ITT we discuss gaming market trends

[Reincarnate]

I decided to throw down some history first:

(excluding first and second gen consoles, as none of us were hardcore into Magnavox Odysseys or the Atari):

Third-gen (1983–1992): NES released first and it dominated (non-competition agreements for devs + strong game lineup including Mario, Zelda, and Metriod) over the Cassette Vision, Sega Master System, and Atari 7800. The Sega Master System actually had more success in Europe but didn't fare too well in the US, much like the Atari 7800, which failed because it was unable to compete when so many devs had been snatched up within the non-competition agreements from Nintendo and its following success.

Winner: NES (released first)
Loser: Atari 7800 (released last)

Fourth-gen (1987–1996): SNES released last (behind the TurboGrafx-16, Sega Genesis, and the Neo Geo), but it still dominated because of its already-strong presence in the marketplace with the NES and arguably superior hardware/game lineups. The Turbografx-16 was really more of an 8-bit system and tried to tweak everything so it was on-par with the competition, but ultimately it was still an 8-bit system and jumped the gun too early. The Neo Geo was too expensive ($650) and didn't gain much momentum. Sega tried to gain some stance in the marketplace by introducing Sonic, but later shot themselves in the foot by discontinuing the Genesis/Mega Drive to focus on the Sega Saturn (the demand for Genesis games was a lot greater than it was for Saturn games).

Winner: SNES (released last)
Loser: Turbografx-16 (released first)

Fifth-gen (1993–2006): 3DO Interactive Multiplayer was released first, but had a $700 price tag that nuked it right off the bat. The Sega 32X failed because it was doomed to become obsolete soon behind its Sega Saturn, but this failed too because it wasn't able to create the same impact that it had with the Genesis. The Atari Jaguar was the first 64-bit to come onto the stage, but was unable to gain third-party support and had all sorts of hardware problems -- it tanked hard. Sony released the Playstation, which generated tons of support -- enabling it to gain some market dominance. Nintendo tried to tide everyone over in the meantime with the Virtual Boy, which was a gimmick-attempt to create a 3D virtual-reality type of system, but the crappy red graphics and the eye strain turned the it into a huge flop with an extremely small game library. Nintendo eventually released the N64 but did so a year after the PS1, and while it was successful (amazing game lineup), it still used expensive cartridge systems and was unable to meet the success of the PS1 (only selling about a third as much).

Winners: Playstation (released 4th) -- with the N64 following in second place (released 5th/last)
Losers: 3DO Interactive Multiplayer (released first), Atari Jaguar (released second), Sega Saturn (released third), Virtual Boy (released before the N64)

Sixth-gen (1998–2005): Sega lashed out first with the 128-bit Dreamcast. While it helped make up for the Saturn and 32X failures, the upcoming PS2 was hyped to hell and had a much more aggressive marketing campaign. Tons of PS1 users were eager to upgrade to the PS2, which also came with DVD support. Devs were hesitant to jump on-board the Sega train and waited to see how the PS2 would fare against it first. With the XBox and Gamecube on the horizon, the Dreamcast was considered by many to be an investment in something that would become soon-obsolete. The PS2 delivered great game lineups (FFX, MGS2, GTA, Tekken Tag Tournament, etc) and was backwards-compatible with the PS1. Enter XBox -- enter Halo. The XBox had huge financial backing from Microsoft but it was still unable to pierce the armor of the PS2 despite having a strong fanbase and XBox Live. The Gamecube was released last and struggled because it didn't offer anything new and had trouble competing with the more "mature" game titles since Nintendo was seen as more family-friendly. Lack of third-party support was also a huge problem, since everyone had basically flocked to the PS2 and XBox.

Winner: PS2 (released second)
Loser: Dreamcast (released first)

Seventh-gen (2005–): Microsoft wrought forth the XBox 360, which had a great start due to XBox Live and strong game titles like Halo 3 -- but it had a slew of hardware problems (e.g. the Red Ring of Death), which was arguably due to releasing things too early in an attempt to gain marketshare. Sony's PS3 had Blu-Ray support (analogous to how the PS2 had early DVD support), but this caused all sorts of hardware problems in manufacturing. Blu-Ray wasn't in high demand and the price tag of the PS3 was way too high for many, hurting sales pretty hard. Finally, the Wii tried to expand the target audience to include casual, hardcore, and new gamers altogether by introducing a totally new way to play games rather than focusing on beasting the competition on performance metrics. It wound up proving to be really successful for Nintendo, which had previously suffered from poor Gamecube sales figures. The Wii also profited on each console sale, whereas Sony and Microsoft sold the hardware at a loss with the hope of recouping the costs through game sales. Everyone else tried jumping on the motion-gimmick-bandwagon (Sony Move, Microsoft Kinect) to capitalize on the Wii's success, pitting Sony and Microsoft against each other.

Winner: Nintendo Wii (released last)
Loser: Sony PS3 (released second)

[Jousway]

how did the dreamcast and sony ps3 lose?

[Reincarnate]

Sega was already reeling from the failures of the 32X, Saturn, and Mega-CD, and they were unable to deliver a significant impact against the advent of the PS2, which sapped away at Dreamcast sales. The Gamecube and XBox were just over the hill at the time and made the Dreamcast appear like a lesser investment. Sega's revenue was diminishing and so they had to pull out.

The Sony PS3 had problems with hardware manufacturing (mainly due to Blu-Ray), stock shortages, and a high price that made it very difficult for Sony fans to upgrade from the PS2. Nintendo also chipped away at Sony's sales with the release of the Wii.

[Reincarnate]

In general, though, I think there are some interesting takeaways. The order in which you release your system is not super-important if you've got a solid product and reputation. The SNES, Playstation, N64, and Wii were released later and yet enjoyed lots of success, whereas tons of early birds flopped with the fury (Turbografx-16, 3DO, Jaguar, Dreamcast, etc).

On the whole, it actually seems like releasing too early has some drawbacks. While it worked great for the NES (which was already complete with a killer game lineup), it only worked because the NES had a controversial non-competition agreement that made it hard for later consoles to gather the third-party dev support needed to compete effectively (which is why when you think of the NES, you can't really remember the competition -- because it wasn't really there).

Releasing early means you have to have sufficiently advanced hardware capable of holding itself up against future competition, and you need a strong game lineup. Otherwise people will hold out for something better down the line -- especially if it's priced better/plays better/has better games.

If you release late, you need to have an edge -- which is what the Wii was able to do. Releasing late didn't work for Nintendo when it came to the Gamecube because it lacked DVD support, wasn't backwards compatible, was just coming out of the transition from cartridges to discs, didn't have great third-party support, and was targeting a market that had, more or less, already moved onto the PS2. The N64 was successful despite a late release, but again, Sony had already enjoyed market dominance.

So, in short, the strongest tend to release later, and among (arguably) equal systems, the one that is released sooner tends to flood the market and make it difficult for the next competitor to catch up. People are also fairly price-sensitive, especially during economic hard times.

Which brings up the next question of where things will move in the future. Nintendo has started to surge back to the forefront after getting spanked a bit with the N64 and reamed even harder with the GC, while Sony has, in turn, been kicked to the backburners a bit despite huge success with the PS1 and PS2. I'd say Microsoft has remained pretty neutral throughout the entire process -- perhaps gaining some headwind at the expense of Sony.

[Izzy]

Can you put dates for those generations? Something like

3rd Gen - 1985
4th Gen - 1990
5th Gen - 1996
6th Gen - 2000
7th Gen - 2006

8th Gen - 2012?

[Reincarnate]

done

[ddr_f4n]

I honestly thought it was gonna be about the gaming trends, looking at how each gaming genre (fps, rhythm, rpg, etc) each had it's time in success and third-market sales.

Dunno where it is now, it looks kinda all over the place though, but I know rhythm gaming is dying down, while Street Fighter 4, BlazBlue, and now possibly MvC3 has brought back the fighting genre.

[Reincarnate]

Sure, it can be about that too -- I just posted about consoles, but it doesn't have to be limited there

[Phlegmatism]

From what I saw, the Wii dominated, not only because it attracted the dubbed "gamer" crowd, but it was the first to convince an enormous crowd who never would touch video games to pick up a console. Inevitably, the idea was leeched by the Kinect and PS3Move, but even at this point, I know plenty of people who have no idea what they are. The Wii seemed to be marketed perfectly. If they kept it the Nintendo Revolution, I bet sales would have been much different.

[Izzy]

So under the assumption that sony, microsoft and nintendo are all going to be releasing an 8th generation console within the next 2-5 years what do we expect to happen?

Will microsoft and sony continue to try and hold onto their current audience or will they adapt nintendo's model of trying to appeal to a wider audience and the newer generations?

[dAnceguy117]

the Saturn needs to be listed under the fifth-gen losers, imo. its hardware was laughably convoluted, and it still couldn't hold a candle to the ps1. as with their earlier products (and even more so I think), sega pulled the plug way early to set up for the dreamcast. this move alienated both quality devs and loyal customers. throw in the massive hype for the ps2, and you can see why the dreamcast was doomed before it was ever released.

excellent thread. we can all use the first post as a reference to take stabs at where we're headed.

[Reincarnate]

Arguably so (I'll add it) -- it was indeed a loser, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the others. The Saturn sold around 10 million units, whereas the Jaguar barely scratched 250,000 units. In comparison, the N64 sold around 30 million units to the PS1's 100 million. The competition of the Fifth Gen era was largely between the Saturn, N64, and PS1 -- everyone else fared very poorly.

[Reincarnate]

Sega has had a history of gunning things too early, pulling out too soon, and making really bad decisions in the heat of the moment. They're pretty much the equivalent of your average wannabe-frat boy eagerly desperate to get laid but unable to seal the deal properly. Over and over again, they try to jump first onto new technology without realizing that patience would allow them to better capitalize on such ventures. Sega went into things that wound up being quickly obsolete or far inferior to competitor releases.

Sega pulled the plug on the Genesis too early and released the Saturn which didn't even offer a solid Sonic title... which was key to the success of the Genesis to begin with. They also pulled a fast one on investors/retailers/consumers alike: "Surprise! We're not releasing the Saturn on September 2nd 4 months from now! It's actually already in stores!" That's how you piss everyone off in one elegant move. Devs had trouble meeting the new launch date, and retailers who weren't in on the trick were pissed off. Sony took advantage of this by polishing the PS1 and cutting the price so that it was more affordable than the Saturn. Angry retailers also sided with Sony and did Sega no favors.

Also, does anyone remember Bernie Stolar? He used to be president of SCEA but left because he wanted to keep out 2D games (including RPGs) since he felt they didn't take advantage of the hardware. So Sega snatched him up instead. And then Sony released FF7, LOL. Stolar continued to block "unworthy" titles from being developed on the Saturn, and so everyone again flocked to Sony. At E3 in 1997, Stolar said "The Saturn is not our future" and further managed to piss everyone off who had invested in Sega and the Saturn -- claiming that the Dreamcast was the next step forward. Unfortunately, the Dreamcast was, arguably, the sum of everything wrong with Sega. Stolar was fired right before the DC was launched.

[dAnceguy117]

good point about the Saturn's sales figures. I'm probably biased because a ton of those sales didn't come in the US. still, the Saturn lost big-time to its more successful competitors. even the Dreamcast's numbers fare better against the Gamecube and Xbox.

I never knew about Stolar, although I do remember that quote. definitely not a guy you would want running your company.

[xferrarix]

The Sega Saturn was indeed a failure but not a complete failure. In Japan the console was mildly popular for it's great arcade ports and some of it's console-only games (such as the Panzer Dragoon series and even the Street Fighter Alpha games). It's sales actually equaled or even topped slightly over the Nintendo 64 in Japan. It's main problems have already been stated within the thread.

In my opinion if Sega didn't jump the gun with the early release of the console it could of been much more successful. It had surprisingly a decent library of games if you're a real collector. I'd suggest looking into it, it has many rare gems on it as well.

The Dreamcast wasn't a bad console either. Sega's marketing strategies are what you'd really have to blame for the demise of the Saturn and the Dreamcast. Their past mistakes only put a bigger debt on them. If they didn't focus on their competition so much and rather put their attention on the consoles themselves and the 3rd party support they could of at least been in equal and had their own share of fanbase with their consoles.

[Reincarnate]

The Dreamcast was a solid system with a few great titles (I loved Power Stone, personally), but Sega just mismanaged so many things (trying to toss out all those hardware add-ons with the Genesis just did not work).

What really matters are the games. If you can secure the third-party devs, you've usually got something good going for you. Almost every console that's been able to do this has come out on top. If you had trouble with the devs (either due to lack of market penetration like the Gamecube or having a system that was tough to code for such as the Saturn), your system was a flop.

[MrGiggles]

Nothing to add to this current topic quite yet, but here's some additional conversation fodder if/when console wars get stale:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide.../extra-credits Careful: narrator has a surprisingly irritating voice/manner

[dAnceguy117]

ooh! nice link. haven't watched any yet, but I like the "Consoles Are the New Coin-Op" title. freakin' truth. the description says that doesn't have to be a scary thing though? I disagree entirely. gonna have to watch that one.

Originally Posted by MrGiggles

Careful: narrator has a surprisingly irritating voice/manner

unsurprisingly*

[MrGiggles]

No trust me you'll be surprised it's worse than you think. Or maybe just to me, this kind of thing is p subjective. The content and perspective in Extra Credits is fantastic though, well worth the grating noise.

[dAnceguy117]

okay okay whew. I totally misunderstood what the coin-op one was about. our current way of playing games via consoles are rapidly becoming obsolete, just as are DVD players, etc. technology is progressing freakin' fast, man. got it.

I thought it was about the more short-term future, with DLC being shoved down consumers' throats and subscription fees on the horizon. if this crap becomes too much of a commonality then I won't be buying a damn thing.

now I get whatcha mean about the voice. that was surprising. it's got a hint of typical nasal voice, but it's all through a filter that almost makes it sound like one of those text-to-speech voices. to me it's bearable though. a++ will watch more of those.