Europeans. Guess what title has been number 1 on the software charts in the uk since september to now? Fifa 07 with a short time at number 2 when gears came out.
(If you swap F1 with Forza that is, that bundle is pretty much awesome.)
Europe: can it be cracked?
- Thread starter TheChefO
- Start date
Europeans. Guess what title has been number 1 on the software charts in the uk since september to now? Fifa 07 with a short time at number 2 when gears came out.
(If you swap F1 with Forza that is, that bundle is pretty much awesome.)
That is an illusion indeed.
Whats not an illusion though (atleast last time I checked) is that a great quantity of 360's most popular and highly rated games are shooters
I am a European. I doubt people will buy a whole console just for Fifa. Fifa always sells a lot because there are always these football fanatics that love official games.
I dont think Fifa contributes to 360 sales that much. besides it will be a matter until PS3 gets these too. Also the majority has a PS2 already and will buy a Fifa independently of console
Nintendo, on the mainland at least, look on course for number one status thanks to PS3 price. They just have to make more consoles. Wii Sports will see never ending sales till Wii Sports II comes out.
Microsoft is the one with the problem. On the mainland the console does very poorly. The reason is undoubtedly the software line-up, the best games on the machine tend to involve one guy shoots-shit mechanics. Europe does not have an engrained gun culture, the most popular genre is racing. From personal experience I was surprised by how many got a 360 this Christmas (in the UK), they previously never owned an Xbox, it was down to one game, not Gears but Pro Evo 6. This proves to me that the 360 can sell but only with the correct selection of titles.
The best PS2 games came from a wide selection of genres. I think MS will start doing better once Blue Dragon, LO and Trusty Bell come out. That will shut down the perception of "designed for Americans" which is the general reaction to the product.
Microsoft is the one with the problem. On the mainland the console does very poorly. The reason is undoubtedly the software line-up, the best games on the machine tend to involve one guy shoots-shit mechanics. Europe does not have an engrained gun culture, the most popular genre is racing. From personal experience I was surprised by how many got a 360 this Christmas (in the UK), they previously never owned an Xbox, it was down to one game, not Gears but Pro Evo 6. This proves to me that the 360 can sell but only with the correct selection of titles.
The best PS2 games came from a wide selection of genres. I think MS will start doing better once Blue Dragon, LO and Trusty Bell come out. That will shut down the perception of "designed for Americans" which is the general reaction to the product.
The gameranking page found 71 FPS games on the PS2 vs XBOX 93
Do you have a point? Go count the shooter titles in gamespots database. There are more shooters titles than FPS games you know? Gears of War, the flagship shooter title for X360, is a third person shooter.
Arguing about the amount of shooters on the PS3 or the PS2 vs the X360, is mostly done by people who never bothered to check up on things.
It has less shooters than the PS3, and a mere 1,5% more than the PS2. The real problem is that "all" the good games seems to be shooters, but you cant really argue that it has to many of this genre, not when you look at the numbers.
Last edited by a moderator:
and they are getting PGR4, FM2, NFS sequel, GTR and DIRT. need more???
Last edited by a moderator:
I don't think anyone's done a proper study of the European market, but what I feel is needed is diversity. People have a tendency to look at the top selling games in a market and decide that defines the interests and sets the agenda for what software needs to be produced, but in my guess, it's the smaller titles that make the difference. Every platform has racers, shooters, WWII games, StarWars games, and sports. If that's all you care for, you can grab any console. The differentiating factors are the other titles. Looking at Europe, SingStar, EyeToy, and Buzz have proven popular. But as well as that, there's all the unpopular games that count as well. Rub-a-dub and flOw might not sell a million, but they offer something unique to the few tens of thousands (or however many) that are interested. Then the choice is XB360 with Fifa, GTA and Generic-Track-Racer 202 without quirky little games that offer something out of the ordinary, or PS3 with Fifa, GTA and Generic-Track-Racer 202, and also Eye of Judgement, flOw and Rub-a-dub.
Then of course there's the marketting and price aspects. I don't know what Microsoft's reputation is across Europe, but my gut feeling is 'boo to MS!' They've provided 10 years of operating systems that crap out on people, while I don't know of anything they've done that has afforded them positive reputation. I've never met an Ordinary Joe in the UK who had something good to say about using computers. The only time I hear people say a computer is nice to use, they're talking about Macs. As for the XBox reputation, as I don't read up on the device, my only understanding of the platform is what I glean from general discussion. The top talked about games are often shooters, so even if XB360 has few shooters, it sounds like that's all there is to play on it. As for Live! Arcade, that may have lots of great little abstract titles for all I know, but all I hear about are nostalgia remakes with their ugly 80s graphics. Even if the platform is far more balanced and diverse than general consensus would have us believe, failure to inform the masses of that means the consensus persists. It's all very well saying 'XB360 has mostly shooters is a myth' but that myth won't go away unless the reality is communicated effectively! Of the TV adverts I've seen for XB360, they're shooters. Lost Planet and GRAW and GOW and ones I remember. I don't recall seeing any other ads.
I dare say something MS doesn't appreciate (which is an American stereotype!) is art. It's all loud, brash, and in-your-face. Quiet, subtle games aren't something you associate with the XB brand. Same with their adverts. It feels, to me at least, in my vague, never really paid much attention kind of way, that MS is an American company being American everywhere, as the stereotype would have us expect them to behave. What they need to do is have a European arm that is solely European, with European games studios writing software without any great concern for how things happening in Europe will be appreciated in the US. Sony, for example, have produced European titles released first (or exclusively) in Europe, that only later make their way across the Big Pond. You don't have MS working on anything European. The European studios MS does own are working on international titles, with a definite 'must work well with the big US market' slant. I mean, the UK developer Rare produced a game about Pinatas with a US TV series to accompany it! Pinatas may be all the rage in the US, but they mean nothing over here. The best Eurodev they have at the moment is Lionhead, which has a definite English touch to it's creations.
I'll add that of course these opinions are subjective! I don't read up much on platforms. I nose around websites and forums and hear what's intersting people on platforms, and have a look. In that regard I think I'm quite representative of the mainstream gamer. If I have any wrong ideas about what a platform has to offer, it's primarily because that platform hasn't communicated effectively in a way I'll pick up, producing titles that the users care to talk about. With the technology it's different because I actively research that. With the software libraries and functions, I osmose the chit-chat of the masses, so any wrong ideas I have in the above are probably equally wrong in the mainstream too, depending on where they look. Thus as well as producing a balanced system that's not all about million unit best sellers, but also just massive diversity, it has to be presented effectively as such.
Then of course there's the marketting and price aspects. I don't know what Microsoft's reputation is across Europe, but my gut feeling is 'boo to MS!' They've provided 10 years of operating systems that crap out on people, while I don't know of anything they've done that has afforded them positive reputation. I've never met an Ordinary Joe in the UK who had something good to say about using computers. The only time I hear people say a computer is nice to use, they're talking about Macs. As for the XBox reputation, as I don't read up on the device, my only understanding of the platform is what I glean from general discussion. The top talked about games are often shooters, so even if XB360 has few shooters, it sounds like that's all there is to play on it. As for Live! Arcade, that may have lots of great little abstract titles for all I know, but all I hear about are nostalgia remakes with their ugly 80s graphics. Even if the platform is far more balanced and diverse than general consensus would have us believe, failure to inform the masses of that means the consensus persists. It's all very well saying 'XB360 has mostly shooters is a myth' but that myth won't go away unless the reality is communicated effectively! Of the TV adverts I've seen for XB360, they're shooters. Lost Planet and GRAW and GOW and ones I remember. I don't recall seeing any other ads.
I dare say something MS doesn't appreciate (which is an American stereotype!) is art. It's all loud, brash, and in-your-face. Quiet, subtle games aren't something you associate with the XB brand. Same with their adverts. It feels, to me at least, in my vague, never really paid much attention kind of way, that MS is an American company being American everywhere, as the stereotype would have us expect them to behave. What they need to do is have a European arm that is solely European, with European games studios writing software without any great concern for how things happening in Europe will be appreciated in the US. Sony, for example, have produced European titles released first (or exclusively) in Europe, that only later make their way across the Big Pond. You don't have MS working on anything European. The European studios MS does own are working on international titles, with a definite 'must work well with the big US market' slant. I mean, the UK developer Rare produced a game about Pinatas with a US TV series to accompany it! Pinatas may be all the rage in the US, but they mean nothing over here. The best Eurodev they have at the moment is Lionhead, which has a definite English touch to it's creations.
I'll add that of course these opinions are subjective! I don't read up much on platforms. I nose around websites and forums and hear what's intersting people on platforms, and have a look. In that regard I think I'm quite representative of the mainstream gamer. If I have any wrong ideas about what a platform has to offer, it's primarily because that platform hasn't communicated effectively in a way I'll pick up, producing titles that the users care to talk about. With the technology it's different because I actively research that. With the software libraries and functions, I osmose the chit-chat of the masses, so any wrong ideas I have in the above are probably equally wrong in the mainstream too, depending on where they look. Thus as well as producing a balanced system that's not all about million unit best sellers, but also just massive diversity, it has to be presented effectively as such.
At least MS is trying...
With Nintendo however, I think it's just more games. I mean my Wii is basically gathering dust as I wait for stuff to get released. Besides Zelda all that's there seem to be weird mini-game collections & mediocre me-too genre stereotypes (red steel, their racing games and so on and so forth) at gauge off prices (like twice what an AAA pc, ps2 or gc title costs). Why they don't release their more quirky stuff like Trauma Center in Europe is really beyond me
PS3 has 32 titles in the FPS catagory and the 360 has 46 or 30% more FPS games
PS2 has 71 FPS games and the XBOX has 93 games or 23% more FPS games
Orly?
FPS = First Person Shooters, maybe you got that wrong since you keep insisting on saying "shotoers".
I agree with your point about Singstar etc, the Xbox definitely lacks those sort of games. I think in the Wii's case, A lot of those sorts of games come naturally to the platform, since the interface makes them quite easy. If anything i think the Wii will end up lacking the usual sorts of games a little like Xbox lacks the sorts of things popular on Wii, though not to such a large extent. Where i would disagree though is in the quirky games, that is part of Live Arcades reason for existence, and games like marble madness and Outpost Kaloki X. There are those sorts of games for all platforms, it's just that because in all three consoles case it's a new feature and may take some time to become known. I only know what flOw is because i played it on the PC about 6 months ago, so I think in all cases, it will be word of mouth that makes these games important.
Yep, agreed. MS has a reputation over there, and to a lesser extent in the UK. Not quite sure why in a sense, because most people i know don't seem to care one way or another. I definitely think though that they need to communicate a bit more like you say. Your perception of Live! Arcade for instance, is really far off. There are some ugly ports, but then there are some good ports, and there are also plenty of fresh ideas, both as new takes on old themes or totally new games. It's that sort of perception that needs to change. However part of the reason I think Sony have it good right now and MS don't is down to the time they entered the market, and the fact they've simply been there longer. Gaming became a far wider reaching entertainment medium at the same sort of time as the Playstation came out, and as a result, the sort of people who got into gaming, got into Playstation. The perception of Xbox and MS can only improve both with time and the sort of games they release.
Absolutely right. I've noticed the same thing. There aren't many games like that, but at least there are some. Even Japan has Japan-centric games on 360, but what does Europe have? I think part of the reason is Sony, being Japanese, always perceived both Europe and America to have different tastes to themselves, and have made games accordingly. There does seem to be a perception by American companies, perhaps due to some success stories over here in other ways like McDonalds etc, that we like the same things they do which as you point out, isn't always the case. Nintendo I think don't suffer from this so much, because their franchises seem fairly universally popular.
I know just what you mean. I'm the same with the PS2. Although i take your points above, I do find that i suffer the same with the PS2. I must be one of the only people here that doesn't own a PS2, and i have found a lot of what comes out on it passes me by. It therefore seems to me a chicken and egg situation; in order to pick up on that info, you generally need to own the platform, but you wouldn't buy the platform without knowing about it
PS3 has 32 titles in the FPS catagory and the 360 has 46 or 30% more FPS games
PS2 has 71 FPS games and the XBOX has 93 games or 23% more FPS games
You can't count this way and you should know this. PS3 has fewer total games so they have fewer total FPSs than the 360 . But PS3 has proportionately more. OTOH, XBOX (the original) obviously had many more FPS titles relative to the total number of titles released on the system.
As far as niche titles go, I think that these will naturally be found on the system with the biggest user base. You can afford to sell a title that only will appeal to 0.1% of the console owners for a system that has 100M+ consoles sold. Not so much if that system only has a user base of 20M. Whoever ends up with the largest install base will also end up with the most diverse library independently of anything else the vendors do to encourage/discourage it.
Interesting thread with some good feedback. It really helps to give some insight into this market (if only from a limited sample).
PS3 has 32 titles in the FPS catagory and the 360 has 46 or 30% more FPS games
PS2 has 71 FPS games and the XBOX has 93 games or 23% more FPS games
Orly?
FPS = First Person Shooters, maybe you got that wrong since you keep insisting on saying "shotoers".
He means relative to the number of games on the system. 360 has quite a few more games on sale or in development than the PS3.
See http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37853
PS3 has 32 titles in the FPS catagory and the 360 has 46 or 30% more FPS games
PS2 has 71 FPS games and the XBOX has 93 games or 23% more FPS games
Wow. I cant believe you actually typed this, and posted it.
Your supposed to measure the amount of FPS games (or shooters, like I and another originally talked about) vs the total amount of games avaliable on that library.
What you did is is silly, and gives no real indication of what we are talking about, because whats interesting here is how many games out of the total library are FPS games or shooters or whatever you want to measure. Not how many games each have, when the X360 has 200 more games in its library.
The X360 has what? 400 games annouced (ish)
The PS3 has about 240. (without me bothering to check again)
Whats interesting is how many of these games are shooters (or FPS games, or whatever you want to measure), compared to its library. PS3 having 32 FPS games, means that 32\240= 13,33% of all the games on the PS3 plattform are First Person Shooters. 13,3% of the plattforms library are shooters.
The X360 having according to you, 46 titles, means that 46\400 =11,5% are FPS games.
See ? This is whats interesting, how many games on the specific plattform are FPS games or not, not the percentage of the amount of FPS games between them, because that result will largely just reflect which plattform has the biggest library of games, and not which plattforms library consists of to many fps games.
Tell me, what console has the greatest number of FPS games? And you know what, i wouldn´t be surprised if down the road the 360 didn´t only have more FPS games than the PS3 but also a bigger share of it´s game library being FPS. The XBOX history speaks for itself.
And you responded and quoted my post where i mentioned FPS games, you even quoted the FPS part, so whatever you had going with Shooters i´m not part of that.
Are you serious?
Did you look at the numbers? Right now, the X360 has more FPS games in total, but compared to how much larger their game library is, they have less % wise.
Which is what is important. The amount of titles itself compared to one and another is irrelevant, surely you must understand that? Otherwise, clearly, the game with the biggest library will often "loose" simply due to it having more games in total.
Why do you always try to twist what i have to say?
% of FPS games on the X360 is less than the % of FPS games on the PS3, right now. What you think it may or may not be in the future, is largely irrelevant, and mostly biased.
I understand, but I think that if such a bundle was to be made (Fifa+WE+Football Manager+Forza2) bundle was made and sold at the standard EU price, then they would get a lot of sales because its just incredible value. They could make it a limited edition deal (maybe this is just the Japanese view) and I think they could sell at least half a million. At that price, with all those games, for a next gen console...if it doesn't sell, I don't know if they have any chance at all.
How can it be irrelevant and biased? The XBOX had a healthy number of FPS games, more than the PS2 and considering that it even had less games it surely shows what we can expect from the 360.