So pushing the GBA and SP for the last couple of years = virtually no sales? Remember that just three years ago the GBA was brand new.Originally Posted by RCM
So pushing the GBA and SP for the last couple of years = virtually no sales? Remember that just three years ago the GBA was brand new.
I understand what you're saying, but we're only comparing data across two decades. Actually less, considering the PS1 came out in Japan in '94 and the U.S. in '95. It's not like the movie biz, where Gone with the Wind remains the biggest-grossing movie of all time after adjusting for inflation.
Nintendo sold 36 million NESes worldwide from 1985 to 1996--roughly three and a half million a year. Sony sold 100 million PS1s worldwide from 1994 to 2004--roughly ten million a year. Even factoring population growth into the equation, the PS1 is clearly the winner.
In its own press releases, Nintendo states that "since the release of its first home video game system in 1983, Nintendo has sold...more than 170 million hardware units globally." That's everything Nintendo has ever done--Game Boy, NES, Super NES, Virtual Boy, N64, GameCube. And we know the Game Boy line makes up more than half of that 170-million figure. Sony has sold as much video game hardware in ten years as Nintendo has sold in twenty. If you focus on home consoles, Sony has sold more than twice as much hardware as Nintendo, in half the time.
-- Z.
Could'nt you also argue that there are two reasons for that -- one, more people playing and buying video games to start with, and two, the success of Sony's efforts to make gaming 'cool' and mainstream?
"Four o'clock and all is well.....wish I was in bed, Sir."
-- Guard in the Imperial City, Oblivion
If you count it, I think that the DS will sell the most number of new hardware units this holiday season. It's the only new system that will be released in North America, and Nintendo will put enough marketing power behind it to sell it.
If not the DS, I think it will be very close. Halo 2 is causing a lot of people to think about getting an Xbox to go along with the Playstation 2 they already bought. I think that for the most part, the PS2 market is pretty well saturated. Because of that, I see this as a time for Microsoft to game some ground.
I guess we'll see how it all works out.
Dan Loosen
http://www.goatstore.com/ - http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/
** Trying to finish up an overly complete Dreamcast collection... want to help? (Updated 5/3/10!) http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61333
There's no question that more Americans are playing video games than ever before--but since many of those new gamers are teens and preteens who've grown up with gaming, one would expect Nintendo to benefit as much as Sony, which obviously hasn't happened.
Thus, I'm more much in agreement with your second argument, that Sony picked up where Sega left off and cannily marketed to teenagers and young adults, while Nintendo remains unable (and arguably unwilling) to shed its kiddie image.
-- Z.
But how would Sony compare to Atari and the VCS in its heyday? Atari had a console in roughly 25% of all American households at its peak, more than VCRs at the time--is Sony the same? I don't know--100 million worldwide is a lot, but that's all that number really tells us. That they sold (and are still selling) a lot of consoles worldwide. Comparison with any other figures just isn't valid, because you're taking numbers out of their context and throwing them into one big pot. Apples and Oranges (to throw out the old cliche).I understand what you're saying, but we're only comparing data across two decades. Actually less, considering the PS1 came out in Japan in '94 and the U.S. in '95. It's not like the movie biz, where Gone with the Wind remains the biggest-grossing movie of all time after adjusting for inflation.
Nintendo sold 36 million NESes worldwide from 1985 to 1996--roughly three and a half million a year. Sony sold 100 million PS1s worldwide from 1994 to 2004--roughly ten million a year. Even factoring population growth into the equation, the PS1 is clearly the winner.
In its own press releases, Nintendo states that "since the release of its first home video game system in 1983, Nintendo has sold...more than 170 million hardware units globally." That's everything Nintendo has ever done--Game Boy, NES, Super NES, Virtual Boy, N64, GameCube. And we know the Game Boy line makes up more than half of that 170-million figure. Sony has sold as much video game hardware in ten years as Nintendo has sold in twenty. If you focus on home consoles, Sony has sold more than twice as much hardware as Nintendo, in half the time.
-- Z.
Plus two decades isn't insignificant considering the exponential growth of the world's population over that time period. Its increased by over 2 billion worldwide in my lifetime alone (1978-now), and by over 1 billion since the PS1's release. Not all "2000 million" of those people are out there buying PS2s, but you can't just gloss over such a vast difference.
Videogaming has increased in popularity over the years as well, with a greater percentage of the population playing games, so to get a true picture of a particular consoles "dominance," you'd have to adjust for that too.
I think market share percentages are a better comparison of a particular system's popularity, as they really aren't affected by things such as population and market growth--its just a relative comparison of a company's control of the market at a given time. This CAN be compared over time periods, as it reduces variables that can favor "stat loading," and agenda manipulation.
-Dobie
NES, SNES, & Gameboy Collector
My bad...didn't know MP2 was already coming out. Word!
Not saying that Ed. I was just saying that Gameboy sales have probably slowed since the introduction of the GBA and SP. If Gameboy continued hitting huge sales milestones Nintendo would let us know about it for sure.RCM wrote:
Nintendo announced a while back that the Gameboy and its variations sold 100 million units. It was a couple years ago. I'm sure they haven't gone very far beyond that number b/c Nintendo has been pushing the GBA and SP for the past couple years.
So pushing the GBA and SP for the last couple of years = virtually no sales? Remember that just three years ago the GBA was brand new.
THE ONE, THE ONLY- RCM
That's all very interesting. One thing is for sure, Sony has done exceptionally well in both the 32/64 bit and 64/128 bit wars.But how would Sony compare to Atari and the VCS in its heyday? Atari had a console in roughly 25% of all American households at its peak, more than VCRs at the time--is Sony the same? I don't know--100 million worldwide is a lot, but that's all that number really tells us. That they sold (and are still selling) a lot of consoles worldwide. Comparison with any other figures just isn't valid, because you're taking numbers out of their context and throwing them into one big pot. Apples and Oranges (to throw out the old cliche).
Plus two decades isn't insignificant considering the exponential growth of the world's population over that time period. Its increased by over 2 billion worldwide in my lifetime alone (1978-now), and by over 1 billion since the PS1's release. Not all "2000 million" of those people are out there buying PS2s, but you can't just gloss over such a vast difference.
Videogaming has increased in popularity over the years as well, with a greater percentage of the population playing games, so to get a true picture of a particular consoles "dominance," you'd have to adjust for that too.
I think market share percentages are a better comparison of a particular system's popularity, as they really aren't affected by things such as population and market growth--its just a relative comparison of a company's control of the market at a given time. This CAN be compared over time periods, as it reduces variables that can favor "stat loading," and agenda manipulation.
THE ONE, THE ONLY- RCM
That is alot of systems made, I wonder how much of it is profit for SONY
I don't know where you're getting the 25% figure, or what year you consider the VCS to have peaked, but we'll go ahead and make up some shit. (Also, VCRs were hardly a mass-market item in 1983, so I'm not sure why you threw that factoid in there. There were also more VCSes than laserdisc players in U.S. households. So what?)
1) Let's say that 1983, the year of the crash, was also the peak of the VCS, with a system in one of every four U.S. households.
2) The 1980 Census counted 88.4 million U.S. households. The 1990 Census counted 102.3 million. That's 14 million new households in 10 years. So let's say there were 92.6 million U.S. households in 1983 (88.4 + 4.2).
3) 92.6 divided by four = 23.15 million Atari VCSes at the system's peak.
4) The 2000 Census counted 115.9 million U.S. households, reflecting the 1980-to-1990 trend. So let's say there are 121.5 million U.S. households in 2004 (115.9 + 5.6).
5) 40 million PS1s sold = one in every three U.S. households. 32.2 million PS2s sold = one in every four U.S. households.
So, using these bullshit numbers, the PS1 beats the VCS, while the PS2 ties it, although the PS2 will pull ahead in the next couple of years, especially when it drops to $99.
And, of course, this doesn't include the Asian or European markets. I can't say 'bout Europe--when is Lenny Herman going to write the European edition of Phoenix?--but in Japan, the VCS was a non-starter.
Would the VCS have sold at a PS1/PS2-like pace if not for the crash? Doubtful. It was already six years old in 1983, and Intellivision and ColecoVision were stealing customers with their far prettier graphics. (I was one of 'em.)
Most of the world's population growth over the past two decades was in Third World nations where indoor plumbing is a novelty and birth control is nonexistent, not First World nations where average citizens are blessed with disposable income for video game systems.Plus two decades isn't insignificant considering the exponential growth of the world's population over that time period. Its increased by over 2 billion worldwide in my lifetime alone (1978-now), and by over 1 billion since the PS1's release. Not all "2000 million" of those people are out there buying PS2s, but you can't just gloss over such a vast difference.
There's no doubt that more Americans are playing video games. The VCS and NES were targeted at children; the PS1 and PS2 have been targeted at everyone. But it's not only Sony that would benefit from this expanding market; Nintendo should have benefited, as well. It didn't, because it still hasn't figured out how to reach beyond children and fanboys.Videogaming has increased in popularity over the years as well, with a greater percentage of the population playing games, so to get a true picture of a particular consoles "dominance," you'd have to adjust for that too.
Using market share as the measurement of system dominance is misleading, since the NES had no legitimate competition during its mid- to late-'80s run. When Sega (all too briefly) got its act together, Nintendo's market share plunged, and when Sony entered the hardware biz, it plunged again. It was easy for Nintendo to control the video game industry when everyone else had abandoned it.I think market share percentages are a better comparison of a particular system's popularity, as they really aren't affected by things such as population and market growth--its just a relative comparison of a company's control of the market at a given time. This CAN be compared over time periods, as it reduces variables that can favor "stat loading," and agenda manipulation.
In fact, Sony's overwhelming market share during the past decade, despite intense competition from Sega, Nintendo, and Microsoft, makes the PS1 and PS2 sales figures even more impressive by comparison to the VCS and NES.
-- Z.
Lots and lots. Sony doesn't outsource its hardware, unlike Nintendo (e.g., the GameCube's ATI graphics chip) and Microsoft (e.g., the Xbox's third-party DVD drives), and so it makes a tidy profit on every system sold. The drawback of doing everything in-house is that Sony has to invest billions of dollars into up-front R&D before it can make back the money with hardware sales. That's one reason why Sony is eager to eliminate the five-year hardware cycle.
-- Z.
Might wanna compares games aah buddy.... My xbox broke on me. GameCube has been solid. And so is PS2.
The detailed reasoning of zmweasel with population growth in industrialized countries and developing countries and other factors is exactly what I wanted to write reading the post of Dobie; it is some good reasoning which distinguishes different aspects of aggregate numbers. Great resoning.
...and people, all of you who wrote in a belittling way that Sony was 'only' so successful because they tapped into the adult market....holy moly, that is EXACTLY the reason why they were so successful based on a smart decision which others tried and couldn't pull it off. It is an explanation and a merit, but not an accusation against Sony. (unless you assume that N, Sega, and MS intentionally don't wanna grow and seek losses instead of profits)
Add one to that, I just bought a PS2. And i agree, the reason Sony has been so successful is that they targeted the 18-24 Male demographic, that's soo famous for having lots of their income as disposable for entertainment.
-Tritium
Tritium (aka Mel)
------
Holy dead topics Batman!
It doesn't get any more serious than a Rhinocerus about to charge your ass.
Wow, thats insane. The cool thing about the PS1 is that I have had mine since launch back in 96 or something, and it still works!
Why bring up this ancient topic. Jeeesh.
<Evan_G> i keep my games in an inaccessable crate where i can't play them
Right, because Saturns, Dreamcasts, GameCubes and especially Xboxes never break.
Since the topic is resurrected (HOLY SHAMBLING ZOMBIES!) I might as well do a finisher move on that worthless argument
I'm glad you did, actually. Any info on the 4M E.T. carts being unlikely, though? I'm curious as to where that story started (and indeed if it's true or not seems an open question, no?)
Posting Permissions
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Similar agreements apply to other advertising or affiliate programs such as those from eBay, Google, etc.
Copyright © 1991 - Present of Digital Press. All rights reserved.
Reply With Quote