Sales, sales, sales! (SMS sales)

Lots of people laughed when Sony decided to jump in on the game and look how well it did for us gamers.

What sony did was target the weakness of the competition with a new product. A easy to develop for console with lots of space cause they used CDs, effectivly getting alot of developers to switch plans. Sega Saturn was bitchy to program for.. 3d was an afterthought on the system, 2D is what it was built for. And the N64 used carts.. nuff said

However, the xbox is a me too system, thats not targeting the weakness of the competition cause this time around there is little weakness. The ps2 is solid, and there is little for M$ to expoilt. Sony has to really F\'up for another company to enter into the industy and get a sizeable pie. Without M$ caring about japan, it will never happen for M$

I don\'t care if MS made a freak\'n monster of a machine. You, mm and others would crap on it and hope that it would fail because of the logo on the front of the machine.

I think you guys would be singing a different song if it was someone else who made the XBox. I\'m not saying it\'s the best,  but with MS and Nintendo around Sony will have to push the envelope on the next system.

Do not deny competion is good.

except for that horribly disturbing avatar...

Is it disturbing? I hope so because that\'s what I was shooting for.  

Ace

Originally posted by Living-In-Clip


Boy, you sure do smoke a lot of crack if you think that Sony being the industry leader is the best thing to happen to games.

Then again, this is from someone who is commited to saying that Xbox is not flopping in Japan.

Crack what?  What?  Nah you be the on that junk.  What?  Rastalant what? Rastalant what? What? What?

:smokin: :smokin:

[Living-In-Clip]

I\'m with Ace on this one. Competion is good and the only thing it will serve to do is help us - the gamers. Honestly, if it wasn\'t for competion do you think we would of saw these price drops? There is no way Sony would of lowered, if it wasn\'t for MS and Nintendo lowering . And there is no way MS or NIntendo wouldn\'t of lowered, if it wasn\'t for the fact they was fightin\' for sales.

I am amazed by the fact that some people would like the industry to be ruled by one company. Can you imagine how the industry would be? If you can\'t - then imagine this.

 Sony is the only company in the videogame industry. What stops them from charging the highest possible amount for their systems? What about quality control? Price drop? Forget that, it would never happen. The list goes on and on.


Now, back onto the subject of MS and the market. Personally, I think MS has proved they don\'t stand a snowball\'s chance in hell in this industry. They have failed in all the important spots - and I don\'t think it really matters, for one reason. The market has proved it can\'t support three systems. Everytime there has been more than two systems, a couple fall in the back and then are soon forgotten.
 If MS dropped out , there would still be competion for Sony and that is Nintendo. While I doubt Nintendo has a chance of topplin\' Sony, it would be the closest thing to the old times. Sony targeting the more mature audience and Nintendo goin\' for their own audience, just like Sega and Nintendo durin\' the 8-bit / 16-bit "wars".

Sony is the only company in the videogame industry. What stops them from charging the highest possible amount for their systems? What about quality control? Price drop? Forget that, it would never happen. The list goes on and on.

What stops them? The consumer maybe? I really have a problem imagining your scenario L-I-C. If Sony would charge the highest price for the only console in the market, do you honestly think they could sell the damn thing? I can already picture 1 million+ people waiting in line ready to get one on launch day.. :rolleyes:

What would stop Microsoft or Nintendo with another attempt? If Sony would price a too high price for their console, you bet that there will be other companies ready to step in just waiting for those devs to jump ship. You make it as if the whole industry would fall just because of one company. This isn\'t the PC industry where we have PC\'s that are upgraded to last for 30 years and you don\'t have compatibility issues - this is entirely different. What happened when PSX was launched? Who was out on top at the time? Yeah, Sega was still around, but imagine if they wouldn\'t have. Sony had the better hardware, the better price with the PSX and devs and the consumers jumped ship - it\'s that simple. What makes you think it won\'t happen again?

If Sony gets that monopoly, don\'t expect them to charge prices that no one will pay. Because if they do, people won\'t buy and Sony will be forced to lower or else they\'ll loose it.

Now, how could a monopoly benefit the consumer also? Simple, instead of buying 3 consoles to get all of them, you have one for all. Game developers will be still in direct competition to one another, so as a gamer you wouldn\'t notice much there. Personally, I hate the idea of having to buy 3 consoles just to get all Sega games. Of course, you have people like Ace who can afford all of them - the majority however doesn\'t.

So, as I already said a while back, I agree completely that competition is good and benefits the consumer - but I\'m only argueing that it wouldn\'t turn out as bad as you make it to be.

Wow, you think a monopoly would be a preferable thing?

This will be bad for all of us. Of course if Sony was the only one making a console they would have to price it for the market they are attacking. Competition will help to drop the price even further as we have seen so many times.

I guess it\'s weird for me to want other companies to develop new and exciting technologies in the console market. What gives with that?

Ace

Wow, you think a monopoly would be a preferable thing?

Ace, I believe I have already answered this with a \'yes\' and \'no\'.

Did you even read my whole post?

Ok, I read the post again. Maybe I should have said Wow, you think there are benefits to a monopoly.

I don\'t, and I think it would be bad for us gamers. I guess it could happen and gaming would probably go on, but what might we be missing?

Ace

Originally posted by Living-In-Clip
I am amazed by the fact that some people would like the industry to be ruled by one company. Can you imagine how the industry would be?

Yeah, I can imagine. I have a computer with Windows from MS.

Originally posted by Samwise
Yeah, I can imagine. I have a computer with Windows from MS.

That\'s pretty funny, but you could go buy a Mac.

Ace

BTW, to clear up a few things about my long post in reply to L-I-C. I was not only argueing that there are benefits of having only one console, but also that there will always be competition, especially when a company starts to bump up the price or decides to invest less cash in that new hardware. Lets say Sony does have a monopoly and because they know that, they decide to make PS3 only marginally better than PS2 (technically) to spare costs. What would stop Microsoft from jumping in with a console that flat out beats it?

And besides, does anyone really think that any company will just watch Sony have their monopoly to them? Ha, this is a $20 billion industry afterall...

I never said that Sony should get that monopoly either.

[Living-In-Clip]

Once again, Ace hits it head on. With operating systems there is always other choices. You have the various *nix\'s and you also have the Apple (I\'m an Apple whore, myself). What I am talking about is where there is no other companies. Big difference.

I see no advantage to having a monoply in the industry. If any one company dominated the industry without any competors than you can gurantee that there would be nothing to drive the creative minds of developers. As it is, developers are forced to a degree to actually entertain us and gain our attenion from the other company.

Also, I think you took what I was saying about high prices to an extreme, Seven. I am not saying Sony would raise console prices to lets say $500, but you can gurantee there would be no price drops and   you would still be paying full price for that console five years from the time it was released.

Finally, if we was in a monopolized industry, you can also bet that we would not see the routine we do. The routine I am speaking about is the every 4-5 year routine where companies are forced to put a new product out. If one company dominated the industry, than there would be nothing to drive this routine and we may very well be stuck with the same console even when its past its prime.

*I* personally see no advantages to this what so ever.

Edit - I should also note that I understood your argument, Seven. I also agree that it is highly unlikely for one company to dominate this industry, espically with the state it is now (growing and becoming more inticing for more and more companies to join). I was just pointing out in an indirect manner, why I believe that no one should really want a system to fail. As gamers, we should want these systems to be succesful, not only because they will provide us with new games to enjoy, but also because they help the industry that we have watched grow. I personally, would like to see this industry continue to grow even more and the only way for that to happen is for companies like Nintendo and MS to give it their best, even if they do fail sometimes.

[Bobs_Hardware]

Sony is the only company in the videogame industry. What stops them from charging the highest possible amount for their systems? What about quality control? Price drop? Forget that, it would never happen. The list goes on and on.

The PC market would destroy the console market.

The home console market is NOT like the handheld market.  Nintendo\'s monopoly there was a horrible thing.  But with PC gaming as strong as ever one console would ALWAYS have competition and reason to up the anti constantly.  

This isnt saying that a Console Monopoly would be a good thing, just not as bad as people would think.

Hell, XBox has already performed a huge favor to the industry.  Sony were planning on supporting the PS2 for ten years initially.  Xbox has shortened that to merely 5.  But 3 consoles is too many.  1 is enough for competition.  And the reason I want Microsoft to be the ones who fail (rather than Nintendo) is because of sentimental value.  Sega are already gone, Nintendo to go next?  Imagine videogames run by Microsoft and Sony.. it just... doesnt sit well.

Originally posted by Living-In-Clip
Once again, Ace hits it head on. With operating systems there is always other choices. You have the various *nix\'s and you also have the Apple (I\'m an Apple whore, myself). What I am talking about is where there is no other companies. Big difference.

Bah, my comparison is still relevant IMO. Sure I can choose a Mac or *nix, but what if I want to use or play ? Then I\'m pretty much screwed unless I want to use Windows.

So you want to play games? Get a PC. Buy a handheld.

Once again, Ace hits it head on. With operating systems there is always other choices. You have the various *nix\'s and you also have the Apple (I\'m an Apple whore, myself). What I am talking about is where there is no other companies. Big difference.

I didn\'t go into detail enough, but I believe the PC industry and the monopoly we have there with Microsoft is significantly different. Windows is and will stay the dominant OS because of a few reasons:

• compatibility issues: you can\'t run windows software very well on the competitors OS (Linux, Mac)
• PC architecture is fixed, but upgradable therefore, you will always have that market even if you bring out newer PC\'s. Conclusion: developers stay with the most popular OS to ensure profits and good sales.

There are more, but those are the most relevant ones for my arguement. Now in a supossedly Sony monopoly in the gaming industry, the above wouldn\'t work out, because the hardware is completely fixed. Therefore, you\'ll have an upgrade in hardware sooner or later where you\'ll have to start from scratch again with your userbase and software. One could argue though that Sony wouldn\'t make that upgrade for years... *but* I don\'t see that happening because the chance that a competitor would come is too big to loose it all. We all know how long it takes to make a console, so Sony would have to invest (as they are doing now) long before into new hardware to secure that no competitors could suprise them.

The most important aspect though, and I mentioned it in my last short reply, is that this is a $20 Billion industry and I don\'t expect any company to just watch Sony have the pie for themselves. So, basically, Sony would be forced to keep on track just to secure their monopoly. Just to repeat, the Pc Industry is different because you have a fixed hardware on which you just upgrade to keep up. Unless SOny makes an upgradable console, don\'t expect the same to apply here. (If they did something like this, it wouldn\'t be a console anymore and people would probably refuse to buy it - conclusion: bad idea, so they wouldn\'t do it).

I see no advantage to having a monoply in the industry. If any one company dominated the industry without any competors than you can gurantee that there would be nothing to drive the creative minds of developers. As it is, developers are forced to a degree to actually entertain us and gain our attenion from the other company.

I disagree. If there was a monopoly, you\'d have more developers in direct competition to one another, so they would be driven to make the better software than the others. I don\'t quite see how a monopoly would change this.

Also, I think you took what I was saying about high prices to an extreme, Seven. I am not saying Sony would raise console prices to lets say $500, but you can gurantee there would be no price drops and you would still be paying full price for that console five years from the time it was released.

Agreed. That\'s why I did admit that competition is good, especially for this reason. Unfortunately, the competition didn\'t benefit me as I paid full price for my console and the software prices haven\'t been droped here in Europe and I don\'t see them doing so. None the less, a valid point so I agree.

Finally, if we was in a monopolized industry, you can also bet that we would not see the routine we do. The routine I am speaking about is the every 4-5 year routine where companies are forced to put a new product out. If one company dominated the industry, than there would be nothing to drive this routine and we may very well be stuck with the same console even when its past its prime.

Disagree. As I just mentioned above, Sony in a monopoly would have to live in fear of a competitor with a significantly better console. To secure their monopoly, they would have to keep up with the research even if it\'s just to secure their top spot. And the most important arguement: this is the $20 billion industry we\'re speaking about. I highly doubt Microsoft or Nintendo wouldn\'t cramp themselves back up just to be able to compete again and take some of the market share.

Anyway, it\'s not as if I\'m hoping for Sony to get that monopoly - I\'m just argueing that a monopoly isn\'t likely to happen like we see it in the PC industry.