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Emily Rogers: NX Not Using x86 Architecture - Won't Blow Away Current Gen Consoles
- Thread starter dancrane212
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I'd hope this is true, but we'd been hearing the same stuff on easy porting etc on the Wii U and it couldn't have been father from the truth.
In this case, ARM is already supported by most major engines (Unreal Engine 4, Frostbite, Unity, etc.) & will likely be used more going forward. PowerPC, which is what the Wii U used, was a dying breed by that point.
cartographer
Member
Main difference being that ARM devices are everywhere, used by almost everyone and are only going to become more popular. PowerPC was basically dead when they decided to keep it for the Wii U.
If NX doesn't get ports, it will be for a bunch of other reasons other than potentially using ARM. And there's a decent amount of potential reasons (same for Wii U, really. PowerPC was far from the only roadblock for Wii U).
protomouse
Member
PC was x86 all along. Where are my damn sports games, EA?
Despite whatever anecdotes we might have about "normal" people's console buying decisions, there's no actual evidence that raw performance is or ever has been a significant factor in any consoles success. If anything, history suggests the opposite, with consoles built specifically for performance (eg N64, Xbox, PS3) generally underperforming compared to their competitors. Even in this gen, with PS4 out front in terms of sales, there's precious little evidence that this is due to the power advantage, rather than the other factors in its favour (MS's decision to bundle Kinect with early XBOs, and their non-existence in Japan and poor showing in Europe).
Even with Wii U, there's no evidence to say that, outside of Internet message boards, its raw performance was the major deciding factor in its failure (people arguing this seem to conveniently forget that when it launched it was the most advanced console around, and had arguably definitive ports of big third party games like AC:3 and NFS:MW, and this was before PS4 and XBO had been announced). May I suggest what I consider the two main factors in Wii U's failure are:
The system was too confusing - For my first piece of evidence on this point, watch Nintendo's E3 2006 presentation where they reveal the Wii, and how clearly obvious it is what the system does and how you interact with it. Then, watch their E3 2012 presentation where they show off the Wii U. In particular watch Eguchi try to explain how the Luigi's Mansion minigame in Nintendoland works. Nintendoland is actually an incredibly effective way of demonstrating what the Wii U is capable of when you're playing it, but the system's abilities aren't easily communicable outside of that, which makes it an incredibly tough sell.
For my second piece of evidence, look at the historical sales of Nintendo's home hardware. Not the "Nintendo's sales are always going down and let's just conveniently ignore the Wii because it can't be shoe-horned into my narrative" analysis that seems to be popular these days, but rather the analysis which actually has statistical backing: Nintendo consoles sell more the simpler their control method. The Wii U's gamepad is the most complex controller they've ever released, and the requirement for other players to use other controllers increases the complexity even more. With the benefit of hindsight it shouldn't be at all surprising that it's their least successful home console.
There weren't enough desirable games - For my evidence on this, look at Wii U's software sales (particularly non-bundled software released near launch). This should be the absolute first thing people look to when considering why consoles sell as well or as badly as they do. People don't buy games consoles because they look pretty under their TV, they buy them to play games on, and the games available for the console are obviously going to have a massive impact on their decision to buy a console or not. People bought an N64 for Mario 64 and Goldeneye, they bought a PS1 for MS and FFVII, a PS2 for GTA, a Wii for Wii Sports, etc, etc.
The Wii U simply didn't have enough games to grab people's attention to buy the console, and the games they did have (eg Splatoon and Mario Maker) arrived too late to make a meaningful difference. Having to spread their development resources across two platforms didn't help on this front, and it's notable that their first major new IP on the system (Splatoon) arrived over two years into the console's life.
It's certainly worth noting that performance will have an effect on this, but only to the extent of being in the ballpark necessary for third party ports, and this is neither a necessary nor sufficient criterion for actually getting those ports (there were plenty of PS360 games released after Wii U's launch which could have easily run on it but were never ported).
If you want Nintendo to actually succeed, then you should be hoping they fix the two flaws above. What they do on the control front is anyone's guess, but it's pretty clear how they fix the second problem, and that's to implement a shared library across their home console and handheld devices. Doing that becomes more challenging the bigger the gap in performance between the two devices, though, and in particular the more powerful their home console is (as there's a much tighter limit to handheld performance). So if you're Nintendo and have the option of a strategy which history says won't work (competing on all-out power with Sony and MS's new devices) or a strategy which basic logic says will work (releasing a ballpark XBO/PS4 home console so that it can share a library with the handheld, massively increasing the quantity and variety of first party software), I don't know why you would go with the former.
Fortunately this does seem to be what Nintendo's doing, from the (admittedly little) evidence we have. Reports on the handheld using a Nvidia SoC, and likely the home console too, the home console GPU being in the ballpark of XBO and PS4, the CPU being ahead of them, and other reports explicitly saying it should be able to handle ports all point to Nintendo pursuing this strategy.
Even with Wii U, there's no evidence to say that, outside of Internet message boards, its raw performance was the major deciding factor in its failure (people arguing this seem to conveniently forget that when it launched it was the most advanced console around, and had arguably definitive ports of big third party games like AC:3 and NFS:MW, and this was before PS4 and XBO had been announced). May I suggest what I consider the two main factors in Wii U's failure are:
The system was too confusing - For my first piece of evidence on this point, watch Nintendo's E3 2006 presentation where they reveal the Wii, and how clearly obvious it is what the system does and how you interact with it. Then, watch their E3 2012 presentation where they show off the Wii U. In particular watch Eguchi try to explain how the Luigi's Mansion minigame in Nintendoland works. Nintendoland is actually an incredibly effective way of demonstrating what the Wii U is capable of when you're playing it, but the system's abilities aren't easily communicable outside of that, which makes it an incredibly tough sell.
For my second piece of evidence, look at the historical sales of Nintendo's home hardware. Not the "Nintendo's sales are always going down and let's just conveniently ignore the Wii because it can't be shoe-horned into my narrative" analysis that seems to be popular these days, but rather the analysis which actually has statistical backing: Nintendo consoles sell more the simpler their control method. The Wii U's gamepad is the most complex controller they've ever released, and the requirement for other players to use other controllers increases the complexity even more. With the benefit of hindsight it shouldn't be at all surprising that it's their least successful home console.
There weren't enough desirable games - For my evidence on this, look at Wii U's software sales (particularly non-bundled software released near launch). This should be the absolute first thing people look to when considering why consoles sell as well or as badly as they do. People don't buy games consoles because they look pretty under their TV, they buy them to play games on, and the games available for the console are obviously going to have a massive impact on their decision to buy a console or not. People bought an N64 for Mario 64 and Goldeneye, they bought a PS1 for MS and FFVII, a PS2 for GTA, a Wii for Wii Sports, etc, etc.
The Wii U simply didn't have enough games to grab people's attention to buy the console, and the games they did have (eg Splatoon and Mario Maker) arrived too late to make a meaningful difference. Having to spread their development resources across two platforms didn't help on this front, and it's notable that their first major new IP on the system (Splatoon) arrived over two years into the console's life.
It's certainly worth noting that performance will have an effect on this, but only to the extent of being in the ballpark necessary for third party ports, and this is neither a necessary nor sufficient criterion for actually getting those ports (there were plenty of PS360 games released after Wii U's launch which could have easily run on it but were never ported).
If you want Nintendo to actually succeed, then you should be hoping they fix the two flaws above. What they do on the control front is anyone's guess, but it's pretty clear how they fix the second problem, and that's to implement a shared library across their home console and handheld devices. Doing that becomes more challenging the bigger the gap in performance between the two devices, though, and in particular the more powerful their home console is (as there's a much tighter limit to handheld performance). So if you're Nintendo and have the option of a strategy which history says won't work (competing on all-out power with Sony and MS's new devices) or a strategy which basic logic says will work (releasing a ballpark XBO/PS4 home console so that it can share a library with the handheld, massively increasing the quantity and variety of first party software), I don't know why you would go with the former.
Fortunately this does seem to be what Nintendo's doing, from the (admittedly little) evidence we have. Reports on the handheld using a Nvidia SoC, and likely the home console too, the home console GPU being in the ballpark of XBO and PS4, the CPU being ahead of them, and other reports explicitly saying it should be able to handle ports all point to Nintendo pursuing this strategy.
NeonZ
Member
We aren't in the link cable era anymore. Two devices with wifi made by the same developer certainly should be able to connect to each other. The 3ds and the Wii U can connect in Smash Bros, for example. They also could work out online compatibility.
Sun & Moon's new engine looks like it'd scale pretty well to higher resolution, since the world isn't as blocky as before, so they wouldn't need to debut a new graphical engine before a new generation and could stick with it.
paradise_circus
Member
the ps1 and ps2 had the most powerful hardware money could buy for the initial selling prices. the same goes for Xbox, Xbox 360, ps3 and ps4 as well.
MS had too deal with huge production issues after releasing the Xbox 360 too early, Sony had to wait till the production of the blue laser diodes could achieve higher yields.
MS had too deal with huge production issues after releasing the Xbox 360 too early, Sony had to wait till the production of the blue laser diodes could achieve higher yields.
I'm not saying that they would use a stock chip, but that it won't be much better than stock. Like, exact same GPU, switch to a homogeneous 8-core CPU, and throw in a bunch of eSRAM. Try to hit sub $250. There's no logical reason for her to even throw in that "stretch" part unless what she actually meant to say is that it's weaker than Xbone, but is close if you stretch it a bit. Also, if its Pascal-based and on 16nmFF+, it's logical to believe that Nintendo would want the chip to be very small and that they want one chip to use in both the handheld and console to reduce costs. 16nmFF+ has the same density as 20nm SoC, so to add more SMs would mean greatly increasing the size. The absolute best case is a single cluster of 5 SMs (640 CUDA cores) at around 1GHz, with three of those disabled in the handheld version. Even that's pushing it though, especially if they use eSRAM.
wonderful103
Member
People who actually think like this are gaming on PC.
Skittzo0413
Member
I absolutely agree with this assessment, with one caveat. I wouldn't necessarily say that the simplicity of controllers for Nintendo's consoles is a factor which made those consoles sell the way they did. The NES sold so well because there was virtually no competition and no way to play the majority of its third party games. The downward trend since then is likely linked more to the third party support and overall amount of games than it is to the complexity of the controllers.
However, that isn't to say an adequately compelling control scheme, be it simple or not, can affect their fortunes, the Wii being the obvious example. Like you said, if they have some combination of more games overall and simple/intuitive/novel controls, it could be quite successful regardless of its power.
Then what about trading over local Wi-Fi (today's equivalent of the Link Cable)? Would you require the Pokémon Bank for that? And even then, platform transitions usually happen with a new generation. With Gen 7 being on the 3DS, it's highly unlikely that it'll ever be anything other than 3DS-exclusive. Now it's a question of if Gen 7 will receive a sequel game (as it will likely impact when the NX Platform gets Gen 8).
NeonZ
Member
That's why I mentioned Smash Bros. The Wii U and 3ds games can connect just fine in spite of being for different systems. Wi-fi isn't system locked. They could release a third version/sequel for another console that could still connect with the 3ds version.
Dont put to much stock in the SCDs. 90% of all patents never goes anywhere. I took that number out of my ass, but you get the point.
DXB-KNIGHT
Member
It's not the Xbox it's Nintendo E3 announcement of just one game.
I stopped following the NX news eagerly prior to their E3 announcement.
Skittzo0413
Member
As someone in the patent business, I can assure you that a large percentage of patents filed by large companies do indeed go nowhere. Maybe not 90% but I think your point stands, yes.
Although SCDs wouldn't be a surprising move by Nintendo, since they're reminiscent of the N64 expansion pack or the SNES super FX chip.
Both ps4k and xbox scorpio are probably doa. So don't expect too much, beside some improvement framerate with maybe upscaled res and 4k videos that most people doesn't have or care.
Why would Nintendo needs to go 3rd party if MS already does that? You can't have only one console at the market ps5. That would be stupid. And Nintendo 3rd party isn't Nintendo anymore, look at sega. It are the only 2 that didn't focused on cinematic games.
Skittzo0413
Member
Pretty sure he's being sarcastic (though you can never tell through text).
Prisoner KSC2-303
Member
Out of interest, can anyone recall any Nintendo patents that weren't utilised in some manner?
hooijdonk17
Member
Ok so its two Wii Us taped together? Wii W?
axisofweevils
Holy crap! Today's real megaton is that more than two people can have the same first name.
There were those Wii remote in Skateboard wheel / teddy bear patents.
Skittzo0413
Member
Many big companies will attempt to patent any technology they happen upon in their standard R&D, regardless of whether or not they plan to use it, precisely in order to prevent competitors from using it without paying a license fee. It's very standard for all industries, and it applies just as much to Nintendo as it does to Samsung or Apple.
Prisoner KSC2-303
Member
Any non Wiimote ones?
Phone Patent from 2001:
http://nintendoeverything.com/a-look-at-nintendos-unused-phone-patent-from-2001/
VB controller:
https://www.reddit.com/r/VirtualBoy/comments/3tdrb2/patent_for_unused_virtual_boy_controller/
Force-Feedback in 3DS:
http://www.geek.com/games/nintendo-files-patent-for-force-feedback-system-in-ds3ds-1182011/
Touchscreen RPG:
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2009/04/miyamotos_unused_touch_screen_rpg
Wiimote Infrared Add-on:
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/11/0...sory-that-turns-a-wii-remote-into-a-touchpad/
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/28332/nintendo-files-for-wii-remote-infrared-add-on-patents
HH with Interchangeable Controls (2014):
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=811351
Pikmin DS Patent:
http://www.pikminwiki.com/Patent_US7762893
Wave Race Wiimote Patent:
https://www.unseen64.net/tag/nst/
Prisoner KSC2-303
Member
Interesting, cheers for that.
I know companies patent loads of speculative ideas, but I couldn't think of any specific potentially console-based designs Nintendo had failed to utilise or adapt in some manner.
I know companies patent loads of speculative ideas, but I couldn't think of any specific potentially console-based designs Nintendo had failed to utilise or adapt in some manner.
My pleasure. It was interesting to research! I wonder if anything will ever come of any of those.
No, in this generation, there is evidence that raw performance has been a factor in sales and in Sony's success. Each generation is its own thing. In this one, power has mattered.
First of all, Nielsen had a look at the data, did some surveys and showed that among PS4 buyers, the improved resolution was the number one reason given for purchasing it, with 'faster processer' the number 4 reason. The 'meme' that PS4 was the stronger, better machine spread quickly across twitter. Anecdotally, it's what got my casual 360-owning friends to pick one up over the XB1. The survey appears to confirm that this wasn't an isolated or unusual thing.
And people were shocked at how quickly these consoles took off - the prevailing wisdom was that without any new styles of gameplay, the average console gamer wouldn't pay $400 bucks to play prettier versions of the standard multiplats like CoD / Fifa / Battlefield etc. The consensus was that, like the Wii U, there could be a good first month or two and then a rough first year as people stuck with what they knew. And the consensus was wildly wrong. The average console gamer flocked to the new machines quickly and in droves for the prettier graphics, and flocked to the PS4 in particular as it had the better visuals (and better price). And tons of PS4 purchasers moved from 360.
Not only that, people were shocked at how quickly the audience for cross-gen titles (in terms of software splits) moved to the newer consoles. This was long before there was any danger of the older consoles missing out on new games in big franchises - people just moved for the better visuals. And it certainly wasn't exclusives selling the games - just look at the sales charts at launch and for a year thereafter. Better looking versions of games we already had were the number 1 thing people were buying the machines for. If that visual impetus was what was driving their purchase, surely getting the best looking console they could would be a huge factor?
Here's a thread where Sony claims to be shocked at the rate of PS4 sales and admits that many previous owners didn't own a PS3. (Establishing that this was, in fact, a surprise to everyone.) Shu pretends like they don't know what drove the sales, but their actions with PS4k speak louder than words - they got the benefit of being the strongest, most premium console this time around, and they want to retain that. Their actions show that they think it was an important part of their success, which is backed up by the Neilsen survey.
Honestly, how can you look at all of this and say that power doesn't matter?
It would be suicide for Nintendo to chase MS and Sony in this regard, but it would also be stupidity not to see the market as it actually is.
Prisoner KSC2-303
Member
I feel like the handheld patent could hold some promise, particularly what appears to be slots for amiibos. Looking at all of those, the thing that strikes me is how many are based on existing designs. I honestly thought there'd be more like the phone idea i.e. ones that were entirely new concepts and went nowhere.
ps1, ps2, ps3, xbox 360 were also outmatched pretty fast by PC hardware, maybe around a year after release or so.
Really, this generation is not much different than those, Ps4 had quite high specs when it was released, maybe they could have pushed a bit more if they wanted to lose more money but the results wouldn't have changed much.
What truly makes a difference though in my eyes is how fierce has been the desktop GPU race, with 300W behemoths, an insane 28 to 14/16 node switch and the influence of the future VR market coming closer every day.
IIRC there is Unity support for NN3DS though.
Schnozberry
Member
You should read the study methodology for the Nielsen slides you posted. They interviewed roughly 2500 people from age 6-Adult, and then weighted the Raw Data to match census categories for different age brackets.
The most important data from that study was not why people chose to buy a console. Of the fraction of the people in that study that owned 8th gen consoles, those were their reasons. Most didn't even own them yet. The biggest takeaway is that most people are not playing video games on console anymore. They are spending far more of their gaming dollars and hours on mobile devices and PCs playing casual games.
The crux of my point is that Nintendo's goal should be to try and build hardware that can carve them out some space into the way people currently play games. That doesn't depend solely on power, since most people (according to Nielsen) aren't playing games on extremely powerful hardware.
Many big companies will attempt to patent any technology they happen upon in their standard R&D, regardless of whether or not they plan to use it, precisely in order to prevent competitors from using it without paying a license fee. It's very standard for all industries, and it applies just as much to Nintendo as it does to Samsung or Apple.
You have to wonder just what their R&D department was up to still to come up with "horse controller."
I see your point, but I believe the revamped PS4/XB1 SKUs are picturing a (far?) different scenario than the one the original models came to the market, ie having had the same hardware for 7 years.
The iterative HW revision strategy is an unproven business in the console space, no one can say for sure people will be going crazy like they did when PS4 was launched.
As to the bolded, we all know that, but enough are playing on console for the PS4 to be the fastest selling Playstation ever. So the idea that the market has vanished is utter crap.
As to the 'crux of your point', I completely agree with you and even stated that hardware power is not a path that Nintendo should seek to pursue. I was just stating that the idea that power isn't a major reason why the PS4 is the leading console this generation is wrong-headed.
I don't think people will go crazy for the iterations at all, and agree that circumstances have changed. My point was, though, that the existence of these new proposed consoles infers that both companies believe (from the experience of this gen) a more powerful box will sell based on power alone (as the consoles won't be doing anything new / won't have exclusives) and that they quite probably believe that the more powerful box will sell more, and that they can't allow the other party to one-up them in that regard.
I agree with virtually all your post, but the one doubt I have about a shared library is how Nintendo are going to sell people both devices. If the libraries are identical or near identical then someone who previously bought both a Wii and a DS may be content with just one.
LegendofLex
Member
The benefit of a shared library is that they don't need to build completely different libraries to sell different people on different devices.
They don't gain nearly as much from a shared library when people buy two systems than they do when more people buy at least one of their systems.
Of course there's an audience for which power matters. It's the audience of early adopters of Sony and Microsoft's game consoles.
That audience's values don't intersect with the values of the people who buy Nintendo consoles. They buy Nintendo consoles for different reasons.
And so you either get a Nintendo that betrays its audience's values more than they did with 3DS and Wii U in an effort to cannibalize the PlayStation and Xbox audience (this won't be successful unless Nintendo ditches basically its entire in-house software lineup and prioritizes other games instead with their console's central image), or you get a Nintendo that attempts to emulate the values that made them successful before.
I don't disagree at all.
But some people honestly think that to the audience that buys PS4s and XB1s power doesn't matter. That's what I was responding to, and that's incorrect.
I'm not someone who thinks Nintendo needs to make some beastly machine. Especially as diminishing returns kicks in. In fact, I'm on the record (for years and years now) saying Nintendo should focus on handheld first, then mobile, then console, and if they can't get a home console to succeed after another attempt or two they should go third party.
InB4 the classic "Nintendo would never do X" arguments which tend to reach their peak right before Nintendo does X.
wonderful103
Member
It's close to the bottom of the totem pole for everyone outside of the hardcore. As in, it's not a complete non-factor but it's close.
Any source for this?
I would say the most likely reason for people actually purchasing consoles is: a) I want my friends to like me. b) I'm keeping up with the Joneses. c) My kid wanted it.
I doubt those were prominent or even listed reasons in the study though (C kind of is). People will purchase the NX or the PS4K or whatever in droves if they get consensus on A and B (i.e., social media/friends/neighbors generally view it as "the next big thing"). C matters to a smaller subsection but that subsection tends to have a lot more collective wealth.
Mobile gaming wouldn't be crushing the competition if it weren't for the public groundswell around it (though it would be more accurate to say that mobile gaming is succeeding because it has whales, which you can't get from a one-time purchase model).
I doubt those were prominent or even listed reasons in the study though (C kind of is). People will purchase the NX or the PS4K or whatever in droves if they get consensus on A and B (i.e., social media/friends/neighbors generally view it as "the next big thing"). C matters to a smaller subsection but that subsection tends to have a lot more collective wealth.
Mobile gaming wouldn't be crushing the competition if it weren't for the public groundswell around it (though it would be more accurate to say that mobile gaming is succeeding because it has whales, which you can't get from a one-time purchase model).
Skittzo0413
Member
I honestly think the actual power of the console does not matter to almost everyone who bought it. Rather, the promise of power, and the marketing/hype focus on "having the best graphics" is a much more important factor. I very much doubt the average PS4 owner would be able to tell the difference between a game running on a PS4 and an XB1, but the way Sony nailed the marketing message- "hey, look at the PS4! It's so powerful! It's got way more power than the Xbox! Power is cool, power is what makes games great!"- is what got people hooked on that idea of power meaning a better console.
If Nintendo comes in and finds a completely different message to market, and they actually do a decent job for a change, they might be able to prove that ultimately the actual specs of a console do not factor into how well it sells. That's essentially what happened with the Wii.
As Lex said above, this isn't exactly a problem. If a consumer buys just the handheld or console and can still purchase any of the software Nintendo puts out, then that's a win for them since they make the majority of their revenue on software, not hardware. And there will obviously be double dippers, especially if Nintendo allows the ability to put down your console game, and pick it right back up on the handheld when you're on the go. There will clearly be benefits to owning both but overall Nintendo only NEEDS one sale from you to get you into their ecosystem.
I think the iterative console idea is pretty sound, it'll just be a microcosm of the PC environment where you milk demanding customers who you know will pay top dollar for top tech, but offer your aging hardware for others who care less, the problem with PC being that the range is so vast and the builds are so different that games or other things with 3D graphics start suffering faster, and compatibility errors can make some software simply refuse to run or crash constantly. All the iterative console space has to worry about (hopefully) are muddy textures, lower resolutions, and poor framerate as you go down the power scale, but *most everything will still run, and the console manufacturers will enforce it by forcing developers to adhere to PS4-One standard as a performance baseline for another couple of years at least.
To be on-topic, it means it's doubtful NX will get left behind completely, and if Nintendo's own plan is for architectural similarity going forward, it won't be hard for them to play their version of catch-up when they need to.
To be on-topic, it means it's doubtful NX will get left behind completely, and if Nintendo's own plan is for architectural similarity going forward, it won't be hard for them to play their version of catch-up when they need to.
stan423321
Member
But why would they care? Suppose, for the sake of argument, that they have literally identical libraries generated by current workforce which had to sustain two libraries earlier. This means multiple things: there are more games, including fringe ones, so the value of each device for people who have none rises - this is profit. Meanwhile, people who bought both systems now typically buy one, but chances are many of these people will end up buying more games altogether which have better profit margins than hardware - there are very few scenarios in which the latter group ends up as a loss. I mean, assuming the systems aren't sold at loss, they would lose at people who buy both systems then one game for each... how many such people exist? And assuming systems are sold at loss it's even weirder, but whatever.
Schnozberry
Member
It's not the fastest selling Playstation ever unless you're willing to accept a very narrow time window as your sample. That title belongs to the PS2, which if taken from today's date (30 months after launch approx) is about 10 million units ahead of the PS4. I'm also not saying the market has vanished, I'm just saying it has changed, and since that Nielsen study came out ~1yr ago it has accelerated. Mobile and PC gaming have both overtaken consoles by raw revenue since then.
As for the Nielsen Study, the power focus for PS4 buyers make sense. PS4 owners only made up 7% of the people they polled based on their numbers, so it was early adopters and core gamers.
Well, Sony just released PR today stating that it's the fastest selling Playstation of all time (with the 'we hit 40m sold through' report). If you want to argue against them with numbers, I'm all ears. What time period is relevant other than 'launch until now'?
And As for the Nielsen study, where are you getting those figures? I don't see anything like that in the original article.
I'm not sure why you want to keep arguing this point - the fact is that
a) home consoles are still a viable market,
b) power still matters in that market,
c) Sony and MS are both releasing new, powerful consoles into this market, and
d) this is the context of the home console market into which Nintendo will release their new device.
I believe the PS2 was released in Japan a year earlier than the West. I could be remembering wrong though.
Schnozberry
Member
Well, it's PR, so I don't know why you would trust it like it's some kind of gospel. PS2 sales figures from Wikipedia are here, and they are sourced well. 30 months after the PS2 released in Japan, the PS2 has over 49 million unit sales.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2_sales
Here's the full Powerpoint from the Nielsen study with more data and the slide about their methodology. The data was collected throughout 2014 and some after the 2014 holiday season. The number of people studied that owned 8th gen consoles were very small, and were made up of people who bought a PS4 and Xbox One almost exclusively within the first year of release. They are early adopters, by definition. They would skew towards buying for power and resolution, because they are exactly the kinds of people who weigh those factors heavily.
http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/nielsenglobal/us/docs/insights/webinars/2015/webinar-us-gaming-a-360-view-april-2015.pdf
Which, again, would still have its multiplats limited by Sony's "All PS4K games must play on the PS4" mandate.
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