The War of Next-Gens: Analysis

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BrandIntel has issued a new tracking study on the top video gaming consoles, including Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360. The BrandIntel report, titled "Top Gaming Consoles Report", found Nintendo Wii ranks first heading into the holiday season due to its intuitive controller and lower cost. With Wii and PlayStation 3 shipped, BrandIntel will provide weekly online updates throughout the holiday season to track how sentiment and discussion share may shift as consumers begin using the consoles. The report follows BrandIntel's recently announced "Top 50 Games Report", in which the company tracked and analyzed the top new games for PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360.

Based on analysis of original consumer-generated content, the "Top Gaming Consoles Report" captures data from January 1, 2006 to November 12, 2006. Additional key findings from the study include:
- In general, consumers are complaining about the PlayStation 3's price, raving about the Wii's controller and satisfied with the Xbox 360's first year on the market.
- Gamers are also heavily anticipating popular Nintendo franchise games such as "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess", as well as newer titles such as "Red Steel".
- The Xbox 360 is generating the least amount of discussion but benefits from a year head start and established consumer base that discusses the console in a positive manner. Because of this, it currently ranks second among next-gen consoles for the holiday season.
- The PlayStation 3 currently ranks the lowest according to consumer discussion. While the PlayStation 3 has generated the most discussion overall, it has primarily been negative concerning price and value. However, purchase intent has recently trended upward showing marketing campaigns have begun to persuade consumers who are skeptical of the PlayStation 3's price/value.

The BrandIntel gaming tracking study provides research, marketing, communications and customer relationship management executives with actionable information to support decision-making through a better understanding of consumer usage behavior, as well as industry trends and influences. The report highlights the video gaming consoles and manufacturers that have generated the most positive discussion and sentiment in online consumer communities such as message boards, discussion forums, blogs and other social communities on the Internet. BrandIntel's LinkMap tracked more than 655,000 raw search results on the Internet but refined those results through technological filters and human analysis to utilize only the highest quality data for this study - totaling more than 20,000 consumer mentions on next-gen video gaming consoles.

"The gaming industry has experienced a significant surge of media attention during the past several months with the launch of new gaming consoles", said Bradley Silver, president of BrandIntel. "With this, it is difficult for many to understand which manufacturer is winning consumer mindshare and generating the most excitement around its particular product. Our gaming tracking report provides executives with a better understanding into what consumers are really saying online about each product and brand, and enables them to make better informed business decisions based on that information".

Using award-winning Internet monitoring technology combined with the power of human analysis, BrandIntel detects, analyzes and generates intelligence on tens of thousands of relevant comments about video games on a daily basis. The company scans the entire scope of the Internet and analyzes the most pertinent content to measure for assigned sentiment scores and share of discussion, rating the physical and emotional value of the results (positive or negative) to produce the relevant categorization records of information in all its reports.

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