Why PS2 Succeeded, and Why PS3 Will Fail

By no means a definitive prediction, but some interesting points nonetheless:

http://www.gearlive.com/index.php/news/article/why-ps2-succeeded-and-why-ps3-will-fail-823140/

What does everyone else think?

I agree with whoever posted that post. He/She has highlighted all those points that have made me doubt PS3, but for which I might get an earbashing for on here.

I'm sure there's many out there who feel its all a forgone conclusion because Sony are kind of indestructible or something. No one is that good.

One of the biggest deciding factors for me personally is the dvd region stuff. I have a lot of u.s anime dvds, and I need to know I won't be making them obsolete because of relying on PS3 to play my collection (if it was my default dvd player). Because of Blu Ray and HD-DVD, region codes are changing again. As for as playback is concerned I could well be stuck, time will tell. Perhaps I'll have to bag a cheap spare multi region dvd recorder instead, while they are around still.

PS3 will do okay like PSP, on the back of PS2s and PSones rep. Perhaps its a familiarity thing consumers want and that might play in its favour too. I feel Sony are where Nintendo were once, third place. They have to prove me wrong though. Many industry suits would have us believe that Sony have already won, just as they predicted with PSP against DS, the reality may be different. The price has already hurt PS3.

I'm a big Metal Gear and Ridge Racer fan, but I can play previous versions and the PSP efforts much cheaper. Its gonna be a while before I get my hand on RR7 and MGS4. So be it, I'll still have my DS, PSP, Wii and 360.

Seems the poster for that forum is getting a lot of heat, but there you go.

Nintendo are getting a lot of public backing. A lot less people snigger at that name than expected, and the design and control setup intrigues many. The papers and magazines have been touting it for success, and at the same time saying "oh, and there's a Playstation 3 too".

There's too much stupidity in the Sony camp. THAT E3 presentation... I shudder at the thought someone wrote that in a serious manner. I mean seriously, "Innovative real-time weapons changing"? They need to get faith through showing there is a point to splashing your cash other than being an early adopter in their grand schemes. They need to show people they have games, real games that haven't already been done.

If anyone thinks Nintendo is in second or even first place is sorely wrong. Remember Playstation basically cemented gaming as being cool and not some dark corner of the basement of your parents house ritual. And what that means is that casual gamers became a definitive moniker for a majority of gamers. Casual gamers don't like innovation. Casual gamers like graphics, sandbox GTA style gaming, and Madden NFL Football. All things the Wii really isn't. We may have restored faith in Nintendo, kids may be pouring over it, and the press may be touting it as the new cool, but it'll be the majority of gamers, the casual cools as I like to call them (actually I only called them that once and it was now and it was really lame and probably wont happen again, but then again who knows) that determine who will win. Also Sony fanboyism is very high and they have very loyal followers, and they have Final Fantasy.

Also, that author of the article is a total ass. His points, which at one point in his mind may have been accurate, are so biased it's hard to take seriously. If he was ojective about his position, it'd be a much better article.

The thing is though, those same casual gamers went out and bought other machines. They bought an Xbox to play Halo, Forza and such. They bought a 360 to play PGR3 and next-gen Madden and Tiger Woods, and to show off HD gaming. Some have stagnated, sticking to the sandbox GTA and Madden stuff, but many have gone on to seek bigger things.

The 360 has had a massive surge of popularity in the US, backed up by being the only source of a fix of next-gen Madden and Tiger Woods, and with PGR3, Saint's Row and Dead Rising it just gets stronger. I mean heck, for 3 months after launch, Oblivion on 360 was the most popular search, most popular board and most popular FAQ request on GameFAQs! The people with enough money will buy both a 360 and the PS3, but it will be both.

But the Wii... the Wii, like DS, appeals to EVERYONE. In Japan, it will be number one; it appeals to their culture, across all age ranges and classes. Outside Japan... most likely, it'll be a novelty, albeit a high-selling one like DS.

Plus, as we know from other markets, being synonymous with something doesn't make you the best. Sure, everyone associates gaming with Playstation - but that just makes having something else cooler. Look at the Mac and Linux popularity in the computer market, for example. Porsches and Ferraris are the big names in sports cars, but damn if it isn't cooler to own something like a Noble or Koenigsegg. Coca-Cola is synonymous with fizzy drinks, but Pepsi Max is a drink of choice for many. Doc Martens are the most famous boots, but New Rocks are just that much cooler.

It's not always good to be synonymous with something, as you can see.

"casual gamers like graphics" LOL the biggest piece of s**te you can use in a discussion about who's going to sell the best.
I geus the PSOne sold better because it had better grfx then the N64
Or the PS2 sold better then Xbox/GC because of... see where i'm getting at? Good! Now don't use it anymore!

Thing is, does anyone know what casual gamers really like? No! because you have casual 11-15 year old who just buy everything involving shooting someone brain out of his head and with a big marketing punch behind it so it seems like the "next cool thing". Then you have the new and upcoming teen female casual gamer demographic. And the upcoming older people casual gamer demographic...ect. ect. Is there a mutual characteristic among them...maybe but we don't know it...yet.

Hey you said it too! Now don't twist my words around again. :o) You can't single out one aspect of casual gamers and call it wrong. Remember, they DO like graphics, just have a damn conversation with them and you'll see. But, since their CASUAL, their not going to go and buy everything. The casual gamer won't pick up a new system for at least a year. And the casual gamer doesn't buy boatloads of games. Fact. PS2 sold because it was the best thing for a whole damn year, it had DVD playback native on the system (WITHOUT AN ADAPTER), played their old PS1 games, looked cool, and was marketed as the new thing to have. Also the fact that it had s**tloads of games to play, GC and X-Box didn't, helped a little.

I think as long as the PS3 has great exclusive content and a wide variety of games like PS2 had, it'll do well. Price will be overcome in favor of games. We all have a price to play something glorious. If your favorite game or series came to PS3 and it was top notch, I think we'd all crumble. Although now that 360 has GTA IV coninciding with the PS3 launch, that'll hurt.

Do note the quotation marks as in refering to your remark. Besides, casual gamers don't look at the best graphics anyways, it's the best graphic (artistic) style they look at, which is totally different. Example: Everquest 2 versus World of Warcraft. Everquest 2 clearly uses the better techno-graphic junk while WoW has the better artistic style (but actually looks like WC3 with higher polly count in a third person view). Which one has the better casual gamer penetration...

Casual gamers don't buy consoles if the price isn't lower then 200 dollars/euro's. The PS2 did not started it's great sell-trough untill it was priced at 199 dollars. it sold so well in the first two years Sony executives were considering to just scrap the gamedivision because it was losing them so much money.

Casual gamers also tend to buy the console that has the most varierty and the cheaper priced games and adds in a nice touch of fun innovation. Sony did delivered that with the PS2 in huge spades (Eyetoy and Singstar bringing the nice touch of fun innovation).

Now Sony is getting itself stuck between MS that's hogging all the hardcore genres (and with that also aiming hard for the 11-15 year old casual graphic whores you refer too...but they do not represent all the casual gamers, not by a long shot) and doing a more solid job of it then Sony and Nintendo that's going innovation beserk and possesses the clear ability to poop out fun, simple, innovative games like they have an extreme case of diarhia (spelling?) and at the same time cater to their (lost) fans (who are regualr and harcore gamers by default) with having MP3, Zelda and Mario allready in developent and set to launch in the first 6 months of it's new console.

Negating any unique advantage that Sony had with the PS2. They're going to do alright, but not PS2-like alright.

WoW-Everquest comparison IS a valid argument because Everquest has been out a lot longer then WoW. WoW the best MMO? Why? because you said so? bullshit...come say that to our xbox-editor, he'll kill you right at the spot you're standing. In my opinion all MMO's are pieces of s**te because of their gamecontent stretching model and me hating levelgrinding.

All casual gamers love Madden? That's why Europeans buy it like crazy right? Nintendo doesn't have games that appeal to casual gamers...let's all pretend Pokemon, Nintendogs, Animal Crossing, Donkey Konga, Mario Party, Mario Kart and Brain Training DO NOT exist and you could have a valid point...

Let's see where you have it wrong.
1) your definition of a casual gamer is just way too restrictive. Casual gamers are very heterogenous group and should therefore be split up in more groups if not overlapping groups. You're way to much thinking in the 11-15 year old male group of casual gamers, believing its the only casual gamer group. IT IS NOT!!!
2) Casual gamers do not know what good graphics are, they don't look at that. What they do know is what a good graphic style is, preferably one that has an air of fun to it (WoW-Everquest, still stands in spite the arguments you make up for it).

Nintendo knows both 2 and has created hardware accordingly. DS isn't a technical monster but can pump out very nice artistic styles (which it was developed to do best) combined with Nintendo's CLEARLY WORKING strategy of wide variety of games, harcore, casual and non-gamer... you can say perfectly say Nintendo is actually on the right track.

Pwnage. cosine.

I will say that he(vault13) has a very skewed and narrow (and probably inaccurate) definition of casual gamers.

The problem isn't vault, in my opinion, it's about finding out who the "casual" gamers are, and how they're defined.

I know a lot of my students (I can't believe they're students that I'm talking about) play Madden and Halo. So do "hardcore" gamers. I don't think anyone who can make all the pro exploits in Madden (or Fifa) and memorizes all sorts of playbooks and such can be considered "casual."

I think too often we all use "casual" and "Madden" as a slight against "the masses" because they're sports games.

I don't ever hear anyone make those arguments about GT. How can a person that buys a PS3 for the next GT and nothing else be considered (by some) to be hardcore (EDIT: or at least not casual), but one that buys Madden is depicted as some mindless thrall to the corporate masses?

But I'll just get off my high horse that is on a soap box and return to my classroom...

Exactly. The lines between hardcore and casual are becoming less defined as time rolls by. Of course, you can play a game aimed at the mainstream such as Madden in a hardcore way, but there's something else happening, something led by Nintendo.

Nintendogs, Animal Crossing, Brain Training, Tetris. All these games were pitched squarely at the casual gamer and all were bought and played obsessively by hardcore gamers. The split of interest in Nintendogs verges on bizarre, same could be said for Animal Crossing.

We can only assume this trend will continue with further DS titles and the launch of the Wii. I am struggling to understand if Nintendo is blurring the lines of game consumer bracketing or simply making new hardcore players out of casual consumers, and forcing them with killer content...

As far as the original article goes, I'd be able to draw a lot more similarities with the PlayStations 2 and 3 at this point in their pre-release lifecycle than differences. As to how this impacts on the success of the platform boils down to how good the collective memory of the gamer is.

It's a new 'proper' next-gen gaming machine. The first year will suck. Then it will be awesome. Duh.

I agree quite strongly. I think Nintendo will mimic their success of the DS with the Wii. Maybe they won't take first place... maybe, but I wouldn't be surprised by a huge amount of success.