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Deleted member 11852
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Profitability is likely to be good given Epic already had infrastructure to leverage and economies of scale are particularly kind when it comes to online services.
Console Exclusives: Significance and Impact *spinoff*
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Profitability is likely to be good given Epic already had infrastructure to leverage and economies of scale are particularly kind when it comes to online services.
You can have two or four or eight TPS games with completely different storylines, moods and backstories. Those elements are typically far more important for garnering a gamer's interest than the technical prowess of the engine used or the fact that they're all TPS games. Taking Gears and Uncharted as examples, the two couldn't be thematically more different without changing one to a different genre like turn-based strategy or something. One is an arguably contemporary earth with a storyline closer to Indiana Jones while the other is cartoonish laser blast battles with ugly aliens. With just that information I don't see how they don't attract different types of gamers.
Everyone has bias, it's what makes them unique (just like everyone else
). I think it's a part of everyone's decisions. The question is how much of an impact. I don't know of any means of measuring it ... it should be unique for each unique person, no?EDIT: Not certain how one can measure bias, nor how one can measure the impact of bias on decisions.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
If by bias, you mean preference for X implemention of Y genre (all FPS don't feature the same gameplay even if they are all FPS), liking certain types of settings, liking a certain storyline, liking a certain style of character design, etc.
Then the obvious answer would be yes. Everyone has a bias towards the types of games they like and whether it's 1p, 2p, or 3p doesn't matter in the slightest.
If by bias, you mean platform preference, then that becomes more nuanced. There are obviously some players who will prefer anything on their platform of choice over something on a competing platform. There are also some people that obvious hate anything on a platform they dislike. Those certainly exist, but I'd like to think they aren't the majority.
For me, I like Strategy, complex stat based RPGs, and some shooters. I don't like open world games. When a genre that I like is also open world, then it becomes a question of tolerating the open world for a good implementation or passing on the game due to the open world nature of the game.
I like Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and historical game settings. I like the WW2 COD games far more than the modern COD games, for example. I also liked the Sci-Fi COD far more than the modern CODs.
I like character designs that allow me to play a more socially upstanding type of a person (I dislike games where I'd have to play a liar without the choice to play them differently, for example.)
All of these things and more go into determining what types of games I like. As such, there aren't currently a whole heck of a lot of 1p games I'm going to like. HZD, I love the setting, the gameplay is good, the story is engaging, it has a main character I really like, but it's a very UBIsoft style of open world (massive bleh). That's the only one I'm going to mention as it has a lot of things I do like, but it has one massive thing that I don't like. I'd probably buy it if I owned a platform it was on, but I'm not going to invest in a platform just to buy it.
The Witcher 3 is a similar situation for me as HZD, but it was already on a platform I owned. Also one I never got more than about 15% of the way through the game due to the open world nature of the game. If it wasn't available on a platform I owned, I wouldn't have bothered to buy it.
Regards,
SB
Like a general thread question or is this one for Buddha?
Bias meaning; gamers of certain platform don't care (i.e., exclusives), because their choice of platform is lacking such exclusives?
If so!? Platform warriors, yes. Moderate & casual gamers, no.
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It's a general question. I don't really care about individual personal tastes. Each individual interest is a drop in a bucket. What matters is the buckets.
If there is absolutely no conscious or unconscious bias (impossible), interest in a game should match metacritics, in the sense that out of hundreds of reviews, if 10% of them hated the game, we should see 10% of gamers who hate it too. However if there is a strong corellation with brand ownership, it means there is a biasing whatever the reason. So the impact of 1P is necessarily weaker, since the interests is already lopsided towards the gamers who already have that console.
One bias can be something accumulated over decades, as PS became known for story games and MS for competitive shooter at some point.
Another bias is brand ownership which makes the gamers watch the E3 and the trailers of "upcoming games". It means they have a predisposition to ignore or be generally less exposed to the 1P games of a console they don't have.
In both cases, 1P have a lesser impact on the market than the average possibility of interest for gamers who aren't already sold on the platform.
Even as more of an Xbox fan I have to applaud Sony's 1st P/exclusive output. Even though I think they do too many 3rd person cinematic/action games they are clearly beating Microsoft this gen.
My gut tells me that the risks investing in a AAA game these days is much higher than it was and the fact that Sony has the install base it does makes it easier for them to take that risk than Microsoft.
My gut tells me that the risks investing in a AAA game these days is much higher than it was and the fact that Sony has the install base it does makes it easier for them to take that risk than Microsoft.
I think they are offering EXACTLY what differentiated consoles with 3D graphics and made them appealing in the first place. It was always that vision that made people go for Playstation since it's release.
PC's have been traditionally the strategic, multiplayer, point and click adventures, western RPG platforms.
Consoles were about the immediacy, the accessibility and the arcade experience since their first appearance in the market. Nintendo was aiming the family experience in the living room, whilst Sega was aiming for the arcade experience in the living room. With 3D graphics the immersion, the story telling, the thrills of the cinematic experience were added to that mix and that was largely also due to the fact that , like movies, games on consoles are mainly experienced in the living room, on bigger screens. Crazy Ken's vision and hence Sony's was how to bridge the gap between movie experience and gaming experience.
Hence consoles for a long time were more differentiated from PCs. With MS's involvement into the mix to protect windows gaming with their own console (which aimed to make porting easier and to unify the console gaming with that of PCs), it bridged the gap between PCs and Consoles instead. Consoles became more alike to PCs sooner, games are more often hybrids of console/pc experience, the biggest franchises on consoles are mainly PC-type experiences (multiplarform games) and consoles lost their exclusivity and timed exclusivity.
Sony is still trying to fulfill that vision which started with the original PS. And hence they bring us what the others are not bringing. It's what makes the Playstation brand unique. The cinematic, immersive experience in the living room.
Nintendo is still on the family entertainment vision which is again what makes their consoles and games successful.
MS is still on the windows gaming support. They dont care much about the console itself but the windows platform which PCs and XBOX support
Again with the 'Sony only makes 3rd person cinematic experiences' line. *shrug*
I didnt say at all that the cinematic element is absent from other titles. I do consider though that the titles that have the absolute focus on that nail it best and cinematic experience come from Sony's 1st party studios.
Even if we consider that other titles of similar execution do exist, are much more infrequent in the sea of games released, and it is the type of games that the brand is known for. So yes it is that space that Sony needs to fill for the platform and they are doing it masterfully.
Where do SingStar, Dreams, DriveClub, MLB, Knack, Tearaway, Killzone, Fat Princess Adventures, the Tomorrow Children, RIGS, WipeOut, Gran Turismo, Everybody's Golf, Drawn to Death, and Shadow of the Beast fit in?
Back when PS launched, it definitely wasn't about the cinematic experience. 3D platforms and beat-em-ups were the rage. Things like Dance Dance Revolution were uber popular. I think your premise is wrong and Sony was never pursuing a cinema-video hybrid and isn't now. PlayStation was envisioned as the machine on which you'd play, rather than work. There was no implied type of play and PS since the original has received every type of game under the sun, even some that just don't well without KB+M!
Back when PS launched, it definitely wasn't about the cinematic experience. 3D platforms and beat-em-ups were the rage. Things like Dance Dance Revolution were uber popular. I think your premise is wrong and Sony was never pursuing a cinema-video hybrid and isn't now. PlayStation was envisioned as the machine on which you'd play, rather than work. There was no implied type of play and PS since the original has received every type of game under the sun, even some that just don't well without KB+M!
It is risky. And the models for AAA studios have moved on. The only studios that are in a position to make games with huge investment and risks like that still are the platform holders as they are gateways into getting people to buy the system. Sony and Nintendo have figured this out loud and clear. MS lucked out with buying out Bungie a while back, but didn't clue in what made Xbox successful.
Now it would appear to me that they are trying to redefine the experience through platform changes while they work on their first party output. I'm expecting to see PC style exclusives to start showing up on Xbox, it's path of least resistance if you want to gain great exclusives but not have to pay for them: Ie mouse and keyboard games.
I agree with you that Sony does invest in other areas. They are highly experimental and leave room for creative freedom.
But I challenge the idea that the investment on these titles you mention is proof that Sony's vision in the cinematic experience does not exist.
You are revealing another side of Sony's visions which I agree to a point.
Currently the type of exclusive games that showcase the brand the most and have the guaranteed impact are games like GoW, TLOU. Spiderman and Uncharted. In their conferences Sony's chosen highlights are most often their cinematic experiences.
They represent the technological jump and the reason why someone would want to jump to a more powerful console.
Many of the games you mention do not enjoy a huge success, they dont get the huge investment titles like GoW get, and many of these genres are no longer as popular as they used to. They are also easier to represent in the competing market of mobile gaming. You cant experience games like Uncharted or God of War on a mobile device
Even during the days of the Playstation, when beat-em-ups were all the rage, the PS fighting games in particular had a lot of reliance on the presentation of realism and story telling. Tekken and Soul Edge were attractive not just due to the gameplay, but the storytelling, the CG accompanying each character as well as the presentation which gave them a level of personality and turned them into homeages to martial art movies and the likes. The hollywood element was there.
Gran Turismo was great as a game but also succeeded due to the fact that it took the experience of watching real life racing and made it interactive. One of the reasons why the Replay mode was so attractive and popular in GT.
And then we had the third party games that were all the rage and took the PS success into another level. MGS, Final Fantasy and many Squaresoft's titles, etc fueled the cinematic experience vision.
The 'cinematic experiences' are the most expensive and the flashiest, granted, which is why they make a big deal of it. In terms of dollars spent, these get the most, but in terms of game diversity, they don't represent the major focus of Sony. You also can't spend big money on arcade games, so by their nature they're going to have to have bigger backing. Sony are 'a bit of everything' by and large. I'm not really sure what to make of the rest of your remarks. MGS and Tekken etc are third party - devs added more story as the tech allowed. Of the top of my head, things like XCom added more cutscenes over time. I don't think there's any particular Sony focus on 'cinematic'. There are Sony published 2nd party titles I haven't linked such as the Pixel Junk games, which are pure arcade.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Absolutely but in terms of world wide visibility and acclaim, IE - what the majority of consumers know.
Sony is currently well known for Uncharted, TLOU, HZD, and now GOW should add to that.
Outside of Gran Turismo not much else gets as much mass public attention or sales as their 3rd person, cinematic set pieces.
It's sort of like people that say Xbox was the console of shooters. Which conveniently ignore all the RPGs, racing games, flight sims, adventure games, platformers, etc. that MS studios made.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Studios_video_games
Scroll down to the Xbox sections, you'll have to weed through to see which were developed and published by MS Studios and not just published by MS studios though. Microsoft didn't make all that many shooters. Just like the majority of Sony titles aren't 3rd person, cinematic adventure games. So while MS had Halo as a 1p shooter, they also had things like Kameo, Viva Pinata, Conker, Forza, Fable, etc.
However, because of the high visibility of Halo, Microsoft got tagged as the company that makes shooters even though outside of Halo I can't think of another 1p shooter that they made (Gears was 2p). MechWarrior would be the closest to another shooter, but it was really a giant mech simulator. The same way Crimson Skies isn't a shooter as it's a fantasy flying simulator.
Right now, due to the high visibility of Sony's 3rd person adventure games, they are getting a reputation as the company that makes 3rd person adventure games.
Unfair to Microsoft and Sony, but it's just kind of how it is.
Regards,
SB
D
Deleted member 11852
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If you look back at the games that Microsoft themselves pushed, whether through marketing deals of bundles, you'll see why. It was a good move and served them well last gen.
The XBOX wasn't known for shooters because of MS's games.
The XBOX gained the popularity of the best place to play first person shooters as a console overall and that was due to the fact that it was getting many and the best ports of popular shooters from the PC space. That was regardless of who made those games.
Halo also contributed to this because it was the most successful FPS game to ever grace a console with the most successfull multiplayer. Of all the titles released on XBOX, it was the most successful, the most acclaimed and a technical showcase. Very few franchises defined the XBOX brand or enjoyed success. Halo did. It was the main system seller compared to other games released by MS or not.
The PS2 had a greater range of system sellers.
With the 7th generation, beginning with the 360, for the first time we saw the largest presence, or at least, the largest highlight of FPS to ever grace the console space. And this was also due to the fact that, the XBOX brand did not carry with it the popularity of first party and third party franchises the Playstation 1 and 2 enjoyed. The majority of MS owned franchises, except Halo, were not as popular or lost their original grace (See Rare's games). But Halo was the Super Mario of XBOX. So the most pre-existing popular franchises happened to be multiplatform shooting games at the beginning.But that would be temporary.
Meanwhile the Playstation brand was known for MGS, DMC, Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo, Resident Evil, Tekken, God of War, Jak and Daxter, Rachet and Clank, Ace Combat, Ridge Racer, Silent Hill, Onimusha, Okami, Soul Calibur, Kingdom Hearts etc. Many of these games enjoyed exclusivity or partial exclusivity or timed exclusivity on Playstation 1 and 2.
Everybody was expecting this kind of exclusivity or timed exclusivity to follow suit with the Playstation 3 which of course didnt take off very well. Third party exclusives after a year or so were being announced for the 360. This was when Sony in some interviews was stating that third party exclusives will be rarer and hence consoles will be differentiated through 1st party efforts. By the time the 360 started getting those popular franchises, it was no longer known as a console for shooters.
From that point onwards, Sony was showcasing it's exclusive titles relying on the cinematic experience to show off the Playstation 3's technical prowess.
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