Gamers go ga-ga for consoles – but is PS3 a disaster in waiting?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 18 January 2007 17:52

Your IT - Entertainment

Newell doesn’t sound too happy at all. Indeed, he thinks that Nintendo’s Wii might be the ultimate winner in the games console race, although it’s clearly far too early to call the result. Still, Newell’s quote is interesting. He says that:“The happy story is the Wii. I'm betting that by Christmas of next year, the Wii has a larger installed base than the 360. Other people think I'm crazy. I really like everything that Nintendo is doing."

Others may be quick to predict the downfall of the PS3 and even the Xbox 360, seemingly ready to predict the Wii as the ultimate winner.

But we have to remember that games console manufacturers and games companies have been working very hard to expand the market to a far larger market than just the hardcore gamers out there. After all, we’ve all heard the quote a million times that ‘games make more money than Hollywood’.

That may be true, but there are many millions more watching movies than are playing games. If the market can truly be expanded to vast new levels of home ownership, along with innovative new games for all ages, cool video download services and as-yet unannounced features, the current sales figures and the current levels of money earned could easily dwarf current records in the next year alone, without even counting what could happen by the end of the decade.

Whichever way you look at it, gamers are certainly going ga-ga over the latest consoles, with plenty more traditionally non-gamers set to catch the gaming bug in the days, weeks, months and years ahead.