The Nintendo Wii. The Microsoft 360. The Sony Playstation 3. Shareholders, stock analysts, and gamers alike will watch all three companies this upcoming holiday to see which one will succeed, and which one will fail.

Unfortunately, all three systems will probably sell out or sell an extreme amount, and so, you can deem one a failure when it’s sold less than the others but all three systems will win in the end.

Thus, it is not this holiday that will determine who will win this gen. Instead, it will be February 2008. Why February? It is a couple of months after Christmas, therefore, the spending spree is over, and people who are spending are people who actually wants the system for themselves.

The Nintendo Wii has a huge momentum right now thanks to its appeal to the mass. The PS3 has a slight momentum thanks to its recent price drop. The 360, on the other hand, is waiting to catch momentum, whom the CEO probably is hoping the recent price cut would do.

I have grown up with the playstation, so take what I’m writing with a slight hint of salt of bias toward Sony’s PS3. Why? I like the Wii. I think it’s cool….for the first hour. I’m really hoping future games will be able to innovate on that systems, cuz if they don’t, that will be the biggest sellout system of them all.

And why don’t I like the 360? Just cuz it’s produced by MS. And seeing what MS did with PC OS, I definitely don’t want them to monopolized one of my favorite past time.

Now, does that mean I want the PS3 to succeed? Of course. Do I want it to succeed at the expense of the other two? Of course. Do I want it to have a monopoly? Hell no. I hope MS stick with console gaming. I hope Nintendo too. Heck, I hope Sega comes back. Competition breeds desperation and creativity. Look at the Madden franchise ever since they got the NFL license. Yeah, I rest my case.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Why is February 2008 the determining line for the next-gen winner?

It will be then we will see if the Wii is just a fad as some believe, or is it something more. By then, if it’s still selling extremely well worldwide, I will have to invest in some Nintendo stocks. But, if sales all of the sudden slow down, hardware and software, then Nintendo will only have the DS to carry them out for the next couple of years.

What about the 360? Their main franchise is Halo, which is Sept, and then Mass Effect. The rest of the games, like Bioshock, will be available for the PC, which is the platform I’ll be getting (Playing FPS on console is bleh to me ;)). But what do they have next spring? GTA4, but that’s it I think.

Which leads me to the PS3. How does this sound to you. MGS4 - February. GTA4 - March. Killzone2 - April. That has a nice ring to it doesn’t it? Sony will take advantage of the newly PS3 owners that owns MGS4, and get them to buy GTA4. Now, owners who buy the PS3 for GTA4, will then be inclined to get Killzone2 (which I believe Sony will publicized the hell out of).

All on top of that, we will likely see a $50 price drop for the PS3. Why $50 and not $100? If MS’s price drop strategy worked great with its recent price drop, Sony might try to copy that, instead of doin the traditional $100.

But, that doesn’t mean a $100 won’t happen. Now, why would Sony drop the price of the PS3 before its 3 biggest blockbusters (potential)? You would think they’re crazy. So how about dropping the price after the release of MGS4, and before GTA4. So now you have a $400 PS3 ($450) competing with a $350 360. For $100 ($50) more, you can also have blue ray and wireless and memory card readers.

Throw in Little Big Planet (which is so cuteeee), and you have a Sony strategy in hand.

Of course, everything above is pure speculation. But hey, if so call “analysts” can do it, and get publicized about it, why can’t I?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 at 9:53 pm and is filed under General Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.