Who Won The Console War?
It’s the question that everyone has been dying to have answered since all of the game consoles have been released. Which is the best console out there? The results are now in. More than 1 million Xbox 360s were sold in December. Nintendo sold 600,000 Wiis that month.
Sony brought up the rear, selling half a million of its $600 PlayStation 3 consoles. Still, Sony was the surprising winner of the December sales contest. How? Its six-year-old PlayStation 2 console racked up 1.4 million sales, far outpacing all three of the newfangled consoles.
One reason the new consoles lagged behind the PS2 is supply, the manufacturers simply couldn’t make them fast enough to meet demand. Price is also an important factor. The PlayStation 2 costs just $130, nearly five times less than Sony’s bank-busting PS3. It’s no accident that the new console that’s now selling the fastest is also the cheapest: Nintendo’s $250 Wii.
The PS2’s popularity makes sense if you run the numbers. Along with being $470 cheaper than the PS3, PS2 games can be found for $10 or $20, while most new PlayStation3 games go for $60. That’s a steal, considering that the library of great games available for the PS2 could keep a kid occupied until the PlayStation 8 is released circa 2030. According to the review aggregator site Metacritic, there are no PlayStation 3 games that merit a grade of A, and only a dozen or so that score a B- or better. But there are more than 60 PlayStation 2 games that score an A, and more than 300 that score a B or better.
Sony has had trouble building interest in its new PlayStation 3. Actually, that’s putting it mildly. The negative reaction to the console within its target audience of hardcore gamers is surprisingly intense. Do a search for “PS3″ on YouTube and you’ll find a panoply of anti-Sony screeds, including a heartfelt music video about the console called “How To Kill a Brand” and a parody of the popular Mac ads that casts the PS3 in the role of the unhip PC.
Luckily for Sony, their old console is so popular, more than 100 million have been sold worldwide, that they can offset some of the money they’re hemorrhaging with the PS3. By continuing to manufacture and support the PS2, Sony is keeping its old customers happy and offering a cheaper alternative for people who can’t afford a next-generation machine. Sony did the same thing last time around and managed to sell more than 20 million of the original PS1 consoles between 2000 and 2004, after the appearance of the PlayStation 2.
Meanwhile, Nintendo and Microsoft have stopped making new games for their old consoles, a telling sign that their previous generation of consoles is headed for the dustbin. Built-in backward compatibility, you can play games for the original Xbox on the Xbox 360, and Nintendo Gamecube games will work on the Wii, ensures that nobody has to throw away their old games, but it’s also a subtle way to encourage old customers to spend money on new hardware. While the PS3 is also backward compatible (it plays both PS2 and PS1 games), Sony isn’t pulling the rug out from under PS2 owners. Sony isn’t just releasing new games for the PlayStation 2, it’s releasing new blockbusters.