E3 Award winnners announced

[zurich]

He singles out American/Domestic Sales where?

It used to be that games from Japan would be the only main hardware movers. Now it is games developed in North America and Europe that are the main hardware movers in those markets

Right there.

PS. How about this, I'll stop messing with 'teh' "Akademica"-speak if you teach me how to use that style in your sig and tell when when I can use 'teh' and 'l33t' in the real world....

How about you actually read what other people write (in reference to Johhny clearly spelling out the origin of sales in question), before you break out your first year Univers-er, College textbooks!

You can think you're right until the end of time, but without anyone to agree with you (thus validating your opinion), are you actually, infact, correct? See the tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it as a point of philosophical comparative masturbation.

Vince, you're wrong. Derailing the argument is a waste of bandwidth. Fact is, North American & European developed/published games sell more units on all three consoles in North America & Europe than Japanese games. It didn't used to be true, but now it is. It's debateable whether this because of the quality of said titles, the fact that gaming is seeping over into the mainstream where said casual user wants to play games that are more in line with his/her interests/culture, or even a massive racist conspiracy - but you cannot argue against that the stated facts.

Well, unless you're arguing for the sake of arguing, that is

edit: In retrospect, I don't think the above is true for Nintendo, unless you breakdown the actual location/staff/whatever for each development house - refer to the 'mutt' point that Faf and Archie brought up. For now, atleast, I think they're the exception rather than the rule. Alot of blurry lines there, like Silicon Knights handling MGS:TT for example.

 

[Vince]

It used to be that games from Japan would be the only main hardware movers. Now it is games developed in North America and Europe that are the main hardware movers in those markets

Right there.

I was talking about his Sales Data, not argument which is much wider that merely in NA or the EU. Anyway, look at his preceeding statements. As well as following ones which clearly don't say this.

But what really got me was when Q admit what they were doing:

When making a wide generalization it's extremly difficult to include people like yourself (european living/working in korea). Sorry man didn't mean to offend you but there was a point to my madness I wanted to get across to vince

I mean, even he said they're making wide generalizations that *happen* to fall along race based lines... hmm... keep fighting me

So what do you call a "wide generalization" of a group based on *race*? heh... See how much use that dictionary's getting tonight?

You can think you're right until the end of time, but without anyone to agree with you (thus validating your opinion), are you actually, infact, correct? See the tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it as a point of philosophical comparative masturbation.

Whoa, you're worse than Johnny... the "Philisophical masterbation" rises from the ashes again. Well, I'd recommend you teach John how to count before we tackle the Theoretical/Metaphysical talk, ok?

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Vince, the numbers for NPD are always low, but they are low across the board. Sony's number is for world-wide sales of GT3 including the bundles, whereas my numbers are merely for the US and probably represent only 75% of the market as Walmart is not included in the data. It doesn't change the fact that the trend is quite obvious.

It's no big deal. I love Japanese games too, but the sad fact is they aren't tearing up the charts like they used to. You know that I don't like GTA, Madden or most the other stuff up there in the Top 30, but I don't deny that they are bigger sellers than the top games from Jap dev houses. The data is plain as day.

 

[Vince]

Vince, the numbers for NPD are always low, but they are low across the board. Sony's number is for world-wide sales of GT3 including the bundles, whereas my numbers are merely for the US and probably represent only 75% of the market as Walmart is not included in the data. It doesn't change the fact that the trend is quite obvious.

Johnny, how can you have any statment that's supported by data thats around 525% off?

If you're going to make half-assed statements then label them as such. Because, you labeling things like:

The top 30 PS2 games from launch through January 2003:

when you're using only *US* numbers that have little to do with the reality out there for developers is now causing me to fight off people like Zurich who thinks I'm skewing things. This is very simple - if you're going to make this argument bud, then use provable numbers that are represenative of the situation the developers are in.

Using numbers like you did isn't proving anything. They call your results into question and only put my argument forward. I know you made an honest mistake, but I looked threw your numbers and they're consistently wrong with the situation developers for the PS2 platform are in.

If you'd like the Excel, or want to make changes to the numbers I used, or alter/challenge the arguments I put forward then suggest it and I'll do it if you have proof to back it up. Lets end this damn argument for once.

 

[Phil]

A few thoughts and points I would like to add to this argument of western vs eastern developers:

• I believe this is one of the points Johnny brought up, in which I clearly agree with Vince:
  

  Yes. We've been saying this for two years Q. It's obvious: Western developers are overtaking Japanese developers, both in sales (quickly) and in quality (slowly).

  
  Basically, he derived an argument in which he states that western developers are overtaking japanese developers, obviously on a world-wide base. He later on uses NPD data to prove something, but fails to prove this main point here. He does however, successfully, point out the impact of western developed games in the western market (actually North America to be specific) - I'll get into this later though. So going back to his claim of western developers overtaking eastern ones, one has to ask where the two are being split up. Despite comparing Japan vs. 'the world' which IMHO is a bit unfair, Vince's numbers using top-sellers using international sales actually shows quite nicely the impact of western and eastern (Japanese) developers.
  
  The point is, (using Vince's correct numbers) within the PS2 market, Japanese games are quite competitive (at 42% market share with titles with sales above 1M) - Mighty impressive if you ask me, and that's not even touching the insaneness of using Japan only as eastern developers, opposed to 'the world' as western ones.
  
• 
  

  It used to be that games from Japan would be the only main hardware movers. Now it is games developed in North America and Europe that are the main hardware movers in those markets

  
  1.) First thing is pretty obvious, as the console market did originate in Japan. With the influx of western developers into the console market as it grew - it's quite logical to assume that the western-devs did take some share (percentage wise) off the eastern ones. That however is quite a different argument compared to the top one, in which he argues that the western devs are overtaking the eastern ones.
  
  2.) The numbers Johnny gave are quite relevant to his second point of the impact of western developers in their own market - I however question why this has been brought up in the first place? It's as indicative as saying that Japanese games have more impact than western ones in their own market. Duh!
  
  3.) Getting back to relevant statistics, which I feel was the reason this argument hit off: considering it on a world wide sales, Vince's numbers are very relevant and show the true 'impact' of developers [when breaking it down to Japan vs. World].

To add some additional thoughts:

• The split between eastern and western developers hasn't been quite addressed yet. If we leave it at Japan vs. 'the world', it's all the more impressive considering the size of each respective market. Doing this by location as done in this thread is IMO rascist and makes little sense. Fafalada and Archie made some valid points in this regard, which I however will not repeat.
  
  If we split them up due to style in which eastern differentiate themselves from western ones (which would make more sense due to the fact that eastern devs work in western dev houses and other points), sport titles should be removed as their both are pretty much the same. If we'd do that to form an argument which would be more fair, the Japanese share as suggested in the NPD data Johnny provided would rise and the western would decline.
  
  
• Concluding current trends is rather difficult, as many games from Japan have not launched in the other markets yet. Since eastern games have a much larger influence on the western markets, compared to the influence western ones have on the eastern markets - it becomes quite relevant indeed.
  
• The ones suggesting that western developers are overtaking eastern ones are basing their arguments indirectly on the success of one franchise, Grand Theft Auto. While it is impressive what a single game managed to achieve in such a short time, it doesn't quite suggest that the western devs will prevail in the future. One franchise, insanely successful, yet it's still relatively open at this point if it will stay as successful as it has been. In average, western games are still quite below the success of Japanese games. Grand Theft Auto does not speak for the entire western games as seen in the NPD data Johnny provided. Therefore, it's silly to assume that western developers will overtake eastern ones, primarily basing the argument of the incredible success of ONE franchise and two sport titles which hardly differentiate themselves from the Japanese developed ones.
  
• eastern developers have always had a relatively high success rate in average for years. Can the same be said about western developers or is the 'current trend' as Johnny suggests, merely living off the success ride of current big titles such as GTA?
  
• western developers obviously have the advantage of being more in raw numbers, contributing to a brute force similar assimilation of the market. Going by sales/market ratio, it's far less impressive considering where they stand and their impact compared to the Japanese, which in average achieve more with less.

Side Note: Vince
Hope you don't mind me refering to your numbers and the data you have gathered, but I agree that they are quite relevant. Could you by any chance email or PM me the Excel sheet? Thanks in advance.

 

[wazoo]

[*]The ones suggesting that western developers are overtaking eastern ones are basing their arguments indirectly on the success of one franchise, Grand Theft Auto. While it is impressive what a single game managed to achieve in such a short time, it doesn't quite suggest that the western devs will prevail in the future. One franchise, insanely successful, yet it's still relatively open at this point if it will stay as successful as it has been.

For every generation, there was always some example of an insane selling western game.

Mortal Kombat, Lemmings, Tetris, Sim City, Sims, Golden Eye, Aladin, Populous

 

[Johnny Awesome]

I was obviously only talking about western markets. It's so obvious that I'm surprised some people missed that. In any case Q, Zurich, and I are right.

The fact that Vince is trying to turn argument A: Western developers are gaining importance in western markets, which he has lost, into argument B: Western developers are gaining world-wide importance, is not my problem.

Everyone that has ever heard me argue the point that western devs are gaining importance in western markets and Japanese devs are losing importance in western markets knows that this is all I've ever argued on this issue. Some people are trying to twist my argument around to save face, but that is their problem, not mine.

Think of this: If Vince was really so unsure that I meant western markets, why did he try to use the April NPD charts to prove his point? 8)

Of course, it's true on a world-wide basis anyway, since the Japanese market is growing at a far slower rate than Western markets anyway, and even some western games are making inroads there like Metroid Prime, Starfox Adventures, and so on.

In short, rather than the lose the argument Vince tried to change what was being argued. It's a shrewd tactic I would expect from a smart guy like Vince, but I'm surprised some of you fell for it.

Bottom line: In western markets Japanese developers are losing ground to western developers, and have been for the past few years. Why can't some of you admit this? It's baffling really.

 

[Qroach]

This was never a question about world wide, I've only been talking about how popular western developers have become in recent years outside of Japan on consoles. I can remrmber back to the NES days where all the best titles came from Japanese based companies, not only that all the best arcade game ports as well. When I've said west I'm including european devs into one group.

 

[Phil]

Johnny

I was obviously only talking about western markets. It's so obvious that I'm surprised some people missed that. In any case Q, Zurich, and I are right.

This was your comment that hits things off and the one Vince replied to, before Qroach jumped in:

Yes. We've been saying this for two years Q. It's obvious: Western developers are overtaking Japanese developers, both in sales (quickly) and in quality (slowly).

No where did you state that you were referring to western markets only. It's like me saying Xbox is killing PS2, but leave out the fact that I'm obviously referring to my town or something along those lines. Does it make sense? I would think not. As I said a bit further up, I also think it's a bit unfair to compare the sales of western games ['the world'] against Japanese ones using only one market, the North American one to prove a point, especially while considering that the western market is on a high thanks to especially one insanely successful franchise.

Going by Vince's numbers, it's clear that Japanese games do have a very high impact on the world's market - so using broad terms, western devs are not killing eastern/Japanese developers. You can argue all you want about the impact of such games on one market - but it's always the big picture that is more important to developers. Do you think the Japanese give a damn about their market share on the NPD charts if they still have a ~42% market share internationally? And that's not even factoring in games that have not launched yet...

Bottom line: In western markets Japanese developers are losing ground to western developers, and have been for the past few years. Why can't some of you admit this? It's baffling really.

And I'd still argue that, considering that your NPD data is leaving out important sales of still unlaunched games which will sure have a big impact on the market share. Think about it this way: western developers have gained an impressive market share in their own markets, thanks to the success of one franchise, GTA, this generation, while some games from Japan still have not launched, which by sure will have an impact on the market share (mainly thinking of Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XI if it's still planed, MGS3 and Gran Turismo 4). Sure many of those games will be launching late, but the whole point is also that Japanese developers achieve more sales with fewer games. That should explain why there are so many western games on the top 30 list. I think if anything, comparing these numbers at the end of a generation on a given platform should be the most indicative, since you don't have later launch dates being a disadvantage to the Japanese developers.

Also, I will have to point out again, that you are jumping to conclusions rather early, upon only having NPD data which covers only the North American market. What about Europe? Fafalada is absolutely correct, as racing games are quite big over there, so a game like Gran Turismo might have made a bigger impact as well. Saying that "in western markets, Japanese developers are loosing ground to western developers" is rather funny seeing that you only have North American numbers.


Qroach

I can remrmber back to the NES days where all the best titles came from Japanese based companies, not only that all the best arcade game ports as well. When I've said west I'm including european devs into one group.

I won't argue that, since it's highly subjective and opinion based. I still would like to point out, that "better games" rarely sell more by default. Using sale charts is little indicative if you are willing to compare the amount of quality games from each market. IMO, I'd still rate Japanese games better and more enjoyable than many western games. It's the Japanese's consistency over time that does not fail to impress, and western developers still have a long way to go to top that. A 'brute force' assimilation of the market won't change that at all.

 

[Vince]

Good arguing Phil Yeah, I'll send it to you - it's on my laptop, but when I go upstairs I'll send it off.

I have nothing left to argue at this point, Phil's basically covered every base.. hmm.

Well, talk to ya later.

 

[Qroach]

Phil,

It's the Japanese's consistency over time that does not fail to impress, and western developers still have a long way to go to top that. A 'brute force' assimilation of the market won't change that at all.

keep in mind that we typically only see the best or most popular titles from Japan (with the obvious exceptions to certain games). I certianly wouldn't call it brute force.

 

[notAFanB]

really? I was under the impression that it was marketability which brings over Asian titles?....

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Sorry, went away for the weekend.

I'm willing to leave it at what's been said. We've all had our say on this topic.

We'll know in few years if the trend I'm seeing is all in my head or not. Should be interesting.