Pachter says, "In order to hit its full-year Wii shipment forecast, we expect Nintendo to cut the price of the Wii before [the] holiday, likely to $199.99." "In the second half of the year, we expect Sony to cut price for the PS3, and if the cut is deep enough, we expect Microsoft to respond (either with bundles or with a price cut of its own, even as Microsoft just introduced a Xbox 360 Elite bundle with free games Halo 3 and Fable II)."
The retail game business as a whole saw $863.3 million in sales during the month, as it continues to be challenged by last Spring's blockbuster launches of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Grand Theft Auto IV and Wii Fit, which launched in March, April and May 2008, respectively.
Electronic Arts' The Sims 3 for PC and THQ's shooter Red Faction: Guerrilla for consoles led U.K. sales charts for the week ended June 6, U.K.-based sales tracking firm Chart-Track said Monday. Also notable is EA Sports Active for Wii, EA's newly-released exer-game which came in at number three for the week, again topping Nintendo's original exer-game, Wii Fit.
CNET conducted a poll earlier this week asking readers which company--Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony--had the most impressive announcements at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo.
More than 10,000 people responded. More than 51.9 percent of the respondents said Microsoft bested its competitors. Thirty-four percent of those who answered the poll said Sony had the best announcements. Nintendo finished last, with just 5.6 percent of respondents saying it had the best E3.
The announcement today by Sky to have content on the Xbox in the UK by Autumn is one example I believe that will make this generation stand out from the past. One of the killer features is the ability to effectively have a party on live with your favourite footy match and your live mates all watching and chatting whilst enjoying the game.
But for me the killer will be when the TV set top boxes have a 360 inside. I say the 360 but equally the PS3 although I think its price still precludes it at the moment.
I am particularly excited to see if anything comes about from the BT Vision arrangement.
@welshbloke, i'm very curious about that. on one hand i'm all into content/art but on the other had before moving into the graphics creation field i used to dabble in the technical side of graphics so i happen to also be keenly aware of things missing in game visuals for example on the path to photorealism... so i'm quite split: on one hand i totally support a lengthy cycle and i believe it's the key to gaming becoming truly mainstream but on the other hand I imagine a point in the future where 5x or 10x times more powerful hardware will become relatively cheaply available for manufacturers and we all know games WILL eat any processing power you throw at them and come up with ingenious ways to use it...
The solution to this paradox I see in games becoming mainstream: i see a lot of room left for improvement in EVERYBODY getting access to a powerful gaming platform. Maybe we are indeed closer to the point where games could trully branch off: same game, same content, but differnt levels of quality... but this mental hypothesis always breaks off in my imagination: it's hard for me to imagine that once the hardware becomes able to do for example true breaking materials or fluids one developer or another won't be tempted to make a game that hinges strongly on say your bullets used to break off doors realistically or just the "splashing" of large quantities of fluids...
that being said though... with this and set top boxes I'm strongly hoping for gaming to emerge as a platform as accessible to anybody as turning on the TV and switching between the racing and the fps channels
I happen to believe that this cycle will indeed last longer improvements in technology and delivery are definately some of the reasons I believe that.
Extract from the Article which rung true for me.
"We think it's highly premature to be thinking of the cycle ending until all of these consoles are well below the USD 199 mark," says Greenwald. "Furthermore, Microsoft and Sony have invested so much in their current hardware line, as have third party publishers, that we don't think any party is seriously interested in throwing away these investments and starting over from scratch."
"For all of these reasons, we think this cycle will last longer than those in the past, and don't see new hardware coming until 2011 at the earliest, and 2012 to 2013 more likely (if at all – if new services like OnLive take off, or if Xbox Live and PlayStation Network become more and more robust, there may not be a need for another console cycle)."
With the current cycle in its third or fourth year, Greenwald suggests that fears of a decline in hardware and software sales are unwarranted and that E3 itself will "provide some signs that the industry is alive and well".
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