Bloomberg is reporting that the sales of the PlayStation 3 are quickly gaining ground on the Xbox 360. Unfortunately for Sony, the fight is only to see who can win the crown of second place. The Wii has had an unrelenting death grip on first for a good time now. According to Sony’s chief executive officer Howard Stringer, it doesn’t matter where the Wii is, in fact, he doesn’t even consider it as a force to be reckoned with:
I've played a Nintendo Wii. I don't see it as a competitor. It's more of an expensive niche game device. We're selling a lot of PlayStation 3s now and it's still the best way to buy a Blu-ray player.
Stringer made this comment in an interview at a conference in Idaho last week. Bloomberg couldn’t catch a Nintendo executive for comment on the quote. Probably because they were all too busy building mansions and yachts out of cash from the sales of the Wii. Microsoft’s David Dennis got in on the article with the a much more subtle line of “the race is far from over and we are confident that we have a winning strategy.”
Personally, I love that Sony and Microsoft are beginning to get neck and neck in sales. The competition can only mean great things for consumers. Yet, I wonder what is up with the particularly rabid Wii comments? It must really hurt to still not be considered the leading console after all those years of leading the pack last generation. For now, we’ll leave these guys to have a nice interview fight, and hopefully reap the rewards from the clash of consoles at E3 this year.
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Contest:
5:33 AM on 07.14.2008
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I've had my Wii since launch day and have managed to find a few good games while sorting past the shovelware. I just bought a PS3 to have a Blu-Ray player and to upconvert PS2 games. Still haven't bought any games for it. It's library is also a bit lacking. I'm not playing favorites.
Oh...
Unfortunately for your argument, the proportion of population who 'knows a lick about gaming' is small. There are a lot of parents in the world (with kids too young to make their own income) who would consider a gaming console to be an essential entertainment device for their kids. At the same time, they also feel that one console is all that's necessary. The majority of these families would purchase a Wii, especially if they "didn't know a lick about gaming" The most accessible, kid friendly, cheapest console? Yes, please! The point being, there are millions of Wiis that have been purchased exclusively, thereby negating the chance of a possible sale for the PS3 or 360. Stringer's comments equate to "that guy totally kicked my ass, but since I didn't want to fight him, I didn't really get my ass kicked" It doesn't add up.
Totally agree with you. I still see it as a fad myself, like when we all rushed out to the shops for Tamagotchis, Light Up Yo Yos, Those LCD handhelds with '250+' games on them...etc.
Although saying that, Nintendo found their market.
Another thing; Have you looked how many games on PS3 and 360 are suitable for children (12+) compared to the last couple of gens? I rest my case. Once PS3 get back onto that adult/children ratio of games again, everything'll be back to normal. That is, UNLESS 360 beats them to it.
When will developers/Publishers/Console Manufacturers realise that Blood, Brown-vision, violence, gunfire and Guts doesn't exactly sell systems to parents for their kids and I guess with the Wii, parents with bugger all hand eye-coordination can attempt to 'play' games and be 'hip' grinning like a fool as they shake a bloody plastic stick.
You do realize that the ones who were making the "family friendly" games for PS2 were the likes of THQ, Ubisoft, etc. who've now found money printers in the Wii, right?
@PixelJunky
You say it's ipod mania, but has Sandisk stepped up to claim that they're not competing with Apple for the mp3 player market? Sure, lots of people bought ipods because it was the cool thing, but they're also very capable players. Not my cup o' tea, but they work.
You guys are both dead on and I completely agree with you too, but Stringer is quite point on with his assessment. The only thing he doesn't seem to do is give some credit where it's due. The Wii is selling like crazy, but I still don't think it'll catch the PS2 total install. Nintendo will release Wii-2 before that time. Nintendo will follow the ipod model and keep playing off this consumer feeding frenzy before they figure out that many other options are giving you more bang for the buck.
My arguement to the kid friendly games, PS2 and PSP have plenty and are cheaper than Wii.
I like Nintendo alot, but have no intention of buying a Wii at that price. It's WAY too expensive for the tech you are getting, but the majority don't really know that....they just think "the Jone's are getting one, I must need one too".
Actually it was Naughty Dog, Insomniac games, Sony Cambridge, Sony Liverpool and Suckerpunch and they're all part of Sony and old Ubisoft games didn't just involve minigames they were sort of challenging and playable, take the REAL Rayman series, PoP, THQ's Destroy All Humans and SCEJ's Ape Escape.
Just giving games to kids that involve no real logic just makes the idea of a game pointless in my opinion, because from what I see a vast collection of the Wiis library is minigames and have no complete narrative, I find with a lot of the games on the system (Wii) seems a bit of a backwards step compared to what we've previously achieved.
They aren't games for every taste. No one would claim that Zack and Wiki and No More Heroes have the same mainstream appeal as GTA. Even so, it's the huge number of unique titles on the Wii taht make it the"something for everybody" console of the moment, even more so than the 360.
And maybe more importantly, the continued success of the Wii shows that the mainstream doesn't care about the difference between the visuals of Wii games and 360/PS3 games, just as they didn't care about the difference between PS2 games and XBox/GC games.
The console with the most diverse library of fun games always wins, and that's not necessarily the console that provides the most processing power for your buck.
Niche: "a small area of trade within the economy, often involving specialized products" (from the Cambridge dictionary).
Wii sales - gazillions.
Erm, okay Mr. Sony exec.
I wish Sony would just shut their stupid fucking faces, they sacrificed the PS3 to get Blu-Ray a foothold, Microsoft fucked up with piss poor QA and releasing new SKUs every few months among other things and Nintendo came out with an affordable console that appealed to people who were previously just playing 'casual' games on their PC when they had a spare 5 mins or not playing at all.
Also, lol @ the expensive comment coming from a Sony rep. Fuck you Howard Stringer, and no I don't even own a Wii.
Then again, at least it's not 450 euro for a PS3 with 1 decent controller, or 260 for a breaking 360 ;)
I agree with Stringer completely. Oh wait, he wasn't talking about the PS3 (or to a slightly lesser degree the 360). We're getting our asses kicked by Nintendo's non-HD waggle box, so let's pretend they're not really our competitor.
Someone needs to refamiliarize himself with the definition of "niche". But then again, can we expect anything other than bullshit PR spin from any of the big three's executive?
I wasn't defending the Wii - I'm in the same boat as you in terms of my personal feelings towards the Wii. I won't own one, not at the price they're asking for it. The most attractive thing about the Wii, to me, is the retro games available on VC, and I can play all of those games via emulation on my PC, or on a modded Xbox. The Wii will most likely be the first Nintendo console I will never own.
It does not matter that most of the great games are by nintnedo, they are still great games, as for your request of what games are whort playing, you could try Boom Blox, Ssx blur and medal of honor heroes 2, and of course those nintendo games that you seem to discard, i dont know why.
...However I also agree with sweetchuck. You have to give them credit. The system launched about 2 years ago and they till can't keep them in stock. Reminds me of the old Sega/NES 8bit/16bit argument.
At any rate, I own all 3 systems and I like each one. Wii is more party/pick up games, where as my ps3 and xbox is my "spend hours playing" machines.
Yeah... if you consider the N64 to be Nintendo's first console. And ignore handhelds.
Anyway, there are some great third party games for the Wii- Zack & Wiki, No More Heroes, Geometry Wars Galaxies, Trauma Center, Boom Blox, Okami (a port, but still great on the Wii), RE4 (ditto), Umbrella Chronicles, and Mercury Meltdown Revolution, to name my favorites. Then there's WiiWare, which brings a lot of smaller developers to the fold and has already launched a cool new (third-party) franchise- LostWinds.
I would love to see more third-party devs making games that really take advantage of the Wii hardware, and I'm hoping that E3 will bring some surprises for the back half of 2008, as it's looking prety dry, but I'm pretty satisfied at the moment.
These are people who would never have considered buying a PS3 or 360. And Nintendo is pulling these people in by the truckload.
So in essence, Stringer is right. But I'll bet he wishes he was wrong, and could get at least some of that Nintendo market for the PS3.
Also, how long does something have to be successful before you morons realize it isn't a "fad"? Nintendo apologizes that the visuals aren't quite as good as the other boxes that cost way more money. Brawl looks just fine on my 1080p tv, no complaints here. (NG2 looks good as well). But the only people who care about the overemphasized, yet realistically, slight jump in the visuals is Microsoft and Sony fans who need fuel for their fire. Get over it. How can the cheapest console be overpriced? and furthermore, if they're still selling out, why the fuck would Nintendo lower the price? So the $1500+ you spent on that big bad hdtv is ok, but the $250 is too much? You guys must have failed debate class.
I swear I love my PS3, but all the people who work for that company are idiots.
The only game on my Wii that gave me some what of a sweet involving game romp was No More Heroes and Mad World looks to be like the next one in line.