DLC: The Next Generation Third Party Exclusives ? (TR:U, Mirror's Edge, GTAIV etc)
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RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
I really don't see the problem.
What am I missing? Rather than pay for the entire rights to a game, MS paid for them to make additional exclusive content.
The demo exclusivity (although that isn't clearly stated in the link you provided, it only explains what the demo for the PC and 360 will be.. the PS3 could have a similar demo or a different demo), is head scratching because you'd think the purpose of a demo is to sell games. Not releasing a demo of any sort would be odd.
Then again, that's not what that link says. That link only explains what the PC and 360 demo will be and makes no mention of the PS3.
Or did I read that wrong?
I was thinking that this is Microsoft's new strategy - less focus on first party development, and more on exclusive deals with third party ... it's not a bad idea, I'm guessing. (At least not until Sony really does manage to put out some killer first party applications ... )
Is it less focus on first party though. MS has alot of first party games on the road map and alot of second party games. I think with sony's stratagey they will alienate 3rd party developers. Just look at this year. They have resistance 2 in nov and then killzone in febuary. That puts a squeeze on all other first person shooters in that time frame also. Its akin to ms launching gears 2 and halo 3 in the same 4 month span.
Yes, there is a clear conflict of interest. But competition is good for the consumers. Besides, if the third party developers can't tap on the power of PS3 and can be swung by money, it is in Sony's primary interest to roll out its own games.
First it will allow them real experiences to push the envelope and share the technologies with 3rd parties. Second, it sets the benchmark for third parties to compete against.
If they can't deliver, then consumers still have great games to sustain a different platform. If they can deliver against Sony's first party tech quality, then clearly we all benefit too. Coupled with the fact that exclusives can be useful to explore underdeveloped markets, it makes sense for Sony to develop first party titles.
Good for consumers , bad for the developers.
Yes cause what company in their right mind wouldn't want to make money. I also don't know what power you talking about , I don't believe there are any games from sony's first / second party efforts that are leagues ahead of the third party games.
Well I can't disagree , however the spacing of games is a bit bad. Like I said , they are basicly sitting on third party pre and post holiday sales in the first person market. The question is why. I mean they should have known when resistance and killzone were coming and they should have spaced them better apart.
Sony's risk with the plan you're talking about, Patsu, is that they're looking to become the next N64-era Nintendo. By that I mean massive first-party support, with third parties often left to get the shaky end of the stick. How well will COD5 PS3 do against Resistance 2 and Killzone 2? Hard to say, but I'd say it's a fair bet that the 360 version will make a lot more money for the publisher, disproportional the userbase size advantage the 360 has.
For Sony to put that back of the devs - to say "it's your fault our internal exclusives out-perform your multi-platform titles in terms of money and sales" is more and more likely to push them to increase support for the 360. The output of that seems to be exactly what this thread is about - items like the Fallout 3 DLC and Tomb Raider DLC deal.
The downside of that is after the N64, Nintendo lost a lot more 3rd party support in the 'Cube era. The N64 was actually supported pretty well at the time, with Quake and Doom being released, much more so than, say, the Saturn was. The GC was where Nintendo got the firm reputation for being a "Nintendo box" primarily. In my mind, Sony's real risk isn't the PS3 - it's what will happen to the PS4 is they burn their bridges like you're describing.
For Sony to put that back of the devs - to say "it's your fault our internal exclusives out-perform your multi-platform titles in terms of money and sales" is more and more likely to push them to increase support for the 360. The output of that seems to be exactly what this thread is about - items like the Fallout 3 DLC and Tomb Raider DLC deal.
The downside of that is after the N64, Nintendo lost a lot more 3rd party support in the 'Cube era. The N64 was actually supported pretty well at the time, with Quake and Doom being released, much more so than, say, the Saturn was. The GC was where Nintendo got the firm reputation for being a "Nintendo box" primarily. In my mind, Sony's real risk isn't the PS3 - it's what will happen to the PS4 is they burn their bridges like you're describing.
This is true but for popular titles so far it has been proportional to the user base even though PS3 base is a little diluted by Blu-ray movie buffs.
Yes but Sony does put out tools they used internally for third parties (See Codemaster and the Burnout folks). As for DLCs, we will have to discuss case by case. Some may be due to technical difficulties, some may be due to market issues, others may be due to extra payment. It is hardly a blanket yardstick for measuring Sony's first party effect.
Without first party titles, Sony would find it hard to compete with MS's large cash base for buying exclusives. At the same time, the market may be smaller since MS was going after the core gamer market while Sony tends to be more broad base all along. Each publisher and developer has its own talent, reading and preferences of the market, so you can't really replace Sony with another publisher (and vice versa).
This is why David Reeve and Kaz mentioned that first parties should focus on platform defining experiences. You see first parties pushing various envelopes (e.g., MMOs, casual games, new DLC business models, games for Indian market, graphics technology). They are there to shape and expand the market. They are also there to develope enabling technologies. Naturally they also need to make money.
While the pitfalls you highlighted are there, the industry will have to evolve itself organically to move forward. I don't think there is a fixed formula for these things because they are growing the market together (It's not a fixed pie or zero-sum game).
CD explains on their forums that there is a technical reason that there is no demo for the PS3 because of how PSN works compared to Live and it is difficult to do so especially considering the response time for game submission. Somehow other multi-platform developers can provide demos for both systems but magically they can't? Seems weird when they were giving PSN props. Oh well, I was interested but not so much in the title anymore.
Interesting discussion going on here.
Let's see. Gears is bigger than Resistance + Killzone combined in terms of sales as well as tie ratio.
No need to get into the monster named Halo.
So for example, if you were a shooter to be released this fall. what would you prefer to go against? Gears 2, or Resistance 2 + Killzone 2 combo? Though question really. Maybe not.
Let's see. Gears is bigger than Resistance + Killzone combined in terms of sales as well as tie ratio.
No need to get into the monster named Halo.
So for example, if you were a shooter to be released this fall. what would you prefer to go against? Gears 2, or Resistance 2 + Killzone 2 combo? Though question really. Maybe not.
Gears is very diffrent than halo 3 , killzone or resistance .
Gears is a single player heavy co-op game with limited multiplayer (5vs 5)
Call of Duty is a short single player game but is a heavy multiplayer game with 8vs 8 (or more now?) with experiance and leveling up (perks) .
Gears is also a 3rd perspective game and is played over the shoulder.
There is more than enough room for a gears to exist with a cod5. Just look at halo 3 and cod4. However would cod4 have done as well if 3 months afer its launch came gears 2 to sandwich it between halo and gears? Even though gears is much diffrent in game play the exmaple is still there.
Or better yet would u want to launch a shooter on the ps3 this holiday season against resistance and killzone following closely afterwards ?
Why should CoD5 be afraid of relatively new comers like R2 or KZ2 when it's much more matured and have its own huge fanbase ? According to their PR, CoD4 even surpassed H3 in terms of online active user base.
If a third party is not confident enough to do a (straight) FPS to compete against these games, then it will find a better/different angle to attack the market.
If a third party is not confident enough to do a (straight) FPS to compete against these games, then it will find a better/different angle to attack the market.
R2 and KZ2 are recieving alot of marketing push from sony. I wouldn't want to go up against two games that have the direct backing of the platform holder. It doesn't make busniess sense.
None of those games receive more marketing dollars than Halo and it's ok ?
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=256155
click the link for more info.
I honestly don't understand the two week exclusive. Doesn't seem like much time at all. I could understand through the holiday but seriously 2 weeks
click the link for more info.
I honestly don't understand the two week exclusive. Doesn't seem like much time at all. I could understand through the holiday but seriously 2 weeks
The difference in my mind is the PS3 has a hell of a lot more to prove to third parties.
Talk Halo for example. CoD4 and Halo 3 launched in a very similar window, albeit with a month or so of spacing. Both games sold amazingly well - not too far off each other in total sales IIRC. The userbase of the machine - largely core gamers - had room for both games in their market. This was evident every month of the year in 2007, with 360 having "big releases" every month which sold very well. In the end, CoD4 was a massive success on 360 despite the fact that Halo 3 was still fresh in everyone's memory.
PS3, as you've said earlier in the thread yourself, is "diluted" (your term) in its userbase by having people buying the machine just to watch movies. On top of that, there are less machines out there in the first place, making the smaller group of potential buyers even smaller. It also doesn't have the history of supporting big releases to match its big exclusives in the same window that the 360 does.
Now look at the situation with Resistance 2 vs COD5. CoD5 is being released one week after Res2. Res2 is massively hyped by the Sony fanbase, which have a strong history of favouring exclusives over multi-platform titles. Lastly, as you yourself said, Sony will obviously be pushing their own title as the game to purchase over CoD5 when it's released at the same time. They will market their own title, meaning CoD5's marketing has to be pushed even harder, giving them less money in profit down the track. The way you worded it was actually quite appropriate: "Yes, there is a clear conflict of interest."
MS has done a hell of a lot for third parties in terms of stimulating support for the system. People on message boards cry "money hats" every time something comes up, but the reverse situation is Sony saying they won't "buy" support for their system while actively competing for their dollar. As a dev, what would you do? Add this to the relative ease of development on the 360, vs the complexity on PS3, resulting in poorer looking PS3 versions of multiplatform titles, plus having a smaller user base leading to lower sales, and I don't think anyone should be surprised at the current situation with third parties favouring 360 at this stage.
You obviously understand this situation quite well, given you've made much the same points as I'm making here earlier in the thread.
Edit: I guess to make the point I'm making painfully clear: what do you think November's NPD's will look like for Resistance 2 vs Call of Duty 5 PS3? How does this compare to CoD4 360 at the same point last year? If you were Activision, how do you think you'd feel about that?
If COD5 is a good game it will sell well, no matter what platform. There is no conspiracy by the userbase or publisher. COD4 was lightning in a bottle, COD5 will be an above average shooter and sell accordingly IMO.
This is not a Sony thing, it happen with all exclusives on all platforms, unless you have some evidence to support your claim. Do you think that COD5 will sell as well as Gears 2 on the 360, if not is this proof that 360 owners dislike MP titles?
This is not a Sony thing, it happen with all exclusives on all platforms, unless you have some evidence to support your claim. Do you think that COD5 will sell as well as Gears 2 on the 360, if not is this proof that 360 owners dislike MP titles?
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I think CoD5 will sell far better proportionally on 360 than it will on PS3. The main reason I believe this will be the case is that Gears is different enough a game (3rd person cover) than Resistance (FPS) will be. I think there's a market for both types of games, with a heavy piece of overlap, of course. I don't think however that there's an equal market on PS3 for two FPS's coming out within a week of each other, and I imagine most gamers would choose R2 over CoD5.
I think you're splitting hairs. The market for both GeoW2 and CoD:WaW overlaps pretty heavily (especially when it comes to MP), and they're certainly competing for the same limited amount of money.
As for CoD4's numbers, do remember that CoD4, though it did very well, actually wasn't a front-loaded game. The month it came out it did 1.5 million (in a full month) on the 360, which put it in the lead for a very strong month, but nothing like Halo 3's 3 million (in a week). How do you think CoD4 would have fared if it had come out in late September, alongside Halo? What if Halo didn't exist at all, would CoD4 have gotten more attention, would it have sold even more?
That it did so well (over time) is more due to the game's own merit and Halo3's relatively short legs more so than an innate ability of the 360's userbase to absorb multiple shooters at the same time. This time around, though, these games are launching in the same month (days from one another), so there's not a month between titles to tide gamers over.
That said, it's really hard to predict CoD5:WaW's performance. It's by Treyarch, it's a WW2 shooter, but CoD4 really built up the franchise so this time around I think sales will be far more front-loaded, and I suspect we'll see a quick drop-off. In this sense, I don't think R2 has the brand recognition of CoD, while GeoW2 might (I have my doubts) so CoD:WaW might be facing less stiff competition on the PS3. That's not something I'm sure I believe, but if we're throwing out predictions, why not?
You may be right - we'll certainly see come December.
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