An informal survey was conducted by leading Japanese game magazine, Famitsu, on how gamers felt in Japan about the two upcoming releases of next generation consoles from Sony and Nintendo. The PS3 is scheduled for launch in November, and the Wii, has an anticipated release date for the forth quarter of 2006.
The reader survey revealed several interesting statistics. 70% of the readers expressed that they were most looking forward to the release of the Wii. In regards to the announced price point of the PS3, an overwhelming 88% felt that Sony,s offering was priced too high for their tastes. Another 10.9% felt that the PS3 launch price was just right, while .07% felt that it was priced too low.
As far as the interest level shown for the next-gen consoles, 68.8% favored the Wii, with the PS3 coming in second with 21% and Microsoft,s Xbox 360 trailing the pack with 7%.
The figures for interest in the Wii over the PS3 are a reversal of historical trends in the “Land of the Rising Sun.” Sony has always been the front runner in the mainstream game console races, with Nintendo always coming in a distant second. In the past, when Nintendo,s N64 and GameCube machines were launched, both models trailed the PS1 and PS2 by huge margins, respectively.
While the survey conducted by Famitsu was not a scientifically conducted appraisal of current gamer trends, it does shed light on the general feelings of next-gen console preferences by gamers. There are still approximately five months left before Sony launches their PS3 machine, and while Sony is currently running behind Nintendo, a lot can happen before then to change the course of the present race. And if the survey results of the gamers in Japan regarding the high price of the PS3 are representative of the overall feelings of gamers everywhere, Sony still has time to reconsider their announced PS3 price points of $499 and $599.
As baseball legend, Yogi Berra once said, “It ain,t over till it,s over.”
