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[massivekettle]

Actually if you restrict sales to just to the period that all 3 major platform holders are offering the same generational line-up PS4 is actually Playstation's best selling console. PS2 had barely hit 100m units when 360 came out, they shipped a further 50+m after that. You can still Google the then contemporary news reports to see when Sony announced they passed the 100m shipment mark, it was at the end of November 2005!

This stuff simply isn't debatable, you can corroborate when this happened using numerous news reports from when it happened . All of which makes the fantastical version of history presented by Nhranaghacon easy as pie to debunk.

PS2's generation was shorter by anywhere from 1-2 years vs. PS4, though it undoubtedly benefited from launching earlier and having exclusive deals with third-party publishers.

Moreover, as I was saying before, the size of the video games market more than doubled from 2000 (PS2 launch year) to 2013 (PS4 launch year), with consoles market growing c. 30-35%. It's unlikely Sony will ever achieve the kind of domination/penetration it achieved with the PS2, considering the bulk of the growth in gaming nowadays is in mobile. PS4 has been an incredible performer, don't get me wrong, but it will take something else to repeat what the PS2 achieved.

Market data here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...me-top-analyst-sees-industry-slumping-in-2019

 

[Megatron]

Sony didn't overpay for those companies. They've actually been making big profits.

Microsoft definitely overpaid for Bethesda. Microsoft thinks they can just throw money at everything and it'll fix their problems. It's going to take years for them so see any type of profit from their Bethesda deal, even with Game Pass. They didn't use their gaming studio profits, they used the software profits. That's the difference.

lol. That’s the line now? How good of a deal Microsoft made? How about let their highly paid financial analysts worry about whether or not they made a good deal. You know, the people who actually see the numbers?

And Sony hasn’t made a profit on Insomniac. 1) they haven’t released any games since the acquisition. 2) buying them was arguably pointless since they already were back to making games exclusively for Sony after Sunset Overdrive bombed. (Unless you’re worried that MS would have bought them, but I don’t think they would have, as they only go after studios with IPs.)

 

[thelastword]

So buying more studios and locking more games is not anti-consumer anymore? I thought Phil said if it was up to him all games would be available on all platforms....

 

[ZywyPL]

I thought Phil said if it was up to him all games would be available on all platforms....

That's why they want to push GP on as many platforms as possible.

 

[Estocolmo]

Yeah, why couldn’t they create a studio like Insomniac or Guerilla The way Sony did?

playground Games, just to name one.

 

[Clear]

PS2's generation was shorter by anywhere from 1-2 years vs. PS4, though it undoubtedly benefited from launching earlier and having exclusive deals with third-party publishers.

Moreover, as I was saying before, the size of the video games market more than doubled from 2000 (PS2 launch year) to 2013 (PS4 launch year), with consoles market growing c. 30-35%. It's unlikely Sony will ever achieve the kind of domination/penetration it achieved with the PS2, considering the bulk of the growth in gaming nowadays is in mobile. PS4 has been an incredible performer, don't get me wrong, but it will take something else to repeat what the PS2 achieved.

Market data here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...me-top-analyst-sees-industry-slumping-in-2019

Once again, what's the definition of generation? Is it when a certain class of products launched, or is it strictly the span of time between successor products.

I always stick with the former because in the latter case all it takes is a single product to fail, and thus have truncated life-span (like Wii-U) and the whole generational cycle gets thrown off. Which to me kinda defeats the purpose because usually we are comparing platform holders performance, not just a singular provider's history

As to your point about overall market size, its again a somewhat pointless thing to compare because while the market has grown, its largely due to globalization and the frgamentation of the gaming market into different segments as defined by device-type. Moreover the assumption that these segments are directly competitive is in my opinion suspect, I don't believe smartphone gaming has had an inhibiting effect on home console sales for instance.

 

[oagboghi2]

You call selling >150m consoles over 3 generations a failure?

When your competition sells 300 -400 million, yes

 

[JLB]

When your competition sells 300 -400 million, yes

So for you Sony as a whole is a failure because is 20 times smaller than MS, and things like that right? Or Iphone for the case.

 

[Texas Pride]

They won't stop until they've taken over gaming and ruined it. Some will laugh sure. We'll all be sorry later.

 

[The Leaked Truths]

So buying more studios and locking more games is not anti-consumer anymore? I thought Phil said if it was up to him all games would be available on all platforms....

...where xCloud or Game Pass is

 

[Nhranaghacon]

This is some next level of revisionist history coupled with redefining the goal posts to win the argument. We can probably declare the Saturn a winner too if we only count the months PS1 was not on the market yet .

Historical fact is suddenly revisionist history?

I was there, nothing I've said is revisionist. 360 dominated the PS3 during it's time in production and did it without needing to drop prices.

Here are the numbers (below) without accounting for 360's numbers exceeding the PS3 sales in Russia.

With those numbers in place 360 blew past PS3 while maintaining a premium price point with a final count of 112 million consoles sold.

And that is despite the fact that PS3 did not officially end production as a premium product and dropped prices to 39.99 across it's Asian markets.

Who Finally Won: PS3 or Xbox 360? - The Escapist

www.escapistmagazine.com

Over time Sony’s underperforming console surged in sales globally. In fact, the war between the PS3 behemoth and self-destructing Xbox 360 may have been closer than it first appeared. First pointed out by Resetera users ArmGunar and Kolx, Sony’s corporate page updated the official number of PS3 units sold through to actual human beings rather than retailers. As of March 2017, the PS3 had moved 87.4 million units, surpassing the final recorded Xbox 360 tally of 84 million in 2014. Who knows what those machines racked up in terms of late sales over the past five years, but it’s remarkable to discover how close they were to each other all by the final accounting.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Historical fact is suddenly revisionist history?

I was there, nothing I've said is revisionist. 360 dominated the PS3 during it's time in production and did it without needing to drop prices.

Here are the numbers (below) without accounting for 360's numbers exceeding the PS3 sales in Russia.

With those numbers in place 360 blew past PS3 while maintaining a premium price point with a final count of 112 million consoles sold.

And that is despite the fact that PS3 did not officially end production as a premium product and dropped prices to 39.99 across it's Asian markets.

Who Finally Won: PS3 or Xbox 360? - The Escapist

www.escapistmagazine.com

Over time Sony’s underperforming console surged in sales globally. In fact, the war between the PS3 behemoth and self-destructing Xbox 360 may have been closer than it first appeared. First pointed out by Resetera users ArmGunar and Kolx, Sony’s corporate page updated the official number of PS3 units sold through to actual human beings rather than retailers. As of March 2017, the PS3 had moved 87.4 million units, surpassing the final recorded Xbox 360 tally of 84 million in 2014. Who knows what those machines racked up in terms of late sales over the past five years, but it’s remarkable to discover how close they were to each other all by the final accounting.

112 Million? ... “we could have destroyed them and the Wii, but why spoil the fun... let them “think” we arrived last again”... sure...

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Microsoft cut production of the 360 after winning the generation handedly. PS3 dropped in price across the Asian market's significantly (39.99) and remained in production overseas.

Of MS (or any other company) cuts the production of a product it's because there is not enough demand for it, at least not at a price that makes it profitable to do so. I don't recall Xbox 360s being sold out all over the place back.

I mean, there is no reason to phase out your product until another overtake its market, at this point there were just not that many people interested in the 360... MS had tons of marketing power behind their machine during that period!