How important are release dates? YOUR THOUGHTS!

[BiSONN]

Okay, I've been thinking about this so I thought why not ask you guys. The X2 is scheduled to launch by November, while the Playstation 3 and Revolution are scheduled to come sometime next year. Let's assume that they are gonna be launched in March. That leaves a gap of 5 months.

Do you think this is a big deal? Will this, in your opinion, give Microsoft a big lead and hence give them the advantage over the other consoles? Or will this somehow benefit the competitors? With things as competitive as they are, do you think that they'll be sitting and closely watching whatever Microsoft does, their positive and negative points and then implement those positive points in their console and try to remove the negative ones, if any. Or do you think they have a plan laid out and they dont give a fuck what Microsoft does they'll just go about doing their business? Could being the first console to be released be negative for Microsoft in any way?

I for one believe that the release date is really important. If Microsoft are really able to deliver the goods and have everybody talk about them, then they could capture a big part of the market because the hype these next-gen consoles are sorrounded by is huge. If they are successful in making people believe that the hype is real, that the next generation of gaming is ready for them to buy then they could really take a big step forward. Some people, who are maybe only planning to buy 1 console, say the PS3 or Revolution, could just end up buying the X2 because that's what everyone would be taking about.

What are your thoughts?

[Leatha Face]

X2 being released so early i think is one of the few things that will save it (temporarily). I think its going to be the least powerful of the counsels, and so far the only thing backing it up is a detachable harddrive for use as a ipod (but for extra $$). PS3 has that cell technology(cell = better performance, graphics) that may or may not appeal to people more than Revolution, which is supposed to change how games are played as a whole. In the long run i'd say it will end up being a close race between the ps3 and rev, because they have more time to polish everything, including launch titles, have the opportunity to have more launch titles, and make last minute corrections to fix where x2 went wrong.

[BiSONN]

^ Yeah, I kinda agree and disagree. I dont believe that it's safe to say that it'll end up being a race between the PS3 and Revolution. On the other hand I do agree on the PS3 and Revolution being more polished as a console would be true because a comptetitor would already have stepped into the next-generation of gaming and they can see how the people react with the changes that have been made. Having said that I'll say what I said in my first post again, if Microsoft can come with something totally crazy and get a grip early on, then the road for the PS3 and Revolution wont be so smooth because they launch their consoles after a long time.

[The Un-American]

Release dates are completely unimportant to me. Nintendo has consistently been the last to the market and they've consistently had the strongest product as a result. I think launching early will defenitely help the Xbox sell well. No question. Same thing happened with the PS2. It's inferior to both other current consoles and it has an insurmountable lead built up since it was released early. No matter which one comes out first, it will sell the best.