4 ms·
Sadly, no matter what kind of hardware/specs it has, the price point is too high. One reason the Wii took over back a huge chunk of the market was the price poi
by rburhum 14y ago
Sadly, no matter what kind of hardware/specs it has, the price point is too high. One reason the Wii took over back a huge chunk of the market was the price point (yes, you can also talk about the novel controllers, games, etc, but it is hard to argue against the pricing argument). When I was at MS Games studio, there was a lot of research that backed up the idea of "console sweet spots". Sadly, those (Gartner?) reports cost a lot of money and are not public so I can link to them :-(
- koof 14y agoThe GameCube was the cheapest console in the last generation and still had comparable hardware. Although it didn't have a DVD player, I'm not seeing why the Wii sold as much as it did if you're going off price alone.
- rburhum 14y agoYou are right. I should have clarified that price point is important when competing technologies are somewhat good enough. The GameCube was competing with ps2 and Xbox at the time. Hardly equivalent. Think a about it this way: A 33Mhz processor for $5, a 2.6Ghz processor for $199, a 2.8Ghz processor for $299, a 3.8Ghz processor for $1000. If those were your only options for a gift, which one would you pick? At the time, let me remind you, that the GameCube was that 33Mhz like experience while people were playing Halo on the Xbox
- crypteasy 14y agoThis reminds me of the 3D0. It was the first 32 bit video game console on the market and was well ahead of its time in multiple ways (Internet multiplayer). However they entered a saturated market at a very steep cost and never fully took off. This won't take off at a 1000 dollars. Who has that kind of money to spend on something that doesn't provide more value than alternatives?
- rburhum 14y agoExactly. Remember the Neo Geo? Arcade-quality games... better than any other console of its time! The price point killed it.