About Class3 I'm pretty confident it will be a fall release...at least I hope so.
I can't find any solid content or previews on this, so I'm starting to wonder if it's not vaporware by now.
Does MS need to support more new IPs this gen? *spawn
- Thread starter Brad Grenz
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I can't find any solid content or previews on this, so I'm starting to wonder if it's not vaporware by now.
One problem is it's usually not a full year, usually more like a few weeks. Looking at sales numbers, I can't see any clear effect having some timed exclusive DLC has had on 360 vs PS3 hardware sales. And the 360's share of COD sales has actually been on a slight downward trend (assuming VGChartz is still retconning numbers to match more reliable data
).There have been very few timed exclusive games.
I've just noticed Sony are running front-page ads on Eurogamer for an exclusive - Beyond, launching 2013!! The ad says, "starring Ellen Page, click to watch trailer." That's the most aggressive marketing I've ever known from Sony, drumming up interest for a game a year in advance. They are obviously wanting to sell PS3's in advance. So I don't know that 1st party exclusives are important for gamers as long as they have the games they want to play, but it may be good business sense to drum up interest. MS of course have done that with Kinect, and probably had far more success than any Sony exclusive in shifting units on the streangth of a game.
Kameradschaft
Regular
I can't find any solid content or previews on this, so I'm starting to wonder if it's not vaporware by now.
The first time they showed the project was back in January and in their official site they announced in March that Jesper Kyd is the composer for the game.
This is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W5ZqDzZIQ4&feature=player_embedded#!
The game looks a little rough but there's still time for polish. :smile:
I don't think anyone is disputing the benefits or importance of exclusive software. I just question the importance of exclusives 6/7 years into a system's life cycle when it's highly unlikely to have any meaningful impact on the sales of the system. Someone that is waiting that long to own a system is not picking it up because of Halo 4 or Last of Us. They are picking it up because it's cheap enough and it has enough games to warrant the purchase. These types of gamers probably don't know what is or isn't exclusive anyways.
Besides, if anything, this thread should show that the OP was sorely mistaken in the first place with his assumptions.
Hey thanks! That showed a lot more than anything else I could find. Hopefully this is one MMO that MS really sticks with instead of cancelling half way through.
It depends on their budget. They'll need to sustain the "noise" all the way until this holiday season.
I suspect it is too "limited" to just advertise "Beyond" and "Last of Us" separately. They should combine both of them as part of a bigger umbrella first, then promote each of them separately.
e.g., With Game 3.0, they added user generated content. Game 3.5 (or 4.0 ?) should bring spectating/audienceship to gaming. The way "Beyond" and "Last of Us" work. I think they can be made into mini movies for sales or show (online or in the theaters). Gamers can change the movies by playing them differently. That way they can also generate buzz amongst casuals. Plus they can rope in LittleBigPlanet updates and fix its publishing and distribution mechanism. Gran Turismo 5's Academy events can also be incorporated into this spectating theme.
What about next gen ? In my dream world, there is no next gen. I'm tired of seeing developers suffer. This is it. Near end of this year, release a PS3 with LightPeak. Sell PS4 as just a weak CPU + latest GPU + hefty memory modules + fan on top. The HDD and Blu-ray drive are already in PS3. At some point, they can also combine them together as one single base unit.
Your comment reminded me of what triggered my plan to exit from the business. Ages ago in the early days of ps3 me and another coder were debugging an issue blind of course because ps3 tools were non existant back then, it was very late at night and the other coder gets a call on how he just missed his daughters first words because he was at work late at night debugging. Right then and there is when I had enough and began my plan to exit the biz, which I did much later in 2009. The whole situation of poorly supported and/or difficult platforms just became absurd in my mind, especially since it's unnecessary to make the developers suffer to that extent. There was no reason for app creation to be that difficult.
I'm hopeful Microsoft can improve on that next gen. They already have awesome tools, now they need to go a step further. With pc's, laptops and tablets all sporting ivy bridge cpu's that will at least let devs create one binary that runs on all, and use a good set of tools to do it. If they did by some chance go x86 on the Xbox 720 then in theory it should be possible to easily make apps that run on desktop/ultrabook/tablet/console, leaving phones/small form factor/low power devices to be the special case. It all goes back to my earlier argument in this thread, support the developers and they will return the favor. Spending time money and resources for that sort of support is money well spent.
I'm still doubting myself if the whole topic is trolling or genuine concern, but I'll try to give the benefit of the doubt and share my point of view (it might be long though, you have been warned):
First of all, following your logic which I completely disagree with (not counting XBLA/PSN games or Kinect/Move games), the PS2 was released in 2000 and God of War was released in 2005. Similarly, The X360 was released in 2005 and Alan Wake was released in in 2010. Where is the big difference? If Alan Wake 2 (which is already rumored to be in production) will be released on the X360 after the next gen is out (similarly to GOW2) instead of having a proper next-gen release, will you then be satisfied about Microsoft's IP strategy?
And while we're at it, now is a good time as ever to remind you that the latest big exclusive IP from Sony (Heavy Rain) was released in the same year, with the PS3 actually being one year younger than the X360. And just like Alan Wake it wasn't even internally developed: it was initially developed on the PC before undisclosed sums of money changed hands.
So how does this new IP strategy for the PS3 hold so far? Are you satisfied with having no actual big new IP on your chosen platform in the past two years, and with nothing in the near future until some undisclosed date in 2013? I didn't see you complaining about that here.
Sure, sure. This E3 Sony showed us how they are in fact developing two more new IPs, but . But isn't this the same Sony who announced in previous E3s other new IPs such as Agent and The Last Guardian? Sony was always good with making long term promises for the far future in their E3 conferences.
So where are these games now? How can you trust them to actually be released on the PS3? What if the people in Sony suddenly realize they need compelling games for their next gen platform, and then shift the developers focus towards that platform?
It's not an imaginary scenario: these things did happen before. Will you consider this to be a bad strategic move and complain about Sony not giving you any new IPs this gen?
The way I see it, Microsoft strategy did support a plethora of new IPs this gen, with the obvious shift being towards the beginning of the generation. They ran a few good moves back in the day:
1) Published plenty of new IPs in varied franchises trying to cater to all kind of gamers (crackdown, kameo, viva pinata, alan wake, blue dragon, lost oddysey, ninety nine nights, too human, gears of war etc) - and obviously some games such as Gears made much more impact than others.
2) Developed excellent relationships with third-party publishers, getting even companies such as Square Enix, Namco and Capcom that were considered good partners of Sony on board. Some of them even started building new franchises on the X360 and delivered exclusive games that stregnthed the platform portfolio (Dead Rising for example). The early release of the X360 was a crucial step towards that.
3) Managed to convince some traditional PC developers to port their third-party published games to the X360, something that Sony didn't always managed to do. This guaranteed an additional stream of exclusive IPs that were available for X360 console owners but not for PS3 owners: Left 4 Dead, Divinity 2, Metro 2033, and a few others - including the very recent Witcher 2.
All-in-all, this strategy promised the X360 a very good and very wide selection of exclusive IPs, while at the same time delivered multiplatform games that were initially expected to be PS3 exclusive (everyone probably remembers the Final Fantasy mutliplatform announcement in E3 2008 as one of the big surprises of the show).
As some people here noted, some of these games were not even published by Microsoft, where many others were published but contracted an external developer. But where is the problem in that? Weren't some of the biggest PS3 games also developed by external studios? Do people here forget that Guerilla games, Sucker Punch, Media Molleculle and Evolution Studios were all external developers when they first brought in Killzone/Infamous/LBP/Motorstorm?
Sony only acquired these companies afterwards, wishing to secure their continual development on these franchises. Not to mention some of the top exclusive PS3 games came from developers that are still independent or even from third party publishers: Ratchet, Resistance, Demon's Souls, Heavenly Sword, Yakuza, MGS4 etc...
Sony had to developer a different strategy. Not only they were late to this gen and lost some traction to the X360 gaining on exclusive third party games, but they also had some of their most recognizable exclusive (or at least time-exclusive) franchises from the PS2 era going multiplatform this gen: Tekken, Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo and GTA were arguably the strongest pillars of the PS2, and only one of these games was an internal IP.
At the same time, Sony still didn't manage to find their very own Halo-killer since the first Killzone disappointed. And besides Gran Turismo, their big trio of franchises all catered to the same target audience and steal Nintendo's platformer thunder: Jak-Sly-Ratcher from NG-Insomniac-SuckerPunch respectively.
It was only late into the PS2 generation that Sony realized that Microsoft is catering to a different kind of gamer and they might lose this market segment as well. I assume that this is the main reason why late last gen they came up with Santa Monica Studios and focused on what came to be their most gory franchise. But this is also why Sony mostly dumped their colorful platformer focus in favor of more mature and gritty action games (Sucker punch with Infamous, Insomniac with Resistance, Naughty dog with Uncharted), this is why Sony had to compete with Microsoft in the "buying game" with IPs like Heavy Rain, and this is why Sony started pumping out one shooter after another (Resistance, Killzone, SOCOM, MAG etc).
In fact, considering the fact that Uncharted, Starhawk/Warhawk, Twisted metal are also heavy on some kind of shooting element, it seems that unlike common belief, Sony is actually more shooter-centric than Microsoft this gen. And if we were to count the actual number of RPG games (both eastern and western) on each platform, I suspect we will see Microsoft coming on top - again contrary to what many people think about each platform strengths.
So all in all I think both companies strategies payed out this gen, but it should also be pretty obvious that some of these strategies shifted towards the end of the gen: Sony went on a crazy shopping spree for developers mid-gen in response to what was a dwindling exclusivity support from third parties, but they also had to cater to multiple platform because of the PSP and Vita, so the number of studios isn't really telling the whole story.
And at the same time Microsoft (who went on a similar spree last gen when they started out) actually closed the door on quite a few previously acquired developers throughout this gen, and only more recently started building new studios and purchasing a few others in order to support a more expansive portfolio of mobile-kinect-nextgen games.
Both Companies introduced plenty of new IPs throughout this gen, and according to E3 Microsoft still does have new IPs planned for 2013 - and this is eight years into the console lifecycle which is quite tremendous in fact. Ascend, Matter and Lococycle all look like completely fresh new IPs, and at least in the case of Ascend and Lococycle I know that the developer has the reputation to back this up (and Matter is in co-operation with Gore Verbinski, which is intriguing if nothing else).
Yes, all of these are XBLA games, but why should I mind? If anything, this means that the asking price will be lower, and considering the quality and scope of some recent XBLA games, I find them even competitive in their quality and content with full fledged retail titles (Trials Revolution is one such recent example).
If anything, I wouldn't mind Sony pushing the PSN front more like Microsoft does. We all know they also have new IPs for the PSN, but why didn't they actually show games like the unfinished swan on stage? After all, Microsoft is so far ahead in this territory that it's Sony who really needs to catch up: with new IPs like Fez, Sine mora, the Splatters or the upcoming promising new games this Summer holiday like Deadlight, Crimson Dragon and Dust, the last thing I think the Xbox is lacking this year is new ips.
And the worst thing about this is that nobody is promising you that a new IP will actually be any good. I already mentioned here some of Microsoft's previous efforts, and some of them turned out to be pretty mediocre.
And the same applies to all first party and third party IPs: just this week we got Inversion and Lollipop Chainsaw, and neither received much critical acclaim. So would I trade my option to play Halo 4 for these two games? Absolutely no. I'd rather have a top notch game, and don't really care if it has a number attached to it or not - assuming that it's good. Games like Halo 3 managed to prove that you can still pack in tons of innovative features (Forge, Theatre, online integration - in fact it's still ahead of many games this gen) without having to launch as a new IP, and each iteration of Gears also carries a full-featured mode: from horde mode, to beast mode, to the newly introduced class-based multiplayer in the upcoming gears. Same goes for Uncharted by the way, which managed to pack in much more content with each iteration.
Sure, they all (mostly) throw you back into a familiar gameplay within the same universe: you know what you're getting when you buy a new Halo or Gears or Uncharted games. But does it really change with new IP? After playing Indigo Prophecy I mostly knew exactly what kind of (QTE) gameplay I'm going to get in Heavy Rain, just as I mostly know what kind of gameplay I'm going to get now with Beyond: Two Souls. And Sony knows that as well, and this is why they don't mind this new IP: They know that people will buy this game because they like the kind of games that Quantic Dream makes, regardless of a number that appears on their side.
It wouldn't be less risky to invest in the exact same game only carrying the name "Heavy Rain 2", so the last thing you can say about Sony is that it's "breaking ground and investing heavily in risky products to advance video games as a medium" (and the "advance video games as a medium" is especially debatable in this case, unless you consider a game to be an interactive movie).
All the same time, I obviously wouldn't mind getting fresh new experiences from new IPs coming this year like Dishonored, Sleeping Dogs and Anarchy Reign. The selection so late this gen is wide enough for Microsoft to maintain focus on the experiences they already know how to deliver.
The only thing you should "fear" (assuming that you are afraid that Microsoft will stop catering to the hardcore gamer) is perhaps if Microsoft will refrain from developing new IPs at the beginning of the next gen, and will switch to a casual oriented console with sub-par tech and like Nintendo did. But in recent years it seems that recently Microsoft is recruiting for more and more internal studios, and shop for a few others. Most of these new studios as well as other existing ones, don't have any big retail project announced past the end of this year. I don't think that the suits in Microsoft are that stupid: they are well aware that new IPs are important mostly in the beginning of a generation, and in order to find the next Gears of War and turn it into a smashing success, they will have to bet on many different games and see what eventually sticks.
All at the same time, you should remember that Sony has some of the strongest studios in their portfolio still working on PS3 games in 2013: Team Ico, Santa Monica, Quantic Dream and Naughty Dogs. All of this while still being heavily invested in the Vita and having to divert some of their studios in that direction. It's a double-edged sword really: focusing with your biggest studios on a new IP so late this gen, effectively means that they might not make it with a good offering in time for the launch window of their next gen console.
Considering all this, which of the two companies you think is better equipped for the launch of their next gen console, assuming that both the next PS and XBOX are coming next year?
You want your new IPs? So do I. But I much rather see them come to life on an exiting new tech - especially after the quick glimpse we saw from a select few games this E3, indicating what launch games on the next gen might look like.
tl;dr
So to sum up the original question: does MS really need to support more new first party IPs this gen - 8 years into their console lifecycle?
I would never say no to another new IP, but I think they have already outdid previous efforts I've seen on other consoles, and I care mostly about good games regardless of them being part of an existing IP or a new one.
So all in all I'm not complaining, and considering the amount of games we already have planned for the coming year - I'd rather see them shift focus with new IPs (and existing ones) to the next gen.
God of War didn't spend 30 years in development hell.
Quantity is fine. Problem is quality. MS is much worse at cultivating new, successful IP than Sony. Stuff they finance, if it stays exclusive, tends to have a rather short half-life, often not meriting a sequel. PGR is dead (to be fair, that was successful for them last gen). Silicon Knights is a rathole no one should ever throw money down. Rare hasn't really worked out. Sony just seems to be better at buying/producing IPs that are at least moderately successful. MS has come a long way from blowing money on crap like Azurik and Bloodwake, but they've got a ways to go yet.
I agree. I looked on wikipedia and it lists the 360's library at ~900 titles with about 200 being exclusive or at least console exclusive titles. The problem is that a good 90% of those games I have never heard of due to little of no traction in terms of mindshare or released only in japan or some other non western region. I guess most of us don't remember the concerted effort of MS when it came to the japanese market.
I also think when talking about cultivating exclusives we have ignored how much effort MS poured into making sure that Sony had less third party exclusives this gen than last gen. All those gaming commercials that ended with the 360 logo must of cost MS a pretty penny in terms of copromotion and marketing dollars. Whatever Sony's advantage has in terms of exclusive content (first party or not), it doesn't come close to the disparity that existed last gen.
We are in the seventh year of the current generation, I doubt most of the consoles being sold today are to core gamers. I am sure there are some core gamers who are migrating over to a 360 or PS3 to complement their primary console or buying a replacement to a failed 360 or PS3. But I think a huge chunk of new consoles are now being sold to mainstream or casual gamers. The demographics of current buyers must be different than in earlier parts of this gen. I assume thats why MS dedicated a large portion of their conference to mainstream and casual gamers as they are likely the dominant driver of 360 sales right now.
Kameradschaft
Regular
Quality is subjective since for example I enjoyed games like PGR4, Kameo, Banjo Kazooie: N&B, Viva Pinata: TiP, Crackdown, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon & Alan Wake more than Motorstorm, LBP, R&C, Infamous, White Knight Chronicles & Heavenly Sword.
But of course there's an unwritten rule that says that we all must agree that Sony's exclusive library is superior.
From the company's point of view, the aggregate of consumers' judgement of quality--as measured by enough of them deciding to buy it to turn a profit--is what matters, not a single individual. If you work hard enough, you can even find someone who liked Too Human. But the satisfaction of knowing someone out there liked your product won't keep the lights on. The money that comes from 2.5 million people liking your product will.
And IMO that has been a waste of money. My armchair QB's perspective has been that the 360's relative success has mainly been due to launching first and Sony blowing the PS3's debut year in a way that is only topped by the Sega Saturn. I also think that's a Microsoft problem--the company as a whole seems to flail at success. Their throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks strategy eventually comes up with good stuff, but it's really expensive. Some of it's hubris--many of the mistakes with the OXbox were completely avoidable, but the product was based on the belief that the people who'd been in the business for 10, 15 years really had no clue what they were doing. But the rest of it? I don't know, it just seems like they don't "get" consumers.dobwal said:
Yes because we all know that the bigger the sales are the better the game is.
I would really love to live in a world where good games are getting the sales they deserve but the reality is different.
That you are trying to imply that a series like PGR with 85+ metascore is not a quality game because it sold not so well is just ridiculous.
IMO in that case you are clearly confusing mainstream appeal with quality.
Don't get me wrong, I know that quality titles tend to sell better than "bad" games but poor sales don't automatically mean that the title was of a poor quality.
There are many more factors that impact sales: the marketing, launch window or simply genre.
Besides, I don't know why you think that MS exclusives are selling worse than Sony's since even Sony knows that this is not true.
http://gamingbolt.com/sony-comments-on-ps3-exclusives-selling-less-than-xbox-360-exclusives
I'm not buying into the "Microsoft got lucky" story. It completely ignores everything they did right this gen, none of which would have been accomplished without careful planning and a lot of hard work and investment. I do think that it helped that Sony dropped the ball, but Microsoft still had to execute a good product, which they did.
What is more impressive at least for me is that they pulled this off even despite known hardware issue.
The price was right,the games were there and LIVE was really hot.
Kameradschaft
Regular
As SteelOak already said quality does not translate in good sales, take for example Resistance 3 that did pretty bad sales wise while it was a really great game IMO - an opposite example is RE: Operation Raccoon City that did pretty good sales but it was widely accepted as a mediocre game with lots of problems...does that make Resistance 3 a bad game and ORC a good one? I don't think so.
Also you said that if I tried enough I'd find someone who liked Too Human, well guess what - Too Human was a mediocre game at best as was Lair & Haze that I'm sure I can also find fans of them as well if I worked hard enough but that doesn't make them good games...all the 360 titles that I posted above are quality games that I really enjoyed personally.
It's because they didn't get lucky. Microsoft understood the value of software developers, so they gave them a simple platform with great tools and helped us all along the way to make the best games for the core. They also understood the importance of online gaming to the core and gave them the best online platform. Sony on the otherhand considered developers as mere cogs and provided a platform that required years to work around with tools so limited and primitive that it made ones head explode, and they missed on the importance of online to the core treating it as an afterthough. The result was inevitable, the games on Sony's box performed poorly, even many 1st party ones, and it took years to not only sort that out but also years for their 1st parties to sort it out, delaying franchises critical to their plarform, and their online experience simply could not compare to the competition. Simply put, they collosally blew it. Final blows came from Microsoft's additional stragegy of stealing key devs and ip's, which was quite easy to do once devs saw how easy their platform was to deal with and how they were clearly taking over the us market with said simple and complete platform.
There was no luck involved here, they just performed really well this gen and raised the bar substantially. They understood the core and stole them, giving them their platform of choice. Now they are looking to do the same with casuals. Given that housewives and little girls outspend core gamers clearly they are a valuable target and they are directly in Microsoft crosshairs. Most forum goers see this as "abandoning the core", "no games", and other nonsense while of course totally ignoring what platform the top core selling games are on and which platform still has the premiere online service. But whatever, that's forums for you. In the meantime while forum folk chant "no games" the core continue to games and spend the most on the 360 while Microsoft now also tries to steal the casuals.
I don't know, there are plent of exclusives that do sell in the millions that are important to the libraries of their respective console. It's just one of many considerations for a person buying a console. With previous generations, it was pretty much the only thing to consider.
