Microsoft settling in for second place?

If the Wii if a Honda, then it's a Honda that can fly, unlike the more expensive BMW that is rooted to the ground.

I hate those insipid car analogies.

They don't even have to do that. Remember that Microsoft has more money then God, and can flush millions away and it wouldn't make a dent. Even if it costs them in the long run, getting their brand under your TV as well as on your desk will be worth it to them. Sony on the other hand, don't have a Scrooge McDuck bin of money to fall back on, which I find worrying. I think the PS3 is a bit shit, but I don't want Sony to give up making consoles.

"Even if it costs them in the long run, getting their brand under your TV as well as on your desk will be worth it to them."

That's why they entered the console market in the first place. It's the main reason I've never been comfortable with them joining the consoles wars, and now find it hard to get excited about the PS3 this time around, too. They both are using their consoles as Trojan horses to get into our living rooms and control everything...and I'd much rather see a more organic solution to that, rather than be locked down by MS and Sony's proprietary media formats.

@samfish: A Honda that can fly, but doesn't seem to go anywhere.

And I think the 360 is more a Mercedes. Costly, high performance, and will break down if there's a week in the month.

If we're going with vehicle analogies and the Wii is a Honda, then the 360 is a Ford F-series. Sure, it has a bad reputation of breaking and it can be kinda noisy, but it really does work more often than not and has a lot of power. The PS3 is like the Toyota Tundra. It's big and powerful like its American competition, maybe even MORE powerful, but it's also quieter with a smoother look.

They've lost a lot of money to the RROD, not the system itself. The system was making them a profit before the price drop.

Anyways, making a profit off the consoles is just a plus for all three companies. Software is where the real money is made.

They're making oodles and oodles off all of those 100$ wireless adapters, 150$ 120gb harddrives, 50$ subscription fees, and the endless amounts of downloadable content.

"A Honda that can fly, but doesn't seem to go anywhere."

Well if BP, Shell and others would wake up to how popular the flying Honda is and build more flying Honda refueling stations...

Bleh, I talked about software making them money but I throw in accessories as an example.

Point being 360 pushes a TON of software (Just look at the charts - almost every multi-platform game gets the floor wiped clean by the 360 version)

No, I think the PS3 is a Ferrari. Fast, expensive, totally impractical and owned by wankers.

@Poisoned Al

Why all the hate? Did your dog get run over by a Ferrari driven PS3?

"They both are using their consoles as Trojan horses to get into our living rooms and control everything..."

Whereas nintendos Trojan horse gets to your living room opens up and Nothing ever comes out of it.

I agree that the first place issue doesn't matter to the business. What matters is how much they make off of their sales. Having sold millions of units and a huge amount of software are all that matters to a business. Its not like they go look at their bank statements and think "This really is nothing at all since we aren't THE number one console. It disgusts me!"

All fanboy bs aside, you all know that if a product makes boatloads of money, it will thrive. Further, they will continue to get great games because of the high install base - what does it matter that they aren't the number 1 console in sales? Developers don't ignore dollar signs. (Generally)

*This post is car analogy free.

Well there you go, Shag. The Wii is the least likely to take over Troy. That could be a selling point!

Wii - 100% Achaean Free!

"Poor Al can't afford a PS3. Shall we take up a collection?"

BUZZZZZZ! Oh dear, look at what you COULD have won! As my primary games system is a PC, money isn't the reason I don't have a PS3. Well done on using the oldest and shitest fanboy argument possible. Have a brown star!

"Oh hell, Son, I was high that day. That doesn't make any sense at all, you can be second, third, fourth... hell you can even be fifth"-Reese Bobby

I'm in a similar position to Al. Pretty much exclusively a PC gamer, except I have a PS3 to play Rock Band. I hate the freakin' thing.

If I didn't have a PC (which maxes out new games and wasn't any more expensive than the PS3 at launch - go figure) I'd probably go down the 360 route; but frankly, I've played consoles and I just couldn't trade the experience of my PC for one of those idiot boxes.

Ninja brings up a good point. There's a little (or big, har!) thing called economies of scale. Being first may not be optimal in terms of profit for MS.

Also, this isn't doom and gloom from Mattrick. How credible would he be if he obviously OVERsold the brand?

How do you work that out without using fanboy logic? At the moment, Microsoft sell more then Sony and that don't look like is going to change any time soon. I hope Little Big Planet DOES push the PS3, but I have doubts.

I don't know, man. All those facts he cited are solid.

PS3 has outsold the 360 every week since the Christmas period last year, and has cut the 360's lead down by around 2 million.

Unless the 360's US price cut really gives it a good boost, it's pretty much destined for a close third place. PS3 could quite possibly catch up by the end of 2009.

Yeah, except your logic really doesn't make sense.. it outsold it by.. 20k last month? it's not exactly a lead, and even if it continued, it would take them about 3 years for the PS3 to surpass the 360 in total sales.. and that doesn't really seem possible due to the recent price drop and the HUGE games (That mostly everyone knows about, even if they don't game) that are coming out this holiday.

PS3 has outsold the 360 by 2 million so far this year.

So the 360 currently has a 5 million lead (down from the 7 million at the begining of the year).

Total sales during the Christmas period tend to be pretty much the same as the entire rest of the year. So if everything repeats, the PS3 will outsell the 360 by another 2 milliong.

But the 360 is having a price cut in NA...

So let's take a guess at how successful the price cut is. Let's say it helps the 360 sell another million, which is both reasonable and impressive, all at once. Remember: this price cut is only in the one region (NA).

It is therefore possible that the PS3 will outsell the 360 by another 1 million during the Christmas period.

That'll give the 360 a 4 million lead. It's entirely feasible for the PS3 to get rid of that 4 million year in 2009. Remember: the PS3 will most likely get a world wide price cut next year, to counter the 360's NA price cut.

Also, you completely ignored the PS3's impressive game selection. I'd say the 360 and PS3 are pretty much equal when it comes to their games this fall (with a slight advantage to the PS3, IMO).

Err, slight lead to PS3? TIED?

PS3 Exclusive:
SOCOM: Confrontation
LittleBigPlanet
Resistance 2
MAG (Is it even coming out this year?)

360 Exclusive:
Rock Band 2 (Timed)
Silent Hill
Fable 2
Gears of War 2
Banjo Kazooie
Lips
New Dashboard
Left 4 Dead
Alan Wake (Maybe 2009 lol.)


Come on dude, I haven't put anything other than a BD Movie in my PS3 in over three months.

Price cut, new games, and the most anticipated game of the year will boos the 360 this holiday. No way in hell MS is screwing around this year.

By the way, 360 is turning a profit. In the beginning stages it wasn't. Wii was throughout its entire life and is the PS3 making any profit, not sure.

Dude, couple of problems with your list:

1) You missed out Motorstorm 2,

2) You also missed out Wipeout HD,

3) Silent Hill is coming to the PS3 as well,

4) Rockband 2 is coming to the PS3 during the Christmas period as well,

5) Alan Wake isn't coming this year,

6) MAG isn't coming this year either,

7) The dashboard update isn't a game.

8) Lips? Seriously?


I mean, really, the big titles for each console are:

PS3: Resistance 2, LBP, Motorstorm 2.

360: Gears 2, Fable 2, Banjo.

Like I said, pretty much a tie, but I'm giving *my* favour to the PS3.

Also, yes, the PS3 is making profit now. Money generated from game sales is greater than money lost on hardware. Microsoft are in the same position.

And yes, Sony are still in debt, but then, so are Microsoft.

Gears 2, Fable 2, Banjo-Kazooie 3, Left 4 Dead, and some arcade games.. (I think Banjo-Kazooie 1 is coming for it.)*

hymas:
u must have missed the june/july figures for consoles sales.
i think joystiq now told you that the 360 sold more consoles than ps3 BEFORE the price drop.
after the price drop the gap will widen a bit more..
it wont be closing anytime soon... lol

hymas: mr logic who has little logic:
motorstorm 2 is not a big release.
(motorstorm 1 is the best selling ps3 game because it was bundled with 2-3 million ps3 consoles)
not many people went out and bought that game... lol.
gran turismo 5 in 2009 will be though.

resistance 2 will probably sell 50% of the amount of total copies that gears 2 sells.
wanna bet?
cod5 comes in november.
remember its not only about exclusives.
cod5 will probably sell a lot more copies on the 360 than the ps3.
all cross plat games will continue to sell better on the 360, further driving sales and profits.

and you left out a few 360 exclusives.
but you could not find any other ps3 exclusives.
last ps3 game i played was mgs4 and ninga guiden sigma. and not MGO, that was just a joke.

It must be pretty painful to drop from overwhelming first with ps2 to third for ps3.

On the bright side they are still selling ps2s.

"... no other reason than to play Wii Sports, and never buy another game"

But Wii do you say that? I guess you follow the charts here in Joystiq every month with the NPD for the USA and every week with Media Crate for the Japanese sales.

The Wii is selling software, even more than the 360 at this point. The attach rate is lower (but higher than the PS3) but the huge install base makes the diference.

Just check the this chart from UK last week, and the Japanese too... and check the NPD here in Joystiq.

http://kotaku.com/5044118/british-sales-charts

http://kotaku.com/5045561/how-did-too-human--afrika-fare-in-japan


80% percen of the titles are from DS and Wii platforms.

Yes, look at all that quality software on those British charts. Good job Nintendo!

Yeah seriously fernando. All you're doing is proving to us how shitty the wii and ds lineup really is.

I have to disagree with you... I bought a Wii and have owned many, many games for it.

Of course, I played each of them for about an hour before heading back to the 360, but still.

...Obviously I wasn't referring to people with a vested fanboy interest in the Wii when I said that people are only playing Wii Sports. Of course "hardcore" gamers have bought Zelda, Metroid, Smash Bros, Mario Galaxy etc by now, but the soccer moms and the grandparents? Wii Sports, and Wii Play is literally all they play. That's millions of consoles being sold that aren't selling any reasonable amount of software with them. It's fine for Nintendo, since they make money on every console sold (unlike Sony) but it really sucks for the third party developers. Then you have to take into account that most of the wii software sold, is first party, which is extremely harmful to third party developers (and is why you see so much cheaply made, third party garbage on the Wii)

The Wii console outsells the 360 and the PS3(possibly combined) but as consoles get added to the install base, the attach rate isn't charting anywhere near as high as it should (except for first party games). Take away the first party titles, and the Wii isn't even doing as well as the PS3 with attach rate. The DS is irrelevant, as it's not even a home console.

I don't know any other way to put this, other than to say that the Wii is such a victim of it's own success, that it shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath with the PS3 and the 360 anymore. If the third party developers were smart, they'd completely abandon the Wii, and force Nintendo to turn it into even more of a first party machine than it is now. Why anyone other than the Wiiware devs would bother to sink time and money into making what is doomed to be a gigantic flop, is beyond me. Mad World is the only light at the end of the tunnel as far as I'm concerned. If it weren't for the distant hope of a new Zelda sometime this decade (hopefully) I'd probably sell my Wii right now and buy something more useful...like...I don't know...anything else.

Oh, and I may have made it sound like I wanted the 360 to win over the PS3, when I'm actually pretty much indifferent. Just saying the PS3 and the 360 are in competition with each other, while the Wii is in an entirely different league.

You presume that all 3rd party titles are doomed to be a gigantic flop? Where do you get that?

Ok, in the interest of political correctness, I'll amend my statement:

Games that aren't first party, and aren't for kids (or sports games) are doomed to failure on the Wii. This statement isn't to be taken literally, but rather as a mostly correct generalization on the state of third party Wii game sales.

PS3 will overtake it eventually, unless the PS3 starts to lose steam in year 3 the way the 360 seems like it is.

So say I, the Amazing Criswellfish.

... just wait until...

until you stop posting?

It aint 09 yet.

I dont think the 360 lost steam but rather just hit the ceiling on buyers willing to pay that much for a new console. This price cut will change things a lot. Especially this Holiday Season with the help of some other little title.

"I have a rendezvous with Death..."

I agree, Fenix. I've got some friends that bought a Wii as their first console purchase this generation, and their systems have been collecting dust...just the other day, two of these friends finally said they wanted to get a 360 because it was hitting the price "sweet spot" for them. I don't mean to bash the Wii, the numbers don't lie, but it's basically a financial fad...there are some quality titles on it, but for the most part, it hits a price point "sweet spot" with the SWEET low price of its shovelware library, which even the most diehard Nintendo fanboy will admit is a HUGE library.

Only fanboys thought it would OMGWTFBBQ dominance. The PS3 outsold the 360 on a pretty consistent basis this year, but not enough to pass it in total sales. So... good for Sony, they sold a bunch of systems.

Personally, even having purchased a 360 this year and having the back-catalog available, I still picked up more PS3 games, and am anticipating more PS3 games than 360 games before the year is out, with the next few being Force Unleashed and AC4:Answer on the PS3 and Dead Space for the 360.

2008, Year of the PS3? Sure. Did well. Sold more than the competition. I had lots of games to play. So many games, in fact, that I didn't have time to pity all the pathetic tools out there more concerned with what they're playing on, rather than what they're playing.