So Wii U is the new market leader now? What?
Gamers fled en masse from SNES/Gensis to PS1 when it had the games. GAmers fled en masse from Playstation 2 to Xbox 360 when it had the games. Many then jumped BACK to PS3 when Sony had the games.
Positive word of mouth among the most avid of gamers is worth a lot in this industry. Sony and MS have together made a perfect demonstration of that this generation where Sony's early efforts where entirely focused on that audience while MS was chasing blue oceans with Kinect, DRM, and multimedia convergence. MS has done everything in their power to bounce back and have had huge price cuts and bundles but still aren't making up substantial ground.
Word of mouth/social media reception are more powerful now than they ever have been and gaming has always been uniquely prone to it's forces. Sony's team recognize this and play to it well. This is why we saw the E3 conference that they had. TLG, FFVIIR, Shenmue III. A core gamer's fantasy done prior to what will likely be the weakest holiday they're having all generation. A holiday buoyed by a ton of major 3rd party releases.
Sony is playing the market with flawless precision and Shenmue is part of that strategy, not some devious plot to bait loyal fans into paying for their games. They will likely lose money on the Shenmue III project in real dollars, but it has already paid for itself with the perception and word of mouth boost this E3 will give them for the rest of the year.
I agree completely, but new exclusives are a major part of perception year-round. That is true even when 3rd parties hare releasing all their major titles. Informed gamers talk with less informed gamers and exclusives are a major topic of conversation. My point is that Sony took a perceptual weakness, no major AAA exclusive this holiday, and removed it from the avid gamer's field of view by rolling out the biggest E3 conference in recent history. By the time the E3 glow has subsided we'll be waist deep in the flood of AAA 3rd party titles with more to come and Uncharted will be just a few short months away.
This is my point. Sony fills the calendar year with exclusives so as long as they manage perception in the holiday window they get positive sales bumps throughout the rest of the year with big titles dropping in big calendar holes. How they manage the perception for the holidays is their big challenge and the TLG/FFVIIR/Shenmue III trifecta is the ultimate "win" move for that.
Which works out great for them as this is likely their worst holiday window for the rest of the generation. Horizon and GT7 will likely be holiday 2016 titles, Santa Monica and Sucker Punch could be on track for 2017, etc.. Their internal studios are getting their legs under them after this fall. Meanwhile MS is emptying both barrels with Halo 5, Gears collection, paying for Tomb Raider exclusivity, etc. into a holiday season already flooded with 3rd party titles.
Basically, MS is trying to win Christmas 2015 to remain relevant, Sony has lined everything up so that if MS doesn't they aren't getting off the mat the rest of the generation. This E3 was a huge PR win for Sony to that end and dramatically weakens MS' hand going into this Holiday. Now they'll sit back and let MS roll a huge media budget for Halo 5 against equally massive budgets for CoD, Assassin's Creed, Fallout, etc. while Sony feeds Horizon, Uncharted 4, TLG, FFVIIR, etc. media to the press in healthy doses.
