Personally, I’d love to own a PS3 but the price is just out of my grasp. I can’t justify spending A$700 on a PS3, no matter how badly I want to play Little Big Planet. If it was $350, then OK. The Wii – well, that wiimote is cool, and the price is right, but I’m not going to buy one because I want a PS3.

So I’m stuck. Instead, I’m getting my fix waiting for Spore and Diablo III :)

To make an extremely oversimplistic analogy, does a Tamagochi II make previous fans happy?

Besides, I’m not that sure about GTA IV targetting “serious gamers who have played the previous incarnation”.
If it was the case, they wouldn’t need such a large media exposure, considerating the sales charts of previous episodes, loads of “serious gamers” would have bought it, even without any advertising.

I may be wrong, but I definitively thinks that GTA IV was aimed to expand its audience, thus helping the sales of platforms it’s “exclusively” released on.
But maybe they just wasted their money in this huge advertising campaign ;) !

The GTA series did make up 3 out of 4 of the topselling PS2 games: http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=1281

I think the negative press around next-gen is effect, not cause: Sony and Microsoft are having a harder time convincing people of the need to invest in their new machines than they did in last generation.

I think that there is a few things happening at the same time that also have an impact, like rising cost of living having an impact on entertainment spending. There is also the greater level of generally negative press surrounding these next gen consoles, 360 with its red ring of death and PS3 with it high cost and publicity snaffus that are only now starting to fade in peoples memories. While the Wii has had nothing but positive press.

At the end of the day I know I’m playing devils advocate as personally I’m wrapped to see innovation and a dedication to user centred design principles of products in the marketplace (like the iPhone and Wii) showing that people want a good experience over and above expensive window dressing.

The explanation may be that the number of gamers that are solely appealed by technical innovation is already at its maximum.

After all, the number of gamers appealed by games like GTA IV is finite (basically gathering the same profile of gamers since the PSX), while different approaches on gaming appeals to different profiles, hence expanding the overall market of videogaming industry (call it “casual” or “serious” games, it’s still games ;))

So maybe all the people who could be interessed by a PS3 or X360 already have one, while the others gamers just don’t care about buying the same old games with new graphics (as AAA titles for these two console are mainly sequels to previous AAA titles), and hence don’t need any of these consoles.

Or, as a comment on the NYTimes articles suggested, the economical situation makes people thinks twice before buying “leisure stuffs”, especially if they already got “old gen” consoles.

And 2K sure aren’t acting like it’s a failure either, they’ve doubled their revenues since GTA4 was released and they’re wrangling up EA’s purchase price. If I were in their position, I’d be giving away Ferrari’s to the team members and coating the office furniture in gold.