The most recent Wedbush Morgan report has been released and in it, Michael Pachter states that he believes that Blu-Ray may actually be the deciding factor in the console wars. At the end of the PS3/Wii/360 generation, he expects Sony to 'win' with a 36% market share, largely due to the strong movie industry support of Blu-Ray.Interestingly though, he also states that this console cycle will essentially be "a dead heat, and each manufacturer will have sufficient market share to generate significant profits." This is great news for videogame fans everywhere, since an evenly divided market will mean that each of the consoles will have a chance to grow and mature as they age. This may be PS3 Fanboy, but I really don't want any of the current consoles to pull a Dreamcast.













Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
5-07-2007 @ 9:41PM
kingofwale said...
this is DEFINITELY not coming from fanboyism
but I have a much easier time accepting PS3's 73 million/10 years than Wii's 72/5 years.
Sure, Wii is selling like hot cake right now, but without third party support, where is it going in 1 year from now? Prince of Persia was horrible in the remake for Wii, Umbrella Chronicle has to dumb down because they don't think Wii audience can handle it and they don't think Wii can handle it (from IGN podcast on 5/4). and Spider-man on Wii turned out to be bad by ONE company that has experience working with WII (titles like Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and CoD3).
Back to PS3, since this is a PS3 forum. I think if Sony can play this right, they still have a shot at 100 million. but they need some fast price cutting. I'd say down to 359 in 09 and fantastic library of games and exclusive. I don't care what the new boss has to do, if he was to BEG Japanese developers to make exclusives. SO BE IT.
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5-07-2007 @ 10:26PM
massive_98 said...
Blu-ray is going to win the HD format but it won't win the game format war. It's too slow to read for games.
I think it will be a 4 way tie between the PS2,PS3,Wii and 360. PS2 is still outselling.
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5-07-2007 @ 10:31PM
kingofwale said...
>but it won't win the game format war. It's too slow to read for games.
hmmmmm..... WHAT?????
you do realize that Blu-Ray has a MUCH faster read-speed over regular DVD and even HD-DVD, right?
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5-07-2007 @ 10:34PM
SKI said...
@kingofwale
1. The Wii is getting huge third party support, especially from EA. Most third parties were expecting PS3 to come out winning but it bombed and the Wii outsold all predictions and so third parties got caught with their pants down. Of course most of the first ports are going to suck.
2. Spiderman 3 was bad on all the systems (just look at the scores) but most reviews for the Wii version say the motion controls while flying around the city worked very well.
3. I'm not sure what you are talking about in regards to Umbrella Chronicles but I am guessing you are talking about them not porting RE5. To this I have no response but I will say that Umbrella Chronicles does sound fun if it is as good as House of the Dead.
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5-07-2007 @ 10:40PM
mccomber said...
"Blu-ray is going to win the HD format but it won't win the game format war. It's too slow to read for games"
Well, at least as implemented right now. At 4x, it suddenly becomes faster, and anything beyond that is no contest. Unfortunately, that does nothing for the current ps3, and as such, can't do much for future ps3 builds since developers have to build games around the 2x limit. Be thankful we didn't end up with 1x as it was originally believed the ps3 would.
One thing to remember is that bluray's read speed is consistent, whereas dvd only hits it's maximum date read rates at the outside of the disc. How much difference and impact does that have? I have no clue, I just know it's one of those weird variables that gets forgotten about. Having a HD in every ps3 will easily negate that fact, as well as having the space to make data redundant, but the ps3's advantage of having plenty of space on the disc for all that information can't be remedied as easily by the 360.
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5-07-2007 @ 10:45PM
kingnick said...
Game libraries and to a lesser extent price will be the deciding factors in this console race, not a next-gen format that most game aren't taking advantage of and most people aren't buying movies for.
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5-07-2007 @ 10:48PM
kingofwale said...
1... When i talked about "third party support", I obviously didn't mean it as "porting from PS3 or xbox or even PSP". and I also didn't mean, "having EA/Ubisoft/Activision's 5th team working on it". If that's the case, it's doing MORE damage to Nintendo's brand name than anything else. even Nintendo's CEO said that himself.
2. go read the report from a credible source, Wii got much worse score than both PS3 and xbox version. the swing mechanics is more gimmicky than good. read IGN report on that, I assume (and hope) nobody bought the Wii version to testify that in person.
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5-07-2007 @ 10:49PM
kingofwale said...
3.. Umbrella Chronicles is NOT a RE5 and I'm not even talking about RE5. It's a game that they are making for Wii and they have just announced they are dumbing down the graphics as well as skill level.
-according to IGN.
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5-07-2007 @ 10:55PM
massive_98 said...
When you only have the 20 gig version it is not much room for extra storage, I'm trying to save room for Warhawk which looks impressive but probably large.
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5-07-2007 @ 11:08PM
mccomber said...
Few people have the 20gb, and that will be fewer all the time now that it's been put down. Point is, they DO have a HD, and that is what developers will be concerned with. Anything loaded to the HD will likely be assets used throughout that need to be quickly accessed, and for that reason won't take up a ton of space; the vast majority of data will still be read from the bluray disc.
As for Warhawk, I bet that part of the deciding factor for download vs bluray is it's final size... anything over a couple GB and it will likely go to bluray. Besides, if you are the sort that is downloading/storing that much data, you likely already bought the 60gb, or would be willing and able to upgrade the ps3s 20gb drive to something much, much larger. And if not... then data management will very much be a part of your future.
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5-07-2007 @ 11:20PM
Hoffer said...
I hope all three are successful because I have all three.
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5-07-2007 @ 11:25PM
Tom said...
PS3 will win because it's just BETTER. I mean seriously, do we need to even discuss this? It's just BETTER people! Duh!
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5-08-2007 @ 12:10AM
Vincent060 said...
@Tom
Obviously. I mean, who can argue with that reasoning?
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5-08-2007 @ 12:12AM
Matt B said...
I love my PS3. But knowing technology, I can't help but think MS is going to come out with a 4GHZ quad-core, dual 8800GTX equivalent, 4 GB DDR9 box soaking in a liquid nitrogen system. Games easily portable into vista. An easy way to extend the install base through the PC.
Overall, I think SONY will remain competitive and even on top, but at a slimmer margin than the past.
There will be no next DREAMCAST. Lessons have been learned.
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5-08-2007 @ 2:33AM
Ninegauger said...
This must be years in the future because last I remember HDTV adoption is still relatively low and until that picks up there's no need to upgrade the DVD player yet (even then I see little reason to upgrade)
I mean, I never thought that the DVD player in the PS2 was a reason for its success in the long run. Sure it's a nice feature (heck, it was my first DVD player) but I think it was ultimately the library of games. I don't think Blu-Ray is quite as necessary a jump as DVDs were back in the day either so even if HDTV adoption goes up I don't see either format becoming a new standard... maybe they'll both fizzle out like Laser Discs but I guess Pachter's only predicting a slight lead anyway.
A dead heat? That hasn't happened since the good old days of the Genesis/SNES... that's pretty cool actually.
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5-08-2007 @ 5:00AM
Next-Gen-Gamer said...
There goes kingofwale. Talking about stuff he doesn't know anything about. Listen kow, many of us are fortunate enough to own and/or play all three consoles. Therefor, when people dispute what you say, there's a better chance of them being correct.
Listening to you talk about the Wii like you know something is mind-numbing. I've had a Wii since launch, and guess what. I own ports! I own Double Agent, Carbon, and Madden. Believe it or not, they're actually pretty fun. I don't understand why everyone has this need to bash ports to the Wii. Unlike the 360 and PS3, a Wii port doesn't play like the other consoles. Double Agent is a prime example of one of the goals of the Wiimote/Nunchuck. Make complicated control schemes simple without making the game easy. And you know what else is great about most ports to the Wii? Unlike the PS3, the ports don't show up four months behind everyone else. When Double Agent launched for PS3, I already finished the game twice, and moved on to other titles.
Of course you can't comprehend that, because you don't own a Wii, and you have a major PS3 bias.
On a much more amusing note, its funny that you're bringing up the Umbrella Chronicles graphics/skill issues. The reason its funny is because a little while ago you were ripping on Capcom for that whole DMC4 360 thing. Now all of a sudden you're going along with something stupid that came from Capcom? What a joke. Besides, shitty games are going to pop-up a lot more on the Wii than the PS3. Its the same reason PCs have tons of viruses, and Macs don't. More people own the first product.
I guess what I'm getting at is...you don't know jack about consoles you don't care about. Stop pretending.
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5-08-2007 @ 12:58PM
truth said...
blu-ray is not going to win the war. We have seen time and time and time again GAMES will win the war. In fact for ps2 the fact that it offered GAMES was what won it the war.
Where are the GAMES??? for ps3. PS3 is not winning any wars until it has some compelling GAMES. Blu-Ray? Who cares? Seriously? GAMES! Show us the GAMES.
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5-08-2007 @ 1:15PM
Time said...
@hal
misinformation and spin....the tools for every xbot
http://n4g.com/News-38137.aspx
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5-08-2007 @ 1:38PM
yomanDS said...
"many of us are fortunate enough to own and/or play all three consoles."
And many of us are unfortunate to not own any of the three consoles....I made myself sad.
Anyway who wants a GAMING system to win because of what is primarily a movie format?
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5-08-2007 @ 4:42PM
Next-Gen-Gamer said...
"And many of us are unfortunate to not own any of the three consoles....I made myself sad."
That's very true. However, that doesn't help kingofwale. He's still just talking about something he knows nothing about.
As for which format is going to win, I think everyone is missing the big picture. If HD-DVD were to win, the PS3 would be screwed. If Blu-ray were to win, no one is really screwed. Microsoft nudged HD-DVD because of the PS3, and now they're realizing it was a stupid move. Also, I don't expect the market to notice a clear-cut winner any time soon. In other words, by the time Blu-ray wins, the NextBox, and potentially Wii2, will have Blu-ray as their format. Will they have as much experience as Sony with it? No. Do they have enough money to hire people who do? Yes (easily).
Although I'm hoping at least one company doesn't jump to the next format. I would expect the company to stay behind to be Nintendo. The reason I say I don't want to see it happen is because I still want a great gameplay experience with good (not great) HD graphics, for a cheaper price than the other next-gen consoles.
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