Metal Gear 4 headed for XB360?

[22psi]

http://vgcharts.org/

I think those numbers for Wii and PS3 are a little suspect, a tad too high. Wii over 2m units already?

 

[Sankari]

I think those numbers for Wii and PS3 are a little suspect, a tad too high. Wii over 2m units already?

Whats so surprising about the Wii numbers? 2 million is lower than I thought to speak the truth!

 

[dodo3]

Acert's post makes me wonder if PS3 will ever get on its feet. X360's software lineup and sales make me think otherwise.

 

[rounin]

The internet already knows.

I thought DC sold only 10 million units at the end of its life. Thus how can it be twice the installed X360 numbers .... unless I'm confused.

 

[mckmas8808]

Acert's post makes me wonder if PS3 will ever get on its feet. X360's software lineup and sales make me think otherwise.

What do you mean "on it's feet"?

 

[dodo3]

What do you mean "on it's feet"?

It just feels like Sony is losing their balance. I love PS products and I've always chosen it as my main platform. I have a PS3 (love Resistance) but I think 360 has an edge right now in terms of software & services.

I'd just hate to see 3rd party start migrating elsewhere because of the PS3 attachment rate in software & hardware.

 

[22psi]

It just feels like Sony is losing their balance. I love PS products and I've always chosen it as my main platform. I have a PS3 (love Resistance) but I think 360 has an edge right now in terms of software & services.

I'd just hate to see 3rd party start migrating elsewhere because of the PS3 attachment rate in software & hardware.

I think Sony will definitely get "on its feet", the question is just when. Online infrastructure is new to Sony (they seriously should have invested in this more in the later PS2 era) so it will take 2-3 years before it comparable in terms of content, stability, ease of use to a customer. By that time, will Sony have driven down the price enough to reach the critical masses? I am guessing yes but anything can happen.

On software attachment rate, there is another thread where someone pointed out that it's less than 1:1 to hardware. That's gotta be real disheartening to a developer.

 

[mckmas8808]

I think Sony will definitely get "on its feet", the question is just when. Online infrastructure is new to Sony (they seriously should have invested in this more in the later PS2 era) so it will take 2-3 years before it comparable in terms of content, stability, ease of use to a customer. By that time, will Sony have driven down the price enough to reach the critical masses? I am guessing yes but anything can happen. .

It really should be before 3 years for thier online to step up to the big leagues. 2007 is a must. All they really need is active downloading, proper invites for all games with online enabled (RR7 NFS PS3), and voice and video chat while in-game.

Those three along with what they already have know for free is great.

 

[pakotlar]

How could they port MGS4 to the xbox360, as it has no motion sensing controls?

Haha.

 

[22psi]

It really should be before 3 years for thier online to step up to the big leagues. 2007 is a must. All they really need is active downloading, proper invites for all games with online enabled (RR7 NFS PS3), and voice and video chat while in-game.

Those three along with what they already have know for free is great.

Oh I agree, like I said I think Sony can pull it off, just when. The best thing about Live is that you feel connected to the machine and the games. It's really immersive and intuitive.

 

[Nesh]

Actually, the 360 attach rate is crazy, no other console have had such a high attachment rate during its first year. It has an attachment rate of 5.6

I d like to see the attach rate of other consoles. With bandles not included. You know where I can find them?

What are you trying to prove here? Everybody understands why the PS3 got a terrible attachment rate, but that doesnt change the fact that the 360's attachment rate is CRAZY HIGH. 5,6 games sold per console. No console has ever had such a high attachment rate.

PS2 after the first year had 3,6.

I am not trying to prove anything. i am trying to tell someone that its illogical to compare PS3's attachment rate with 360's so soon. 360 was alone for a whole year

Actually it does to keep all those good free exclusives they had during the PS2 era. If they start to lose those exclusives then things will get real interesting. I would say DQ9 going to a hand held says a lot of publishers confidence in the PS3 the next year. Little defeats tend to add up first being 3rd this holiday season. Heck if the Wii keeps up its momentum and sony does not pass MS they could be looking at 3rd place come end of 2007.

So? Why didnt they choose 360 instead? Does that mean Publishers lost confidence over 360 as well? Can you say the same thing about WarDevil becoming a PS3 exclusive? Ofcourse not

You are trrying to make your assumptions seem factual. You know perfectly well that the reasons that DS was chosen may be more and may have nothing to do with the PS3.

Checking the charts DQ8 sold well only in Japan. It did badly in US and other territories

So another possible reason and a more logical one could be due to high costs in general to produce a next gen DQ on 360 or PS3 when SquareEnix is already spending huge budgets to make FF13 on PS3 and knows that possible low DQ8 sales in US and EU may not bring the expected revenues/profits. DS on the other hand is cheaper to make games on and there are more chances it will do better on it.

As for the rest you are making me repeat myself. Sony doesnt need to surpass 360's sales in one year to keep its exclusives. If there is a very significant given market performance in sales per period when supply increases there wont be a problem. Supply shortages wont be a problem forever.

And Wii's performance doesnt affect PS3 or 360. They target different people, they have different perceptions of entertainment, and face totally different costs of development . Dont expect PS3 or 360 exclusives to shift over Wii because it manages to keep high sales. Even if the impossible happens and they do shift to Wii they will be so different there would be no point comparing.

The release of the PS3 in Europe may be more deterministic of the console's course.

Some people even go as far as to pay 1300 Euros in my area for imported PS3's that were placed for display purposes in shops, when 360s are available at around 300-400 euros with games like Gears of War. And what PS3 games were available? COD3??? NFS Carbon???
BLEH!!
I wouldnt have gotten them unless they offered them free

But during March PS3 will have better and more games. Things will be clearer then

I think we're quite far ahead to have PS2-DC comparisons make any sense. MS is a very powerful company, always methodical in entering new markets, prevailing in the long run. The X360 is a good piece of hardware, it already has some good games, and it has a lot of publisher support.
Money talks, and as long as there's a lot of profit to make on X360 games, the show will go on. The way I see it, MS has already got into the cycle where more games will attract more customers, creating a larger user base, which in turn will attract publishers to release even more games.

Noone can really believe that the PS3 will be a total failure, but even the most biased fans have to admit that Sony will have a pretty hard time, compared to the PS2.

What I wanted to point out is that a launch performance doesnt say much. I might have brought up the N64 which sold hundreds of thousands in a week during its launch, PS2's ugly launch games and difficult development or the very good impressions of XBOX's launch games etc.

None of these consoles' launch performance impressions determined their real course.

I am not expecting PS3 to catch up as well as the PS2 did, but I am not expecting it to do badly either. It will lose market share thats for sure due to some problems and shortages and 360 may perform overally better. I didnt deny that possibility.

And ofcourse money talks. But one thing people ignore is that the third party developers make multiplatform games that are already on shelves for people to buy at the same time they are making unreleased exclusives.

If they put all their sources on one console and all they got were costs, risking revenues then I assure you that not 100% surely but 100000000% surely not only MGS4 would have been planned for a 360. But Final Fantasy, Tekken, DMC and God knows what else.
But there arent.

These devs gain revenues and profits from other releases like Ridge Racer, Dead Rising, Pro Evolution Soccer etc at the same time they are experiencing costs on exclusive game development. People shouldnt treat them as exclusive developers because they are not. They still make games on other consoles.
Although there are pressures and difficulties developers arent as pressured and forced as much to cancel PS3 exclusivity as people are trying to make it look like. Otherwise they would have done it already.

 

[Nesh]

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.



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.

Although I agree with most of your points I ll add about the attchment rate that the 360 didnt suffer as much as the PS3 is because it had much more units supplied. I also didnt deny that 360's attachment rate is high. But for me its perfectly normal.
There is only a given number of people that can ebay the console.
The more the supply the more people who care about gaming will buy one at its normal price and buy games with it thus higher attach rate
The bigger the shortages the less people who care about gaming can buy the console and the more ebay sellers are relatively to those gamers
Also the 360 was alone for one year, and the first next gen console to be released. All 360 games were "exclusive". PS3 was released with ported games and 2 good exclusive titles. How much difference can it make?

Not much currently.

edit: Btw according to VG charts 360 is around 6.62 million. If we assume there is an underestimation, it should be around 7 million

 

[Laa-Yosh]

http://vgcharts.org/

VGCharts data doesn't seem to be any more reliable then Nexgenwars.com... I don't think you should quote it

 

[mckmas8808]

VGCharts data doesn't seem to be any more reliable then Nexgenwars.com... I don't think you should quote it

Yeah but that particular figure is closer to the truth than someone saying only 500,000 units were sold worldwide right now.

 

[Bad_Boy]

How could they port MGS4 to the xbox360, as it has no motion sensing controls?

That might be the least of their worries.

 

[Avon_Implosion]

I think that the issue of hardware differences is a bit underplayed these days. Do we even know that, in its current form, MGS4 could even be done on the 360? It could be less of a "console A is stronger than console B" issue, but just that the engine has been developed with the PS3's unique strenghts in mind....see the "Octo-camo" feature in the game.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Yeah but that particular figure is closer to the truth than someone saying only 500,000 units were sold worldwide right now.

I don't trust either. I mean, how long since MS has passed six million Xboxes, two and a half months? And VGCharts thinks its 6.6 million by now... And of course Nexgen is probably totally wrong about that 450.000 PS3s too.
And of course both sites' forums are spammed with links and such to the other one. Bleh.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I d like to see the attach rate of other consoles. With bandles not included. You know where I can find them?

Yes i know, NPD tracks this (you need an subscription), Media Create tracks total amount of software sold per console and consoles sale, just a matter of doing some math. And theres been a number of surveys out.

I wont give you an direct link, simply because based on your last post here, it looks like you have an agenda. You called posters here crazy, and denied the fact that the x360 has a crazy high attachment rate, without having any clue about the subject.

It takes you one google to find out if the X360 has a high attachment rate or not, (you dont even have to type in 360 in your google, just type high attachment rate, and the top 500 hits are all about the x360 ), and you would have a gazillion analyst saying "attachment rate is way to high bla bla bla"

I am not trying to prove anything. i am trying to tell someone that its illogical to compare PS3's attachment rate with 360's so soon. 360 was alone for a whole year

And nobody was comparing it to begin with, insulting people for saying that the X360 has a high attachment rate is not however the way to go.

 

[Nesh]

Hmm? I have an agenda?? You are going to o far just because I am not 100% agreeing....You are the one with the agenda then. I didnt call anypone crazy. He said he finds the attachment rate crazy and I told him that for him it may be crazy but for me it isnt. Do you read?

Also I dare you to show me one part where I stated the attachment rate isnt high. Exactly. NONE. The only thing I posted is that I dont find it crazy.

You having comprehension problems?

Talk about misinterpretation.

And nobody was comparing it to begin with, insulting people for saying that the X360 has a high attachment rate is not however the way to go.

Insult? How did I insult?

Where did you see an insult??
Jesus

You are the one who insulted me by misinterpreting my posts and judging based on your misconception of my posts and your biased critique against me

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Its not crazy at all that 360 has a certain attach rate. Its a normal level. But for you its crazy.

^^ Insulting

Just wait before you jump to so many conclusions.

^^ So should you

Hmm? I have an agenda?? You are going to o far just because I am not 100% agreeing....You are the one with the agenda then

Your post, the same one where you insulted the guy who talked about high attachment rates, you also felt a huge urge to defend the PS.

When you insult somebody, flat out say that "x360 attachment rate is normal" thus, denying facts, without even looking into it, and then go on and make a semi defensive post about the PS3, it certainly looks like you have an agenda. It doesnt matter if i agree with you or not.