I'm not surprised but I don't think the PS3 situation was at cut and dry over the price as this article remembers. The price was widely mocked but we can't forget about the "PS3 has no games"...
I'm not surprised but I don't think the PS3 situation was at cut and dry over the price as this article remembers. The price was widely mocked but we can't forget about the "PS3 has no games" notion from that era. The PS3 had very little that people wanted for the first few years of its lifespan which, combined with the sky high price point of US$600, did not go well for it. The Xbox 360 had exclusives like Dead Rising, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Halo 3 that were all making huge splashes while the PS3 had... Resistance? Until Uncharted 2 in 2009, the PS3's exclusive situation was notoriously light.
The PS4 showed that Sony learned the right lesson from the PS3: hubris and lack of content spell trouble. It feels like the same lesson Microsoft's Xbox team learned this past generation with the Xbox One (what is it with third generation egos?).
So now I wouldn't be surprised if Sony found themselves in a bit of a spot due to what they're trying to do. I really think they are aiming to bake VR right into the console, between the runaway success that was PSVR and some of the announced PS5 features (that Tempest 3D audio system is the single biggest clue). I don't think they're going to be able to achieve a sub-PS3 price unless they eat some heavy loss leader pricing but if the PS5 can deliver a world class VR experience with little to no setup, and their hardware can support high level performance, I don't think their price point will be that big of a barrier in terms of longterm adoption.
It's hubris, plain and simple. What's interesting is: I think it goes much further back! So, Nintendo found great success with the Wii and botched it hard with the Wii U. Sony had the most...
what is it with third generation egos
It's hubris, plain and simple. What's interesting is: I think it goes much further back! So, Nintendo found great success with the Wii and botched it hard with the Wii U. Sony had the most successful console ever with the PS2 and nearly crashed with the PS3 (long term, things worked out for them, but what a bleak launch). Microsoft became the console of a generation in the US and dropped everything for "TV" and Kinect with the Xbox One. They took their market leader position for granted and "branched out" but they had no idea what they were doing with the new branches while all their competitors learned from their success and perfected what made their previous generation successful.
But even before the Wii U, Nintendo also made the Virtual Boy, dropped an offer for a CD-based system ("Nintendo Playstation") in favor of a licensing partnership with the Philips CD-i and I'd argue even the N64 fits this pattern to a point. It always goes hand in hand with a high price point and/or a lack of games, maybe the two are related?
Sega probably also played this game until their hardware business was no longer feasible.
Ohh, I could go on for a bit about the disaster that was the Wii U but the short of it is that Nintendo massively misfired when it came to brand marketing with it, and the confusion it caused is...
Ohh, I could go on for a bit about the disaster that was the Wii U but the short of it is that Nintendo massively misfired when it came to brand marketing with it, and the confusion it caused is actually what brought it down. It wasn't quite hubris on the same level as what happened with Sony and Microsoft so much as it was Nintendo totally misunderstanding which people bought the Wii and what the name meant to them.
I know the theory about the confusing advertising (people thought the Wii U was an accessory for the Wii) but I don't buy this as the main/sole reason it flopped. IMO it was simply because they...
I know the theory about the confusing advertising (people thought the Wii U was an accessory for the Wii) but I don't buy this as the main/sole reason it flopped. IMO it was simply because they relied on an input gimmick for the sake of there being an input gimmick. And nobody knew what to do with it. Not their developers, not their customers, no one.
They thought people bought the Wii for being innovative but that's not true, people bought the Wii because it was exciting. Parents saw their kids actually moving while playing games, nerds wondered whether accurate motion tracking could work in shooting and sword-fighting games. That's the entire sales pitch of the Wii. It was simple, it was something new and it worked.
Nothing about the Wii U was exciting. No games could truly show what the added benefits of the tablet were (because they were like two gimmicks, repeated over and over). If they had a single system-seller-type game to advertise it, people would have known that the "U" was a new console. Kids would talk about it at school and pester their parents, nerds would wonder about the endless possibilities of that tablet. But there wasn't enough (I won't say "nothing" but Nintendo Land and Zombi U aren't what people buy a new console for).
So I think the real problem with the Wii U was that there were too few great games and that is actually just a symptom of its hardware focus. Over its lifetime, it did get some good games (including Breath of the Wild), but it got them despite its hardware not because of it. In the mean time, games like Star Fox Zero had to fill a holiday season. It was ridiculous! People looked at the console and asked why they should buy it and Nintendo was like... "uhh, well you can see a little map on your controller and play while someone else wants to watch tv!". I remember how puzzled everyone was around its announcement. Everyone wondered whether that's it. People thought that it was a Wii accessory because it was about as exciting as a Wii accessory.
Agree totally but with a few more points: Many people didn't realize the Wii U was a new console. They thought it was an overpriced tablet accessory for the Wii. Check out these ads Nintendo ran...
Agree totally but with a few more points:
Many people didn't realize the Wii U was a new console. They thought it was an overpriced tablet accessory for the Wii. Check out these ads Nintendo ran for the console: 1, 2, 3.
Brand confusion. After decades of people expecting a "Nintendo x", Nintendo decided the Wii brand was enough to stand on its own without the Nintendo name. Compare the GameCube ads and how prominently Nintendo's name is with the console (1, 2, 3) with how unstated their name could literally be with the Wii ads (1, 2). So of course this only lent to the confusion from the first point. As the Nintendo Switch has shown, the naming scheme has to be Nintendo x for people to know it's a new console when it doesn't have the handy numerical signifier that the PlayStation and (to a lesser degree) the Xbox have.
I'd argue that the Switch was the winner, since it brought a portable console experience to the masses and got a lot of people to rebuy a lot of games, but I guess you can make a similar case for...
I'd argue that the Switch was the winner, since it brought a portable console experience to the masses and got a lot of people to rebuy a lot of games, but I guess you can make a similar case for PS4 with their exclusives, and Xbox for the Game Pass. So no real winner would be a valid answer as well, I suppose.
PS3 had a number of great games early on, but most of them were fairly niche and mostly Japanese in origin. Games like folktale were pretty good, but tell that to an audience who stopped playing...
PS3 had a number of great games early on, but most of them were fairly niche and mostly Japanese in origin. Games like folktale were pretty good, but tell that to an audience who stopped playing JRPGs a few years back.
I’ve been thinking of getting one of these when they drop because PlayStation exclusive games seem to have a pretty interesting catalogue.... but I’m not too sure if what I’m hearing is good news...
I’ve been thinking of getting one of these when they drop because PlayStation exclusive games seem to have a pretty interesting catalogue.... but I’m not too sure if what I’m hearing is good news or not. Would you still say it’s a good buy for catalogue?
I'm not surprised but I don't think the PS3 situation was at cut and dry over the price as this article remembers. The price was widely mocked but we can't forget about the "PS3 has no games" notion from that era. The PS3 had very little that people wanted for the first few years of its lifespan which, combined with the sky high price point of US$600, did not go well for it. The Xbox 360 had exclusives like Dead Rising, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Halo 3 that were all making huge splashes while the PS3 had... Resistance? Until Uncharted 2 in 2009, the PS3's exclusive situation was notoriously light.
The PS4 showed that Sony learned the right lesson from the PS3: hubris and lack of content spell trouble. It feels like the same lesson Microsoft's Xbox team learned this past generation with the Xbox One (what is it with third generation egos?).
So now I wouldn't be surprised if Sony found themselves in a bit of a spot due to what they're trying to do. I really think they are aiming to bake VR right into the console, between the runaway success that was PSVR and some of the announced PS5 features (that Tempest 3D audio system is the single biggest clue). I don't think they're going to be able to achieve a sub-PS3 price unless they eat some heavy loss leader pricing but if the PS5 can deliver a world class VR experience with little to no setup, and their hardware can support high level performance, I don't think their price point will be that big of a barrier in terms of longterm adoption.
It's hubris, plain and simple. What's interesting is: I think it goes much further back! So, Nintendo found great success with the Wii and botched it hard with the Wii U. Sony had the most successful console ever with the PS2 and nearly crashed with the PS3 (long term, things worked out for them, but what a bleak launch). Microsoft became the console of a generation in the US and dropped everything for "TV" and Kinect with the Xbox One. They took their market leader position for granted and "branched out" but they had no idea what they were doing with the new branches while all their competitors learned from their success and perfected what made their previous generation successful.
But even before the Wii U, Nintendo also made the Virtual Boy, dropped an offer for a CD-based system ("Nintendo Playstation") in favor of a licensing partnership with the Philips CD-i and I'd argue even the N64 fits this pattern to a point. It always goes hand in hand with a high price point and/or a lack of games, maybe the two are related?
Sega probably also played this game until their hardware business was no longer feasible.
Ohh, I could go on for a bit about the disaster that was the Wii U but the short of it is that Nintendo massively misfired when it came to brand marketing with it, and the confusion it caused is actually what brought it down. It wasn't quite hubris on the same level as what happened with Sony and Microsoft so much as it was Nintendo totally misunderstanding which people bought the Wii and what the name meant to them.
I know the theory about the confusing advertising (people thought the Wii U was an accessory for the Wii) but I don't buy this as the main/sole reason it flopped. IMO it was simply because they relied on an input gimmick for the sake of there being an input gimmick. And nobody knew what to do with it. Not their developers, not their customers, no one.
They thought people bought the Wii for being innovative but that's not true, people bought the Wii because it was exciting. Parents saw their kids actually moving while playing games, nerds wondered whether accurate motion tracking could work in shooting and sword-fighting games. That's the entire sales pitch of the Wii. It was simple, it was something new and it worked.
Nothing about the Wii U was exciting. No games could truly show what the added benefits of the tablet were (because they were like two gimmicks, repeated over and over). If they had a single system-seller-type game to advertise it, people would have known that the "U" was a new console. Kids would talk about it at school and pester their parents, nerds would wonder about the endless possibilities of that tablet. But there wasn't enough (I won't say "nothing" but Nintendo Land and Zombi U aren't what people buy a new console for).
So I think the real problem with the Wii U was that there were too few great games and that is actually just a symptom of its hardware focus. Over its lifetime, it did get some good games (including Breath of the Wild), but it got them despite its hardware not because of it. In the mean time, games like Star Fox Zero had to fill a holiday season. It was ridiculous! People looked at the console and asked why they should buy it and Nintendo was like... "uhh, well you can see a little map on your controller and play while someone else wants to watch tv!". I remember how puzzled everyone was around its announcement. Everyone wondered whether that's it. People thought that it was a Wii accessory because it was about as exciting as a Wii accessory.
Agree totally but with a few more points:
I just hope that, for the sake of consumers, this generation doesn’t have a clear undisputed “winner”.
I'd argue that the Switch was the winner, since it brought a portable console experience to the masses and got a lot of people to rebuy a lot of games, but I guess you can make a similar case for PS4 with their exclusives, and Xbox for the Game Pass. So no real winner would be a valid answer as well, I suppose.
I see. By “this” I was actually referring to the next generation though.
Cross platform games also looked and ran worse on the platform than they did on the 360 during that "PS3 has no games" time frame.
PS3 had a number of great games early on, but most of them were fairly niche and mostly Japanese in origin. Games like folktale were pretty good, but tell that to an audience who stopped playing JRPGs a few years back.
I’ve been thinking of getting one of these when they drop because PlayStation exclusive games seem to have a pretty interesting catalogue.... but I’m not too sure if what I’m hearing is good news or not. Would you still say it’s a good buy for catalogue?
it's backward compatible with ps4 games, if you didn't play those i'd say get one just for those exclusives.