Entertainment/Gaming Consoles

vsp · 05-27-2002, 12:56 PM

It's not so much a matter of "worry," as a matter of smart corporate decision-making. Even an ubercorp like Microsoft has to look at a product that's funnelling money into a hole in the ground and pull the plug sooner or later, if there are no signs of improvement.

Obviously, Sony and Microsoft have a multitude of other products, and Nintendo has one product line that trumps the GameCube -- the Game Boy franchise. In its various incarnations, the Game Boy has simply destroyed all competitors for over a decade, most of whom were technologically superior to their Nintendo counterparts at the time. (Game Gear, TurboExpress, Nomad, NeoGeo Pocket Color... right now, only the WonderSwan remains, and that only in Japan for the most part.)

But in a three-horse race, the third horse tends to falter quickly. Just ask Sega. The Saturn was quite comparable to the PSX, superior in many ways, but it fell behind (particularly in America) and never recovered. Nintendo skewed younger, Sony skewed older, Sega went after that older audience and ended up canning the Saturn entirely, pushing Dreamcast development in hopes of THAT taking the technological lead. And even that didn't work -- despite the DC having a clear advantage in its modem capabilities and much better specs than the PSX, Sony held its ground, and when the PS2 took over the market, Sega gave up console systems altogether.

The thought of, say, Virtua Fighter 4 on a Sony system, or Crazy Taxi on a Nintendo one would have been ludicrous two years ago. Not anymore.

At the moment, the Xbox is the one on the hot seat, IMHO; they're chasing the Sony audience, and failing, just as Sega did. The wild card is that many speculate that Microsoft is much more willing to take a loss than Sega was, strictly for the purpose of getting a Microsoft gaming-and-entertainment box into American living rooms. Rumors of what the Xbox2 will be like (most of which depict it as more of a minicomputer than a gaming system) are rampant. A lot of that, however, will depend on how the first Xbox fares, and not many of the signs are good right now.

05-27-2002, 12:56 PM	#11
vsp Syndrome of a Down Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: West Chester Posts: 1,367	It's not so much a matter of "worry," as a matter of smart corporate decision-making. Even an ubercorp like Microsoft has to look at a product that's funnelling money into a hole in the ground and pull the plug sooner or later, if there are no signs of improvement. Obviously, Sony and Microsoft have a multitude of other products, and Nintendo has one product line that trumps the GameCube -- the Game Boy franchise. In its various incarnations, the Game Boy has simply destroyed all competitors for over a decade, most of whom were technologically superior to their Nintendo counterparts at the time. (Game Gear, TurboExpress, Nomad, NeoGeo Pocket Color... right now, only the WonderSwan remains, and that only in Japan for the most part.) But in a three-horse race, the third horse tends to falter quickly. Just ask Sega. The Saturn was quite comparable to the PSX, superior in many ways, but it fell behind (particularly in America) and never recovered. Nintendo skewed younger, Sony skewed older, Sega went after that older audience and ended up canning the Saturn entirely, pushing Dreamcast development in hopes of THAT taking the technological lead. And even that didn't work -- despite the DC having a clear advantage in its modem capabilities and much better specs than the PSX, Sony held its ground, and when the PS2 took over the market, Sega gave up console systems altogether. The thought of, say, Virtua Fighter 4 on a Sony system, or Crazy Taxi on a Nintendo one would have been ludicrous two years ago. Not anymore. At the moment, the Xbox is the one on the hot seat, IMHO; they're chasing the Sony audience, and failing, just as Sega did. The wild card is that many speculate that Microsoft is much more willing to take a loss than Sega was, strictly for the purpose of getting a Microsoft gaming-and-entertainment box into American living rooms. Rumors of what the Xbox2 will be like (most of which depict it as more of a minicomputer than a gaming system) are rampant. A lot of that, however, will depend on how the first Xbox fares, and not many of the signs are good right now.

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