Its good to have choice and there are a lot of quality games out there.

Take the Super NES/Genesis days. That was some fierce competiton between the two companies and some amazing games were the result of that. Now add another console (Microsoft) into the mix. Now imagine if that console actually had some good games and it sold (unlike say the Turbographix-16 which had good games but unfortunately did not sell in the US). That is a lot of choice and frankly I would rather have too much to choose from rather than too little. I prefer what the market has become to what it was, where three companies are doing well and are able to go head to head and try to out do each other. We might not be so lucky if the bar weren't set so high.

And yes- I do agree with young that maybe it is only a gamer's heaven if you are able to afford everything. Yet I only have a PS2 and I believe this to be the most exciting time in my own gaming history. :)

Me too. It boils down to that the games I do have the time to play and the money to buy are better.

I don't really care that there are great games I'll miss out on as I can't afford them or don't have time to play them and have to choose the ones I want the most.

All that matters to me is that I have a ton of great games to choose from and the ones that I've bought and played so far have been much better than the ones I had bought and played at this point last generation.

Besides, with the possibility of game systems going exclusively to more expensive set-top boxes, the next generation systems may be out of my price range ($199 is my limit for a console) and I could catch up on the games I'm missing out on now in the future.

As far as I'm concerned, this is the first time owning a console has been something worth doing in a decade. I'd say it's somewhat of a nirvana... I don't like the fact that the PC games market is starting to trail behind and shrink though. I still prefer to play games on a PC. In any case, it's a great time to be a gamer. I feel sorry for the poor people of the forum... I'll play a tiny violin for your collective sorrow. ;)

The irony is when you finally can afford it you dont have the time to enjoy it.

Word. ;)

Since this topic is somehow turning into a "competition is good for gamers" thread...

There are essentially two tiers of competition in the console world: between consoles and between developers. In my opinion, the competition between developers is vastly more important than that between consoles.

What happens if there is only one dominant console? Worst case scenario, the console lasts a couple more years than it would otherwise (e.g. Gameboy, Atari, NES). That console gets saturated with games, just about everyone who is going to buy that console already has one, and the next generation is released, either by the same company (GBA), or another one (NES for Atari, Genesis for NES). There are still tons of great games available for these consoles all throughout their lifetimes.

But PCs have been essentially the same for several times the life cycle of consoles. In the gaming world, Apple, Commodore, etc... haven't been relevant since the 80's. Yet are always been tons of great games coming out. Virtually no competition between platforms, it's all between developers.

And if you want to argue that by nature PCs and consoles are competitors...then fine, but then it kinda defeats your whole argument; why does there need to be competition in the console market when there's already competition from PCs?

For one I doubt we would have the net adapter for the PS2 if it werent for the Box.

To a degree, competition between console brings about competition between developers.

This is mainly true of first and second party development teams. They have to make their games as good as possible because they are the most important in fighting off the competition from the other consoles as they are exclusives.

Third party devlopers compete to make good games, because they know if they make something great like GTA3, then the console companies will be throwing boatloads of money at them to get their games as exclusives for there console, again to fight off competition from the other consoles.

This whole topic is way off the posts subject. What else is new? ...

*finger and thumb rubbing together* hehehe... :p

the problem is, i can really only play one game at a time b/c i get easily confused w/ the controls.

ok, to sort of bring the subject back into topic... what are the figures for the Xbox?

I don't believe MS has said anything yet.

Yeah, all we have are figures from July for the Xbox - back then they were projecting 9 to 11 million units sold by fiscal year end July 2003. They also said their sales had jumped 131% or something. They are looking to have a really good Christmas if you believe what they believe. They are entering the Korean market (which is pretty new to console gaming in general) this Christmas and their price is dropping in Europe which is expected to be a huge market for them. As for actual figures, they have yet to release any. They are way behind GC in Japan, but it's not like that's newsworthy. On an interesting note, the busiest area at the Tokyo Game Show was the DOA Extreme Beach Vollyball exhibit so I'm told. Perhaps that combined with the fact that the Japanese market likes Xbox's online plan as opposed to the PS2s (regarding it as 'too expensive') means that sales might improve in Japan this Christmas as well. This is mostly just conjecture and speculation, but most of these tidbits are from articles I've been reading while looking for Xbox sales data. :)

Oh, I'm not trying to suggest that the consoles don't have any effect on one another. But online console gaming was an inevitability. Even if there was only one console maker, they'd be tapping that market sooner or later. My bottom line is that while competition accelerates the technology curve a bit, I don't believe we as gamers get as large a benefit for this as many people think. Because when it comes down to it, whether there's 1 console or 30, there's always going to be a ton of crappy games.

Competition is good. Sure I had to buy three consoles, but at least the consoles are affordable. If there was a monopoly the PS3 or whatever might end up costing as much as two consoles currently cost.

Hope to see all three carry on and keep prices down and keep pushing each other technology wise.

True, but I'd argue that the proportion of good games to crappy games would be much lower if there wasn't solid competition between consoles going on.

Basically, I'd say that competition between consoles doesn't reduce the number of crappy games, but it does increase the number of AAA games as each console tries to get a jump on the other.

XBOX sales haven't been stellar(as of the last time I read about them), but I believe that with the price drop and the huge list of upcoming games, it should do well this holiday. Buying RARE and having announced games like Panzer Dragoon Orta, Ninja Gaiden, Halo 2(though far off), and getting MGS 2: Substance and Splinter Cell first will give it the boost it needs to get away from being the "Halo Machine". I'm still a bit uncertain about online console gaming(not an interest of mine, or anyone that I know), but having the better up front plan should help out as well. I don't think it will surpass the GameCube, with Nintendo finally beginning to release their classics, but only time will tell. I'm guessing all the systems will do well, with PS2's flying off the shelves(as if everyone in the world didn't own one already) for GTA: Vice City and such.