Sony planning a re-run of the Playstation Slim Domination – Part 2
Heading into the sixth generation, Sony was pretty confident as the company had completely dominated the video game market with its first console entry. However Sega was the first to bring out the first sixth generation console when the company launched
the Sega Dreamcast in 1998 in Japan and brought the console to the rest of the world in 1999.
The Dreamcast had a weak launch in Japan but managed to make up with a successful one in America as the console managed to get ahead of Nintendo’s console in sales during that period. Many gamers believe that the problem with the Dreamcast was that it was
too advanced for its time. Many of the developers did not fully utilise all the features of the console.
The fact that the Dreamcast was still competing with the Playstation 1 (PSX) and the massive games library didn’t help either as gamers would rather opt for the PSX rather than go for a more expensive new console with a really small games library. The release
of the Playstation 2 in 2000 was the final nail in the coffin for Sega as Dreamcast sales were completely destroyed. Sega announced on December 31, 2001 that the company would be discontinuing the production of the console by March of next year.
No one would’ve believed that Sony’s second console would be as popular as the first one but the company proved everyone wrong as the Playstation 2 (PS2) went on to become the most successful console in history even beating the Nintendo Entertainment System
and the Super Nintendo.
The PS2 went to retail for $299.99 and went unopposed for a year until November 2001 when the Nintendo GameCube (NGC) and Microsoft Xbox came to the market. Both were powerful consoles but could not compete with the PS2 because of the huge install base it
had established during the year.
The advantage that the PS2 had over its competitors was that it was really easy to develop for and most of the third party developers were exclusively developing for that console because of the larger install base. This lead to a chain reaction since lack
of exclusives on the NGC and the Xbox meant poor sales for those systems which in turn left developers with no motivation to bring out games on them as the developers opted to stick with the PS2.
The Xbox got a system seller in the form of the Halo series which arguably perfected first person shooters (FPS) on consoles for the first time as previously FPS games were considered to be best on PC. The Xbox also came with an online multiplayer feature
called Xbox Live which helped drive sales of the console. The Xbox managed to sell over 24 million units before Microsoft announced that it would be discontinuing the console in 2005 and announced the Xbox 360.
The NGC finished third in the sixth generation console race with over 21 million units sold despite being in the market two years longer than the Xbox as Nintendo discontinued production in 2007. The Playstation 2 was the clear winner of the generation as
it has currently sold over 150 million units and is still in production and selling alongside the current generation consoles.
DISCLAIMER: The views and the opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the editorial policy of bettor.com.
Continued in Part 3
Tags: