Its not crazy at all that 360 has a certain attach rate. Its a normal level. But for you its crazy.
No, it is not a normal level.
Analysts have called it alarmingly high. And you posted in the thread no less. Relative to historical attach rates for the age of the platform the Xbox 360 DOES have a very high attach rate.
At the same time there are tons of PS3's being bought alone to be sold from Ebay. That doesnt help PS3's attach rate either. With other words some are sitting in some people's homes trying to Ebay it with no any games sold with it.
Exactly, but you know what? Publishers leaning on sales from launch titles cannot be pleased. Likewise, the Xbox 360 was hit hard on ebay as well and it didn't have this issue. A .6 attach rate means out of every 10 units purchased, 6 games were bought. At this time last year we were reading about CoD2 having an amazing attach rate.
A lot of forces at work here, but it is safe to say the attach rate of PS3 software is very low and that the Xbox 360 has had a very good attach rate. Things will change, but that doesn't change how their launches went or their current status.
As for MGS4, from a publisher view, if they are aiming for 2007, it isn't so simple. The 360 will get close to 10M shipped in 2006 (Sony seems to be tracking for 1M), and MS has June projections in the 13-15M range. With a possible price drop and the release of titles like Halo 3, GTAIV (two biggest titles in the industry) and a lot of supporting titles that seems like a fair goal. Getting near 18-20M by the end of CY 2007 seems possible. Sony, even if they can produce 1M units a month (their original goal) from now until then, would have 10-12M units out by the time game was released in Fall 2007. That is best case scenario. Worse case scenario, you could be seeing a 10M to 20M situation in fall 2007. As a publisher, ignoring all market demographics, that 20M pie looks enticing.
So quick, your are a businessman: do you go with a single platform with at best 10-12M consoles -- with the high cost of the platform and production issues possibly making it less -- or do you aim for 2 platforms and add in an additional 20M potential clients. If you can access 200% more potential customers, well, that is VERY compelling. Especially if you are a big budget title and have some questions about how large the install base on the primary SKU will be at launch. Konami absolutely could not be faulted for these fears. Blame Sony's execution of the multi-delayed launches and huge shortages.
Further, fact, the majority of a games sales are done within the first couple months after release. Yes, the PS3 will sell a LOT of units over its lifetime. But MGS4 advertising and marketing won't be very active in 2008 and beyond. And it will be competing against newer titles that are technically superior as well as in the prime of their marketing push.
So all things being even -- which they are not -- common sense tells you that Konami would have to be nuts not to either a) make the title exclusive on the 20M platform or b) at least multiplatform. But they are not nuts. We could list some reasons why Konami would want to keep MGS4 exclusive.
1. Sony has paid for an exclusive, has funded the game, given a great royalty deal, and/or is picking up the marketing tab and going to push it as THE game of 2007 for the PS3, much like MS did with GOW in 2006.
2. MGS4 may lose some of the mindshare of being exclusive / Sony marketing exposure if it is multiplatform.
3. Being multiplatform could scuff the image of "exclusive" and close association with the PS brand to a degree that increased sales market could not offset.
4. The core demographic of the game could be a weak sales area (e.g. Japan) for the other platform.
5. The 2nd platform may have a very competitive libary of games that make the game less appealing, relatively.
6. Being multiplatform could create a situation where you could not exploit the hardware to the fullest, resulting in a game that is slightly less technically impressive.
7. Spreading your development budget thin by focusing on too many platforms--more work on getting the game running, and less work being spent making the game great.
8. Konami expects PS3 sales to pick up substantially and surpass the Xbox 360 in the key timeframe the game is getting its core exposure.
9. Konami has an interest to ensure that each platform is healthy and wants to keep IPs on their core platforms.
10. Konami is not confident that the Xbox 360 demographic will furnish enough sales to justify a conversion.
11. MGS4 would be a poor port or Konami doesn't feel the design would excell on the 360, diminishing the image of the franchise.
There are reasons why Konami would want to be exclusive, but from a pure cost of development and platform customer base many of the forces that created many PS2 exclusives and as many defacto exclusives is less of a factor this gen. Dev costs alone are a strong reason to look at the option of multiplatform publishing.
A number of people freaked about AC going multiplatform (always was, but that is another story). Less so Oblivion. But just looking at the Xbox 360, it has a lot of defacto exclusives, but outside of those exclusives are coming in the form of sponsored or 1st party titles. Not a lot of other stuff. The PS3 launch looked the same way. Of course we will see wild cards (PC-360 games, Japan centric titles on the PS3) but the trend is pretty clear. The question is whether Konami is going to "Jump In"? And if so, when and what titles. With the status of the Japanese market, and the pressure from Wii, a lot of publishers like Konami, Namco, Square Enix, and Capcom need to seriously consider the American market, even as a primary audiance, in their design and marketing decisions.
While the rumors on MGS4 are VERY weak, I would not be surprised if a port happened. This isn't an AC situation where it was already announced; but it is much like Bioshock. It was only announced on the PC-360, but the door seemed slightly open, if not denied. Until it was locked up as an exclusive. IF that had not happened, PS3 owners could have bet on a PS3 port if the game was good enough to justify the effort. I think MGS4 is really up to Sony, but that is just my opinion.
) and I can't see any confirmation of this - just a lot of rumours based on the fact that Japanese game stores weren't advertising the X360 version. So, it's not guaranteed to be true, though I haven't seen anything debunking it either.
