Co-existence of three

I kind of understand NeoZeedeater's point. All 3 consoles are successful in the way they all have solid support and all have a good amount of triple A software that sells units. From my recallection, this is a first. At this year's E3 (which'll be the 3rd year to display all 3 platforms) Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft all had a nice pallette of software with some exclusives sure to impress. By this time, in generations past, it's usually pretty obvious who's hurting and will shortly abandon their hardware. As far as I can tell, all three players are in it for the long haul and all are devoted to being successful in the hardware biz.

Whether this'll be good or bad for the market/industry remains to be seen but considering how much hardware has been bought and continues to be bought, it's safe to assume that there's room for all 3 to find some form of success (as long as they're making sound business decisions).

And there's no reason why game makers can't support all three. They're doing it now and as stated before, there's plenty of exclusives (known and unannounced) for all available machines.

The xbox 2 could be the most powerful system but not lose MS tons of money per unit. The xbox hardware, while powerful, is rather slapped together. If you've seen the inside of the xbox, you'll see what i mean. it certainly gets the job done, but not in the most efficient way.

MS did a better job than Sony did with the hardware design, but both spent more money than they needed to. The best thing about the gamecube is how well designed it is. its been downhill since then, obviously.

I think many people use "being #1" as a standard for being successful. The Master System was never in first place but I think it was a success in it's own right and it too was the more advanced system. It also sold very well in Europe and, I'm not sure, it outsold the NES there. The SMS definitely succeeded in leaving a favorable impression on TNL members and it made me excited enough to get a Genesis on launch. Anyone know hen they actually stopped making games fr the SMS/MArk II?

The Master System outsold the NES in Europe, and the Mega Drive outsold the SNES.

Score one for Sega. See, us Europeans have good taste. :)

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Originally posted by soundwave
Anyone know hen they actually stopped making games fr the SMS/MArk II?

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Around 1993 in the US and 94 or 95 in Europe, and up til around 2001 in Brazil. It held its own against the NES everywhere but in japan, where it pretty much ended its run around 1990.

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Originally posted by StriderKyo
Sony, duh.

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In that scenario, wouldn't Sony still be a first party then, defeating Frogacuda's vision of a game industry where third parties make the standard hardware and first parties are irrelevant? If Sony designed standardized hardware for the industry, first parties would be pretty much irrelevant, because Sony would be the only first party that mattered.

As for the next generation of systems, I think all three companies are being very tentative. No one wants to announce something that is going to be "outdone" by their competitors a month or two later, especially since the projected release dates for all three systems are so close to each other. I think that Microsoft (and maybe Nintendo - though they seem more likely to do their own thing) is waiting for Sony to make the first move so that the Xbox 2 can "trump" the PS3 as an exponentially more powerful system that will be released around the same time, even if it means MS will be losing more cash in the next generation. Sony is pretty much in control of its own destiny right now, and it's up to Microsoft and Nintendo to respond (in a timely manner) to whatever Sony does.

Either way, I don't think the industry in its current state can support three successful/profitable consoles. StriderKyo said it perfectly:

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The "games industry" itself can't support 3 consoles. One company is just able to artificially float its system in a way that Sega or 3DO couldn't.

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Master System support in North America ended at the end of 1991. Sonic was the last major title released. But even throughout 1990/1991 Europe got a bunch of games North America didn't(mostly crap anyway).

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Originally posted by NeoZeedeater
Master System support in North America ended at the end of 1991. Sonic was the last major title released. But even throughout 1990/1991 Europe got a bunch of games North America didn't(mostly crap anyway).

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There were European games much later than that. And I think Sonic Chaos also came out in the US for SMS.

I know there were Euro games much later than that. I was just saying that even when the SMS was still alive here, Europe got games we didn't.

I was following things pretty closely back then. Nothing came out past 1991. If you saw Sonic Chaos, it must have been imported from Europe.

You're right. Euro games played in US systems, so I often didn't really know the difference. They weren't differently colored like Brazillian games either. The packaging was slightly different, but not enough that I wuld have noticed as a kid.

Complete list of non-japanese SMS releases. LOTS of Euro/Brazil exclusives.