It seems that the analysts can’t agree on whether or not Microsoft has blown it’s initial lead over the PS3 or whether the current trend is just the marker recorrecting after a terrible start to the generation by Sony.
DFC Intelligence’s David Cole believes that Microsoft is blowing it by not having a diverse enough range of titles and mainly concentrating on the American styled shooters and action titles. While PS3 has a much broader range of titles which helps explain it’s utter dominance in Japan and fight back in Europe.
However other analysts including the famous Michael Pachter feel it’s more that Sony was always going to come back in Japan and Europe thanks to their massive fanbase, and that Microsoft has done really well to overturn Sony’s dominance in the US and compete with them head to head in Europe.
I personally believe it’s a bit of both, Microsoft has done fantastically well to be a fighting force in this generation but they had a chance to dominate Sony in Europe around this time last year and instead decided to claw back some of the investment they had made. If they had dropped the price again then and invested in some more European appealing titles they may have been able to keep the PS3 at bay.
In the end we the consumers have won out by having two exceptionally strong HD consoles which are fighting for our affections and no matter what happens now this war will continue with no clear victor into the next generation.
Source: VG247
As for the Wii.. well it won, there isn’t much more to it.
Last Updated: November 15, 2010
GougedEye
November 15, 2010 at 09:38
Strongly agree that the winner is the gamer. Lets hope it stays this way into the next gen. A single dominant console would be a disaster.
As a side note, I think that the loser is PC gaming. It may be hanging on in SA, but in Europe at any rate, it is almost non existant. I haven’t upgraded a single component in my PC is over two years. TWO yrears??? It used to be something new every two or three months, with a complete rebuild every 18 months or so. And it’s not due to a lack of money, but rather a lack of need.
Steve Hofmeyr
November 15, 2010 at 10:26
Blizzard is keeping PC gaming alive imo. I upgraded my PC just to play SC2, and Diablo 3.
Fox1
November 15, 2010 at 11:49
MS pricing hasn’t being kind in the European territories either. They prefer to use the Pound, which is the most expensive currency amongst the available Euro or even the dollar, to do trading thus making their once cheap Arcade units look not so cheap.
Are MS really going to give us WP7 phones from R150?
Pricing was the same reason Kin was a failure and that was in the US only.
On a side note what’s with the sick pricing with some stores sellings xbox’s at ridiculously cheap prices that are well below the RRP? Last weekend the Xbox 4gb + Kinect was R3699 :blink:
Bobby Kotick for Dummies
November 15, 2010 at 13:06
They might have an over-abundance of stock and are trying to get rid of it. It seems they’re not selling as quickly any more, maybe South Africans aren’t as dumb as Microsoft would love to believe? (Source: friends at BT Games and Look and Listen.. yeah yeah.. it might just be Cape Town)
If you need an xbox 360, wait just after Christmas… January 😀 Wouldn’t surprise me if Kinect gets its price dropped by the retailers to R999.
grammarNazi
November 15, 2010 at 17:17
Analysts can’t agree on whether Microsoft has blown it’s lead or not.
Should be:
Analysts can’t agree on whether Microsoft has blown its lead or not.
Luna
November 15, 2010 at 17:38
And thus the reason I have both… I love games, and I don’t want to miss anything! I know I missed a few gems on Wii, but I’ll play them eventually~