Looks like Peter Moore, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business, entertainment and devices division, apparent replacement Xbox spokesman - after J Allard’s mysterious E3 no-show - and outspoken Nintendo Wii fanboy was right. Well, in a way.
“Tell me why you would buy a $600 PS3? People are going to buy two [machines],” he said at E3. “They’re going to buy an Xbox and they’re going to buy a Wii … for the price of one PS3. People will always gravitate toward a competitively priced product — like what I believe Wii will be — with innovative new designs and great intellectual property like Mario, Zelda and Metroid.”
The results for Joystiq’s poll on next-gen console purchases are in, and they paint an interesting little picture. Most impressive is the sheer volume of voters - 30,494 people, which is enough to give a pretty good indication about Joystiq reader purchasing intentions, at least. Let’s not pretend - the next gen “console war” has barely even begun, and it’s certainly not about to be won based on the votes of one (admittedly high quality and widely read) website. But, for the sake of discussion, let’s have a look at the results anyway.
Just on the surface, it certainly does look like people are taking Peter Moore’s suggestion to heart. More to the point, it looks very much like Nintendo’s console has more than a few backers, with a rather staggering 85.93% of the total vote suggesting they would purchase the system - though it’s probably still a case of riding the coat-tails of their E3 success. Recently, the Games Critics Awards gave Best of Show for E3 2006 to the Wii, but Nintendo still need to focus quite heavily on retaining this interest right up to the console’s release.
Sony’s E3 problems seem to continue to hurt them at this point - I’m not a particularly good judge of the market as a whole, nor do I strive to be a judge of the fanboy populance, but the overall feeling seems to be one of shock, even now. It doesn’t seem to be helped by Sony’s, and, in particular, Ken Kutaragi’s constant and baffling justifications of the system’s US$600 price-tag. Take this Kutaragi gem from last week, for example:
“If you consider the PlayStation 3 a toy, then yes, it is an expensive toy. However, it is more than a toy. It is a PlayStation 3. And it is the only PlayStation 3. I hope that those who understand this will gladly purchase it.”
I suppose, at this point, the real question is: “Do consumers want something ‘more than a toy’, or are they simply after a games console?” While the extremes are rather obvious - Sony’s entertainment hub and Nintendo’s attempt to bring back an apparently lost sense of fun have staked out their respective corners months in advance - it’s Microsoft’s Xbox 360 that’s holding an unexpected perceived middle ground, and seems ready to capitalise on this.
While it would be ridiculous and naive to suggest that November is going to see the beginnings of a slump for Sony and a revitilisation of Nintendo, it’s certainly going to be an interesting Christmas period.