ho ho ho sony..... "We copied it first!"

Sure, sony. And I bet sony invented the internet and chocolate.

Next, Nintendo's gonna release a "Death Panel Game" for your grandma to play with and M$ is going to ration your playing time by charging 1590 MS points per hour!

I like to make crap up too.

technically, kaz is correct - introducing a games console to households that don't play games. but that's where he falters: people bought ps2s without buying games. it was just a dvd player to them. just like the ps3 now: there are a chunk of them that were bought because it was the only blu-ray player and many more probably just got one game.

the wii sure is casual, but people who buy them buy them with games in mind. to a lot of people who bought ps2s and now ps3s, games are still icky to them (recall at launch: blu-ray player, can play video games too).

"And with our Eyetoy, we've brought motion control to video games!"

The PS2 was the console that caused people to stop saying "let's play video games" and instead say "let's play on the Playstation." It used to really bug me because I was like "um... there are other good consoles to play as well you know?"

Sony Playstation 2 invented religion. That's why people bought it and have it in the middle of their living room. Seriously, Sony, just because your console is a best selling one, it doesn't mean that there wasn't any videogaming into households. Didja hear Atari complaining? Nintendo?? no. But, in the E3, I heard that Sony RAWKS because PS2 sells better than PS3... Seriously.....

I love sony, they crack me up!

What a bunch of stinky BS... What's the necessity for such ridiculous statements, filled with jealousy?

Some of these guys are right Jim. The PS2 really was the first console that was widely accepted by people. Adults made up it's largest demographic.

It made it cool to play games.

If it wasn't for the PS2 I don't think half my friends would be gamers.

But as for the term "mainstream", eh, I'll give you that Jim.

Mainstream in the truest sense of the word is what the Wii's audience is: Everybody.

An interesting conjecture about third place, though I think Sony's quick drop from first has caused them to go into denial- how else could they cope with having gone from a console that has sold hundreds of millions to one that is outperformed by the same?

Nintendo was slow to react to shifting markets as well. After the SNES we had the Playstation embed itself as the cultural gaming standard instead of the N64, and the Gamecube only came out in time to catch the brunt of that shift. Until the Wii was launched to generally insane amounts of good press, it wasn't outlandish to write off Nintendo as past its prime.

So I think that Sony, the massive monolith of a company it is, is just taking time to absorb all this new market information. That's the only way I can comprehend comments like this aren't just an elaborate joke. Though if they are... well played sirs.

I whole-heartedly agree with Sony on this point. It was without doubt the PS2 that made gaming "Cool". Even in the days of PS1, talking to my friends in high-school about Xenogears, Metal Gear Solid and Resident evil got us harassed by the "cool" kids and jocks. Then suddenly the PS2 comes out and those same people are talking about how cool Madden or NHL is on PS2 or how sweet MGS2 is going to be.
Has Nintendo expanded on this? you bet. Have they reached an even wider audience now than ever before? absolutely. Does this change the fact that is was absolutely the PS2 that made gaming cool for everyone and not just nerd? Not a chance.

Jim: This is totally not unreasonable by Sony. I would say that since the days of the Atari 2600/VCS, no other single system did as much to bring videogames into the mainstream. The PS2 gave gaming a semblance of social acceptability, which it had lacked for the previous 20 years.

I'd have to agree with you, just as Nintendo has stated ludicrous statements as well. And lately the Activision head-honcho has said some pretty silly things too.

And for those agreeing with Kaz Hirai, you could just as well say the NES "broke into the mainstream" as well, but the bottom line is that when even old people at retirement homes know of and enjoy playing the Wii, THAT is true mainstream penetration.

When you're in last place in anything you'll make up almost anything to make yourself still feel like a winner ...like Sony just has. Besides, Nintendo doesn't have time to respond to ridiculous comments when it is busy celebrating over the recent success of Wii Sports Resort and MotionPlus sales.


PS2 was a big hit for sure, but it did not break the barrier and quite frankly, it would seem that it owes much of its success to the introduction of the dvd player on the home console (as crappy as it is).

Dreamcast was better then the Playstation. I never knew why people bought those retarded damn things.

how is he not right though? nothing wrong with a company flexing it's main muscle, you're gonna blame them for this?

Nintendo started gaming in 1975 also. They shipped 470 Million units to date. They started more than 20 years before Sony jumped into gaming and Sony had backed Nintendo until they decided to jump into the console market. What happened when Sony stopped supporting Nintendo? We all know what happened but i'll spell it out for you.

Nintendo created the N64 and Gamecube. They both got rocked by the Sony brand hardware known as the Playstation. Sony outsold N64 by over 98 million. Sony proceeded to trounce the Gamecube with the Playstation 2 by 110 Million.

As you can see in the mid 90's and early 2000's Sony destroyed everything that came into the market. Alot of the negative press is because Sony (the juggernaut of the industry for the better part of a decade) reached slower sales. What happens when the most important company for gamings sales drop? Sony gets negative press and studios start to close down shop.

If you haven't noticed lots of studio's have been going south lately. Closing up shop. If Sony had sold somewhere around 50-60 million units by now, do you think alot of them would be down and out? Their abysmal sales would be padded wouldn't they by more consumers to buy the product? Instead of 1 million sales and losing tons of money they'd be at 3-4 million sales and making alot of income. More income, better engines, more room to hire, more people, more eyes, and more talents in a said studio to improve the gaming experience over time.

Mainstream ≠ most sold, guys. The Wii's been out for almost 3 years, and sold about 22 million. The PS2 has been out for 9 years and sold 100 million. Both worldwide Not to mentioned, it took 9 years for it to reach that 100mil. And you can't honestly tell me that the PS2 was highly mainstream.

Sure, it was definitely more popular than its predecessors, but the Wii has been in thousands of fucking TV shows and movies, because it's recognizable. That's not to say it brought gaming into the mainstream, though- just that it is the most recognized, mainstream console to exist. Does that mean it broke the barrier? Possibly. All I know is that the PS2 did not.

From its inception in 2000, th PS2 has been popular, but not in the foremost social circles of the world. The Wii, however, is fucking blowing up. And I hate that, because, well, the Wii generally sucks. I'm not trying to defend Nintendo here, I'm simply saying that maybe Jim isn't so crazy.


Maybe.

Holy shit, my numbers were off. The Wii has sold a projected 52 million units worldwide in three years. Three years. In less than half of the lifespan of the PS2, the Wii has sold over half of the PS2's current units sold. Throw in a metric fuckton of product placement, a bunch of advertising dollars, and the (currently) most popular console in the US- baby, you got a stew goin'.

And before everyone jumps on my fucking coattails, I absolutely love the PS2. Love love love love. I own both a Wii and a PS2, but that doesn't mean shit in a world full of fanboys. The Wii generally annoys me. But you can't argue with sales numbers.

Sony's Playstation was perhaps the first to taste the success of mainstream appeal but it did no break the barrier. In addition, while Nintendo has not sold as many hardware units as the PS1 or PS2, it accomplished something that Sony did not - reaching beyond the core and casual gamer to the expanded audience which in term resulted in the platform appealing to a wider age range of gamers.

Also, it isn't just the platform tha matters but also the software as well. Sony doesn't have a single title that can stand up to the success and contribution of the role Wii Sports has played in the mass appeal of the Wii.

I hate to say it but he's not entirely wrong. While the Playstation 2 hasn't had nearly the mainstream success the Wii has, it has played a fairly vital role in getting video games into the mainstream. When Grand Theft Auto 3 came out for the Playstation 2, scores of people who wouldn't normally play video games played this game. It was heavily talked about and I know that when I was in school I'd hear about the game all the time. It was a big thing and it really got in the mainstream. Vice City had a very similar effect.

Halo, of course, had a huge role in getting gaming into the mainstream.

But one of the biggest games to get the hobby of video games into the main stream was Guitar Hero, released for the PS2. It was a great party game that everyone played and it got tons of people into video games. Guitar Hero 2 did it as much as Guitar Hero 1 did, if not more.
I mean, Guitar Hero had an enormous impact on video games and the mainstream's views of it. You can't deny it.

So, what I mean by this mediocre post is this: The Wii has had an almost unbelievable impact on video gaming and has moved it into the mainstream. They have been highly successful in it, but Kaz Hirai is not that far off by saying the Playstation 2 really got gaming in the mainstream. I mean, of course, it had the help of Halo, but with Grand Theft Auto, Guitar Hero, and quite a few other games I forget at the moment, the Playstation 2 did quite the job of getting video games more noticed in the mainstream.

"...'The most successful console is still the PS2 and it's still going strong,' claims Hirai..."

I'm very interested in seeing how much the Wii has sold by 2015. Given the same lifespan as the PS2 currently, I'm sure it could sell at least 10 million units.

And I have to update my numbers once more- the PS2 has sold over 138 million units, and is approaching a 10 year life cycle.

"...you can't twitter you don't understand why people think you're biased against Sony, then take an article like this and spin it against them."

First of all, yes he can. As a matter of fact, he did.

Second of all, there is literally no spin in this article. None. He said outright what Sony said. Spin isn't the same thing as opinion. Sure, this article is full of opinion, but that's not "spin". He didn't turn it into "Sony loves Nazism."

It's going to be interesting to see how long the Wii can hold out for its life cycle especially given Sony and Microsoft's new focus being put on motion controls for their platforms (Well, Sony's second attempt at it anyway).

I expect Nintendo will wait until next year to announce a price cut and release the black Wii to help it combat Sony and Microsoft's new focus on motion controls as a way to target the blue ocean strategy.