3 ms·

Nintendo thinks it won the last round and developed the Wii U in a vacuum, expecting success only to find out the world had moved on. Sony thinks it was robbed

by Steko 13y ago

Nintendo thinks it won the last round and developed the Wii U in a vacuum, expecting success only to find out the world had moved on. Sony thinks it was robbed of victory (or at least it's usual dominance) by MS in the last round and is eager for a straight up rematch. MS has all the momentum so at least they can pretend they won the last round and seem primarily worried about competition from other entrants (mainly Apple, Google and Samsung).

jerf 13y ago
Yes, this is certainly the popular wisdom, but the numbers substantially disagree. Nintendo did win, at least numerically. It didn't win by PS2 margins, but it won. Microsoft does not have the momentum; they narrowly edge out the PS3 overall, and that's down from the clear dominance they started this generation with. (Yes, even allowing for the PS3's later start.) (If you don't personally like the Wii, hey, great. Neither did I, really. But it did win on most objective measures. Even the much-ballyhooed "attach rate" seems to be have been only slightly worse than the XBox360 & PS3, certainly not enough to make up for anything.) Microsoft is currently a narrow 2nd out of 3, in imminent danger of becoming 3rd of 3 in a year or two (in a parallel world with no new consoles), but common wisdom would seem to have them outselling everybody by 4 to 1 or something, which isn't even close. At least when Sony acted like masters of the universe with the PS3, they actually were the masters of the universe. Microsoft's attitude has me very confused.
- suby 13y ago
  I can't find anything concrete, but I think it's fair to say that the attach rates for the 360 and PS3 are similar, and as you say, Microsoft is only narrowly 2nd out of 3rd in terms of consoles sold. I think a case can be made for the 360 being more valuable than the PS3, though, just because of the online service offered by Microsoft. They had at least 20 million users paying for gold in January of 2012, which comes to around a billion dollars a year for Microsoft. Who knows what the operating costs are, but I'm sure they're doing well, especially considering that they show advertisements on top of the subscription revenue. I can't find any numbers for PS+, but I'd be shocked if it's anything comparable to what Microsoft has going.

by Steko 13y ago

jerf 13y ago

Yes, this is certainly the popular wisdom, but the numbers substantially disagree. Nintendo did win, at least numerically. It didn't win by PS2 margins, but it won. Microsoft does not have the momentum; they narrowly edge out the PS3 overall, and that's down from the clear dominance they started this generation with. (Yes, even allowing for the PS3's later start.) (If you don't personally like the Wii, hey, great. Neither did I, really. But it did win on most objective measures. Even the much-ballyhooed "attach rate" seems to be have been only slightly worse than the XBox360 & PS3, certainly not enough to make up for anything.) Microsoft is currently a narrow 2nd out of 3, in imminent danger of becoming 3rd of 3 in a year or two (in a parallel world with no new consoles), but common wisdom would seem to have them outselling everybody by 4 to 1 or something, which isn't even close. At least when Sony acted like masters of the universe with the PS3, they actually were the masters of the universe. Microsoft's attitude has me very confused.

suby 13y ago
I can't find anything concrete, but I think it's fair to say that the attach rates for the 360 and PS3 are similar, and as you say, Microsoft is only narrowly 2nd out of 3rd in terms of consoles sold. I think a case can be made for the 360 being more valuable than the PS3, though, just because of the online service offered by Microsoft. They had at least 20 million users paying for gold in January of 2012, which comes to around a billion dollars a year for Microsoft. Who knows what the operating costs are, but I'm sure they're doing well, especially considering that they show advertisements on top of the subscription revenue. I can't find any numbers for PS+, but I'd be shocked if it's anything comparable to what Microsoft has going.