One thing that has struck me is how little more the current generation consoles, the Sony PS3, Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360, give the average consumer, for a huge amount more money, than what the Sony PS2 gives them. In fact, in many ways the PS2 gives them more! Which is probably why it is the best selling console ever, with about 140 million happy customers, with more still buying it every day.
You buy a game console to play games. And when it comes to games the PS2 is a long way ahead of the current generation consoles. There are nearly 2,000 games available for the PS2 and they include some of the greatest games ever produced. Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3, GTA3 & San Andreas & Vice City, GT3, RE4, Devil May Cry, Gods of War, Okami, Ico, the list just goes on and on. And they are cheap! New games are about £20 but you can buy the classics secondhand for £5 each or less.
And the machine itself is also very cheap compared with the current generation. £70 for a new one, £40 for a secondhand one. And they are simple, proven and reliable.
The main thing the current generation give you (PS3 and 360) is HDTV, but is that such a big step in gaming? The 360 also gives you an amazing online experience, at a price. Only the Wii is standout in offering something more with its innovative gesture interface and the fantastic family oriented games that go with it. Hardly surprising then that the Wii has sold nearly as many units as the PS3 and 360 combined, it is the only one with solid reasons for purchase.
So there you have it, if you don’t already have a PS2 then you should get one.
At long last we can see Sony starting to act with some aggression in the console war against the Xbox 360. They are very clearly positioning themselves to make up lost ground this holiday season.
We are just heading into the release of what will probably be the biggest two games of this platform generation. Modern Warfare 2 and Grand Turismo 5, both of these titles will set the market on fire. This is going to be very interesting.
If you do a graph of ice cream sales in a April, May and June, then extend it you will find that you are going to have absolutely enormous ice cream sales in November.
The graphs of every consoles sales in every generation fit under a curve, not a straight line. Why should this generation be different and follow a straight line?
Sales of consoles are demand elastic for price. The cheaper they are the more you will sell, all other things being equal. Microsoft have demonstrated that they can sell the 360 vastly cheaper than Sony can sell the PS3. This is because the 360 is a far more elegant design and because Microsoft have lots of money whilst Sony don’t.
If you really want to know what the comparative sales of these two consoles you would be far better off starting a flame war on a forum about it. You would still be wrong, but at least you would be having some fun.
I remember back in the late 1990s at Codemasters when as a publisher we had just two platforms we could develop for. The PC and the Playstation. By then Sega and Nintendo had both pretty much screwed up.
So now we have platform proliferation. Which means that the public can vote with their feet by deciding which platform to play on. And game developers have to choose where to direct their efforts. Initially the public were choosing between the Wii, the PS3 and the Xbox 360 and fanboyism became rife. But now people are making far wider choices.
At the same time the PC came back to ascendancy as a gaming platform but with completely different kinds of games. In the late 90s the PC market was mainly boxed, retail, plastic and cardboard. These are all but gone now, wiped out by piracy. Instead the PC has emerged as a platform for online casual games and for MMOs. These have proliferated so that there are now hundreds of MMOs running, many with “free” business models. And they are being played by many tens of millions of people.
So any fool can see what is happening here. People are playing PC online and smartphone games in preference to console games. The PS3 and the Xbox 360 are probably selling at about half the rate that they should be at this stage in the cycle. The Wii has reached the inevitable point where its sales have collapsed and by not bringing the price down sooner Nintendo have lost impetus. Just at the same time that DS game sales have fallen off a cliff.
So you can see what is going to happen here. The home console platform holders, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, have a business model that is rapidly becoming obsolete. They are being completely outflanked. So they have no option but to change their business model to match. They have to go to server based games and also to the App Store business model. If they don’t their customers will leave them in ever bigger numbers.
Of course if I know this then the platform holders know it too, so it is not a matter of if they do it, it is a matter of when. And they are already making small moves in the right direction, Free Realms coming to the PS3 and full games being sold for download on Xbox Live, for instance. Another thing is very much for sure, high street game retailing is now going to die off far faster than anyone was expecting.
Sony are running third and last in this generation of home consoles, having made more mistakes than a Bush presidency. However here at E3 2009 they started showing signs of getting their act together. But is it too little too late?
There are 364 games coming to Playstation platforms over the next year, presumably they are missing out new years day. And there is a lot for the PS3 in there: Metal Gear Solid Peacewalker, Gran Turismo 5, Rock Band: Beatles, God of War, Agent, Final Fantasy XIV Online and Modern Warfare 2. Just for starters. Impressive stuff.
The Playstation 3 answer to the Wiimote and Natal was announced but is nearly a year away. It is an extension of Playstation Eye and consists of a stick with buttons on it and a glowing orb on the end. Quite frankly this already looks like old technology compared with Natal’s whole body interface, voice input and face recognition (presuming it all works as advertised).
But the PS3s biggest problem is that it is always trying to play catch up with the Xbox 360 and failing. Most critically because Sony persist in selling the PS3 at an expensive price point that is difficult to justify from the consumer perspective. And after what Microsoft presented at E3 this year one can only see the PS3 dropping behind further.
In the light of the tour de force that Microsoft presented at this year’s E3, it is very difficult for the other platform holders to compete. And Nintendo didn’t.
Nintendo are in a poor position. Their home console for this generation, the Wii, is the least capable, being just an upgrade of the previous generation GameCube. It has been incredibly successful because of it’s innovative gesture controller and a small number of high quality platform exclusive games. But it lacks the equivalent of an Xbox Live or even a Playstation Network. And its main party trick, the gesture controller, has now been trumped by the Microsoft Natal. The Wii also does not support HDTV and does not come with a hard drive.
Sales wise the Wii has peaked in most markets and in Japan it is very weak. It now looks very expensive compared to the Xbox 360, a competitor which has a lot more to offer.
So Nintendo announced Wii Fit Plus, a new 2D version of Super Mario Bros, presumably aimed at children, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Wii Vitality Sensor, a device to read your pulse. Hardly setting the world alight and showing all the signs of a platform nearing the end of its life.
One has to wonder firstly how long the Wii can sustain its premium price and secondly how close we are to seeing its successor, the SuperWii.
On the handheld front the DSi is getting good initial sales, presumably from existing DS owners upgrading. However it is now looking positively archaic compared to the more modern phone based devices like iPhone and Android. Nintendo need to act quickly not to be left behind in this market.
