Please Help

[RedAngel]

Believe it or not I´ve got to write a document about these consoles at university.

I have to answer this question: is there path dependency in the game consoles market?

Path dependency is a theory that tryes to explain why a product succeds against other better products (in this case it would be ps2).

An example of path dependency is qwerty keyboards.

Users chose ps2 because ps1 was very succesful and now they don´t believe there is something out of Sony.

But I need numbers, stats... and the problem with videogames is that there are books or webs with history but not with economic and financial terms (yes, I´m studying economics).

Enough chat, do you know any web with stats, numbers and all that?

 

[CrazyGoon]

Woah, this is a big topic, and it should be pretty easy to find some stats around. Try gamefaqs for system specs. The argument goes much deeper than the specs themselves, but there is reasons out there why Sony is winning the console war hands down, but I'm not about to go into them right now (not unless there is something to rebut, of course 😉 ) And this is why I can't give a straight answer about whether there is path dependency with the console gaming market - it could be because Sony is a smart and strategic company when it comes to getting the people to buy their products, or it could be that they are just winning because they had the support backing from the success of the PS1. There are many, many reasons you can debate. So, I guess if this thing is for uni, then it would be acceptable to gather a whole lot of points of why Sony is winning the console war and then debate whether path dependency really had an impact or whether it would of happened anyway (sony winning the console war, that is).

I hope I'm not off track here. There should be many people here that know of good sites which provide history of the companies, and debates on why Sony is winning the console war.

 

[Mask of Destiny]

Although path dependency is an issue, I don't think it's a really big one in the console market. If it was, Sega wouldn't have been able to be successful with the Genesis and Sony wouldn't have been able to be successful with the original Playstation.

Sony understands marketing. They know how to market their console to consumers and to developers and they do it very well.

Can't help you with the stats though.

PS. I personally think QWERTY is a bad example of this as studies have shown only minimal typing speed improvement with Dvorak keyboards, but I digress.

 

[RedAngel]

Thanks for your replies. I do not want system specs stats I want things like units sold in Europe, USA, Japan etc.

If SNES would have appeared one year before Genesis and with backwards compatibility I think our loved Genesis would not have been succesful.

Of course, Sony makes good products (but not the best ones) and it has great marketing policies.

 

[RedAngel]

I will write about these topics (any comments, critics, modifications will be welcome):

1. Better marketing.

2. Backwards compatibility.

3. Huge third party support.

4. Killer apps (Final Fantasy, Fifa, Soul Calibur etc)

5. Nationality.

6. Date of born.

7. Target audience (Nintendo=children?)

8. System specs.

9. Price.

10. On line games.

Of course, if someone give me a good advice for this, I will write in my work "I would like to thank XXXX from SegaXtreme message boards". 🙂

 

[CrazyGoon]

That's good. Marketing is in there. So is third-party support. Target audience may be a factor nowadays. System specs is not that important. Price is in there. Online games isn't really. Backwards compatiblity is in there atm...

If by 'killer apps' you mean 'hit titles', then that's in there. Don't know what you mean by nationality and date of born. Wait, date of born refers to launch dates? Then yes, thats definately in there.

As for advice - check out gaming history and find out why consoles flopped/ sold like hot-cakes. Here's somethings from my head:

Marketing: Saturn

Marketing was so poor that hardly anyone knew about it.

Backwards compatibilty: TurboGrafx/PC-Engine/and all the duos, duo-rs...

As each newer system came out, they was able to play anything that the older system could play, plus added another feature. But backwards compatibility didn't save this system from it's doom, did it. Backwards compatibility isn't really that important unless the majority of the market has already invested in that console and not the others (such as the PSX). Atari also had backwards compatibilty with the 7800.

Huge third party support: Jaguar

Had barely no third party support and died a horrible death.

Killer apps (hit titles): ...

Hmm, well, nearly every system has a hit title for it, and nearly every system has at least a mascot. So perhaps the Xbox is a good example at showing things gone wrong. Xbox don't even have a mascot, do they? Hey, neither did Atari. And their systems are dead now aswell...

Nationality: ??

Date of born (launch dates): Saturn

The Saturn came out 4 months prior to the psx, which was one of the biggest blunders in console launch history! Sony waited 4 months until it was the busiest time of year - Christmas - and appeared with a price tag $100 cheaper than that of the Saturn.. which of course, never would have happened in Sega waited 'til christmas aswell.

Target audience: kids?

Well, probably more so nowadays. Things to back up this are the emergence of 'mature titles' such as DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball, and GTA3 - and all the titles that flowed from there in the same nature (explicit language, sexual themes). But back in the day, there weren't hardly any noticable 'mature themes' apart from the emergence of blood with titles such as Altered Beast, Splatterhouse, and more famously, Mortal Kombat. And videogames were probably targeted more towards late teens/adults, but still kids got stuck into them. Perhaps nowadays, it's vice-versa.

System specs: Dreamcast

This baby come out a whole friggin' year before the emergence of another 128-bit system. If system specs were really important, then people would have been throwing out their 'old-fashioned' 32-bit psx or their 'uncool' 64-bit Nintendo 64 to go buy a 'totally hip' 128-bit Sega Dreamcast. But that didn't happen. Sure, the Dreamcast did alright but it didn't outsell the psx, or N64, and when the PS2 arrived, all the psx gamers flocked over and bought their PS2, leaving the Dreamcast to have a slow upsetting death.

Price: 3DO, NeoGeo

These consoles never really got off the ground due to their incredibly high prices. And recently, you may have noticed the Gamecubes massive sales from their price reductions. Price is definately a factor.

Online games:

These really haven't come off the ground as of yet. Sure, Online games have been around a while for consoles (Dreamcast), but they don't really add up as a primary reason of why a console does well. Xbox live has recently come out, but I don't think that's going to save the system, and bring mega sales with it.

These are just examples and serve somewhat as a guide for you. Hope it helps.

 

[RedAngel]

Hey, thanks for your reply. 😉

I think nationality is important in the case of Japan. Europeans and Americans do not care if the console is Japanese, but in Japan it is very difficult to succeed with a machine from other countries (Xbox may look too American for the Japanese taste).

Of course, I will use examples from the past. The problem is that this work has to be more economic and less historic. I know that there are 60 millions of PS2 and it has 69% of the market, but I do not know other numbers. I need for example the cost of the marketing campaigns of the different companies.