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"Gameaday attempt. Well .......... kind of................."

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Wed 28/03/01 at 14:38
Regular
Posts: 787
"Ok, in todays general studies, we are going to look at a bit of history."

There were moans and grumbles from the class, most of them didnt want to be there in the first place, General Studies, what a waste of time!

"Im going to tell you a story that begins back in 1975. When Sony released a brand spanking new machine. Everyone was amazed by it, it did the unthinkable! What was it called? What did it do?

"It was called Betamax, and it recorded stuff off of the telly, onto tape. Big deal you may think, but remember, this is the mid-70's.

"A year passes and Sony have sold over 30,000 machines in the US alone. Then another machine comes along. Its made by JVC, its called a VHS recorder. It does the same thing as Betamax, almost.

"There were a few differences. The VHS had double the recording capacity of Betamax, 2 hours instead of 1. But that is the only advantage VHS held. Betamax was a vastly superior machine, it had some functions built in, that VHS did not include until the late 80's early 90's, automatic tuning and autmoatic program search being just two examples.

"The VHS machine began to outsell Betamax. In a big way. Why, you may ask, did VHS sell more if Betamax was a better machine? The answer lies in better marketing and the mass market opinion im afraid."

"What do you mean Sir?" Came a quiet question from the back.

"Well, I suppose an example from your generation would be the Playstation games console. When it was released, there was a machine out with equal power, the Amiga CD32, and one that was twice as powerful, the Atari Jaguar. Yet the PSX managed to outsell them both and still be around today, even though it wasnt the best quality option available at the time.

"Through mainly pleasing the mass market, instead of the relatively small proportion of "hardcore" gamers that were around at the time, as well as having a cunning marketing strategy, Sony managed to conquer the console market with their first attempt."

"Where are you taking this Sir?"

"Going back to the console analogy again, do you think the Dreamcast would have sold more if the mass market and the media didnt hype up the PS2 so much? Didnt you feel a bit of pressure from your mates to buy a PSX rather than an N64? It's decisions like these that we need to make ourselves, not have them decided by the mass market, who quite often, get it wrong. As is obviously the case with Betamax and VHS.

"All im trying to get across to you is that just because "your mate" says that something is the best, doesnt make it so. Again, just because something is the best-seller, it doesnt mean that it fits your requirements, everyone is different and we all want different things.

"Decide for yourselves, buy what you want to buy, dont feel pressured by adverts/your mates etc. At the end of the day its your money and you can spend it on what you want. You may all know someone, or have done it yourself, where you have bought something you werent too sure on, but due to peer pressure you bought it anyway. Only to find, after a while, you wished you'd spent your money on something else.

"The moral? Buy what you want. Dont always believe the hype, or the marketing. Be your own person."
Wed 28/03/01 at 22:05
Posts: 0
Whats the review of???
Wed 28/03/01 at 21:57
Posts: 0
Guys, would you mind taking a look at the PS2 review in the PS2 forum and tell me what you think? Id really appreciate it.
Wed 28/03/01 at 21:55
Regular
Posts: 14,117
I think thats the nicest thing you've ever said to me Sniper.

*Wipes a tear from the corner of his eye*


:-)
Wed 28/03/01 at 16:16
Regular
Posts: 16,558
the title has justice.
Wed 28/03/01 at 15:28
Posts: 0
It also a nice post as it gives us the bigger picture of the games market buy relating it to the Betamax, VHS story. Its different!
Wed 28/03/01 at 14:55
Regular
Posts: 14,117
FantasyMeister wrote:
>Nice post,

Thanks mate, i just tried to write in a slightly different style to the normal "Heres my opinion....there you go." Kind of thing that most people seem to do.
Wed 28/03/01 at 14:47
Regular
"Copyright: FM Inc."
Posts: 10,338
Ne1 want to buy some 8-track cassettes?

Nice post, but if I may just make one tiny incy-wincy little point. All my mates had PSX with link up, we all liked the same games, therefore the one mate we had who bought the N64 missed out on the multiplayer fun and frolics that we had.

(I heard he caught the plague and jumped off a cliff in the end).

So peer pressure, whilst it SHOULD be ignored, can be backed up by the fact that all your mates have the same console and you could get a bit left out if you don't get the same one.

Either that, or get some new mates. It depends though on what you prefer, single player games or multiplayer games.

With single player, I was able to ignore peer pressure and go for what my own judgement decided was best for me, and as I like RPG's the PSX fulfilled that role, even though some of my best mates have N64s now. So just to finish off our friendship altogether I got a DC too. So now I have no friends at all, except for Sonic the Hedgehog, Lara Croft and vodka. But I can live with that.
Wed 28/03/01 at 14:44
Posts: 0
Your Honour Wrote:

"The moral? Buy what you want. Dont always believe the hype, or the marketing. Be your own person."

In English:

"Ignore Microsofts 500 million dollar $$$ advertising campaigne and by a GameBoyAdvance and Gamecube instead"

...come on you know you want to, I'm your best mate and Im going to have a Gamecube, so is Meka..hu, hu!
Wed 28/03/01 at 14:38
Regular
Posts: 14,117
"Ok, in todays general studies, we are going to look at a bit of history."

There were moans and grumbles from the class, most of them didnt want to be there in the first place, General Studies, what a waste of time!

"Im going to tell you a story that begins back in 1975. When Sony released a brand spanking new machine. Everyone was amazed by it, it did the unthinkable! What was it called? What did it do?

"It was called Betamax, and it recorded stuff off of the telly, onto tape. Big deal you may think, but remember, this is the mid-70's.

"A year passes and Sony have sold over 30,000 machines in the US alone. Then another machine comes along. Its made by JVC, its called a VHS recorder. It does the same thing as Betamax, almost.

"There were a few differences. The VHS had double the recording capacity of Betamax, 2 hours instead of 1. But that is the only advantage VHS held. Betamax was a vastly superior machine, it had some functions built in, that VHS did not include until the late 80's early 90's, automatic tuning and autmoatic program search being just two examples.

"The VHS machine began to outsell Betamax. In a big way. Why, you may ask, did VHS sell more if Betamax was a better machine? The answer lies in better marketing and the mass market opinion im afraid."

"What do you mean Sir?" Came a quiet question from the back.

"Well, I suppose an example from your generation would be the Playstation games console. When it was released, there was a machine out with equal power, the Amiga CD32, and one that was twice as powerful, the Atari Jaguar. Yet the PSX managed to outsell them both and still be around today, even though it wasnt the best quality option available at the time.

"Through mainly pleasing the mass market, instead of the relatively small proportion of "hardcore" gamers that were around at the time, as well as having a cunning marketing strategy, Sony managed to conquer the console market with their first attempt."

"Where are you taking this Sir?"

"Going back to the console analogy again, do you think the Dreamcast would have sold more if the mass market and the media didnt hype up the PS2 so much? Didnt you feel a bit of pressure from your mates to buy a PSX rather than an N64? It's decisions like these that we need to make ourselves, not have them decided by the mass market, who quite often, get it wrong. As is obviously the case with Betamax and VHS.

"All im trying to get across to you is that just because "your mate" says that something is the best, doesnt make it so. Again, just because something is the best-seller, it doesnt mean that it fits your requirements, everyone is different and we all want different things.

"Decide for yourselves, buy what you want to buy, dont feel pressured by adverts/your mates etc. At the end of the day its your money and you can spend it on what you want. You may all know someone, or have done it yourself, where you have bought something you werent too sure on, but due to peer pressure you bought it anyway. Only to find, after a while, you wished you'd spent your money on something else.

"The moral? Buy what you want. Dont always believe the hype, or the marketing. Be your own person."

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