NPD August 2007

I'm sure it is required for Sony to price the PS3 relative to other manufacturers. They will not give Sony total free reign to cut at will.

 

I highly doubt that Sony would have agreed to any such agreement or that they have any constraints on PS3 pricing beyond their own build costs. And if you look at the original launch prices for the PS3 and the first standalone Blu-Ray players, there was a $400 price differential right off the bat. If it wasn't an issue then, I don't think it'll be an issue now.

 

Guess I missed by a bit when I said I expected Madden to still sell more on PS2.

The 360 is beginning to build up steam going into the holidays. And with reports like this one quoting a GameStop executive saying that the 360's sales haven't been impacted by reliability concerns and that returns are actually down since the new warranty was implemented looks to be in a pretty strong position going forward. And then comes Halo 3....

I'm also really happy for the creators of BioShock. which should be another million seller. It is a great gaming experience and for once I am grateful for the hype a game received because it pushed me to buy I game that only a few weeks earlier I was expecting to pass on.

PS3 being unable to sustain the momentum created by the $499 60GB is not good (duh). The sustained sales numbers required for the PS3 to ever pass the 360 in NA are beginning to get really out of hand (anyone care to calculate some updated figures?). What kind of scenario could possibly cause the 360 to become so much less appealing at its price point and with its game library vs. the PS3 at its price point and with its game library that would allow the PS3 to outsell the 360 to that degree?

 

It seems to me that the Wii and PS3 have some major hurdles to overcome in North America.

The PS3 seems to do decently for attach rate, but they just want too much money for the system.

The Wii sells systems but it still isn't moving games. Madden sold more on xbox (the first one) than it did on the wii. Metroid did decently but not near as well as it should compared to bioshock on the 360.

Will Sony bite the bullet and eat a billion or so in losses to help improve on their install base, or are they going to concede NA to the Wii and 360?

 

Another factor (and perhaps a more important one) in the above is that dev houses have likely spent a lot of money hiring artists and development software and hardware to be prepared for the HD era. They need to get a return on those investments and they are quite literally wasted on Wii development. They can't be happy with this situation.

At least the dev houses doing games for NA (and maybe EU) still have a chance to make some money on the 360, though. I can't imagine the Japanese dev houses are too pleased with Sony right now. They are the ones really taking a hit.

 

The main reason Denon, Pioneer and Samsung are making Blu-Ray players is because they didn't want to get undercut by the Chinese and the Chinese back HD-DVD. It was always a given that the PS3 was going to be less at retail, but they are not going to get into a pricing war with Microsoft of all companies.

 

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/news/?id=17422

 

It's going to get promoted like Gears did.

 

Kind of funny that Microsoft would point out a 5% decline in Wii sales versus their 63% increase, when the Wii is still outselling them by a huge amount of units.

They're dead on about software though. Madden was a MASSIVE success for them in August, and Bioshock was no slouch.

As a Wii owner, I'd like to see some more good 3rd party games. I'm trying not to be too critical, because we're still in the first year, and there seems to be a reasonable lineup in the coming months. This is just the stuff I'm personally interested in. There are other titles that other people would probably list.

September:
Dewey
Victorious Boxers

October:
FIFA
Zack & Wiki
Table Tennis
Battalion Wars 2
Guitar Hero 3
Manhunt 2 (maybe)

November:
Geometry Wars
Fire Emblem (maybe)
Lego Star Wars complete
Showtime Championship Boxing (maybe, if I see some good stuff)
Medal of Honour: Heroes 2 (big maybe)
Super Mario Galaxy (Definitely)
Godzilla
Tomb Raider (big maybe)
Harvey Birdman
Resident Evil
Rayman
Soulcalibur
Bully
Trauma Center 2

December:
Smash Bros Brawl


Way too much for me to buy, but at least there are titles that have my interest. There's a couple stellar titles, but overall nothing mind blowing. Still, pretty solid from here onto the new year.

 

Scott I would add Mercury Meltdown as well for September.

Edit: Oh and those wondering about Metroid Prime 3 keep in mind thats only sales for 5 days (Aug 27th through September 1st).

 

Xbox was 199 at that point.

 

True, but generally franchise titles that get a fair bit of advertising will move a high percentage of games in the first week. I'm sure it will sell a lot of units, but its not looking like a blockbuster at this point.

 

Two Market Theory

1. In the interest of full disclosure: I am a noob, I own a Wii. I have never owned a gaming console in the past. Please be gentle
2. I'm impressed with the quality of discussion and analysis here relative to other forums (shameless attempt to flatter, but also true - that's why I'm posting here).
3. I'm really interested in the 2 market theory that seems to have emerged: HD consoles v. Wii.

Theory sounds like: traditional / hard-core games will be focused on the HD platforms, and casual / party games will be focused on the Wii. Both platforms will be successful in their respective market spaces.

The evidence for this theory: high sales of Wii platform, high sales of HD consoles (LTD), high sales of Wii 1st party games but not 3rd party, and high sales of HD 3rd party games.

The source of passion about this theory: the console with the "best" library will ultimately attract the most sales and "win" the generation.

My questions:
1. If Wii has comparable, world-wide install base as HD consoles (which it does at the moment, and is likely to sustain for at least the short term), doesn't that install base represent a market opportunity for a game publisher (and therefore create an incentive to develop for that platform)?
2. If Nintendo is the only game publisher that can capitalize on the Wii install base (the 1st party v. 3rd party argument), is that good or bad for Nintendo?
3. If 3rd party success leads to a better game library, which will affect sales rates, which will eventually determine an overall console "winner", doesn't the idea of a console "winner" assume a similar lifespan for the consoles being compared?
4. What if the Wii was designed to have a shorter lifespan than the HD consoles?

The reason I'm asking these questions is not to fan the flames of an argument, but rather to try and understand what seem to be changes in the gaming market. It seems to me that the success of a faster selling, shorter lifespan, easier-to-develop-for console will reward agile developers that can respond quickly to changes and growth in the market. To me, that seems to be the greatest impact of the Wii - creating market incentives towards agility in 3rd party development, rather than massive commitments to exclusivity.

I don't know if that's good or bad (not really sure I care), but what do you think? I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts.

 

Sure does, but I think a lot of 3rd party developers aren't quite sure where to direct their efforts yet. They aren't quite sure what titles wii owners will buy, and they didn't know the wii would sell so well, so you're looking at a couple of years until any money they throw at the wii would come to fruition. Nintendo also has somewhat of a reputation (deserved or not) where games from 3rd party games don't sell particularly well so some developers might be cautious despite the install base.

If they can keep selling lots of their titles and consoles they'll be fine, but I'm sure they'd rather get loads of quality 3rd party support as that can only improve things.

Until recently there has always been one dominant console (at a time) on the market, that has changed and there seems to be a split demographic . I don't think you'll see a clear winner in this generation.

There's limits to how short you can make the intended lifespan if you want to garner 3rd party support. They want to have the opportunity to establish a franchise and release a couple of titles under it which really helps profit. Also the longer a console is out it inevitably gets more profitable (or at least less of a drain) and tends to fair better in later years.

Sony always touts a 10yr plan (but they release a successor after about 6), MS is only on their 2nd try, but I expect they'll have something new out by 2011 if not sooner. I don't doubt that Nintendo could make a quick turn around in terms of hardware, but unless they are prepared to push the technology envelope a bit it may not be in their best interest. You have to be careful because when you release a new product people begin to wonder about how well the old (cheaper) tech will be supported and it may begin to lose support.

The Wii is certainly proving a sound strategy for Nintendo as they have been making money off of it from the get go (usually consoles are money losers for the first year or so). The question a lot of us have about the Wii is will they ever get the 3rd party support and if they do will the hardcore gamers ever move to the Wii. A lot of the big budget development teams seem more inclined to support the more powerful boxes where they can showcase graphics at the moment.

 

Wii and DS = Godly
360 = Fantastic
PS3 = hmmm

360 software = Godly

 

These 3rd party exclusives come to mind:

Final Fantasy XIII (Square Enix)
Final Fantasy Versus XIII (Square Enix)
Star Ocean 4 (Square Enix)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (Konami)
Tekken 6 (Namco)
Time Crisis 4 (Namco) - IGN's preview
Unreal Tournament III (Epic) - Timed exclusive
Haze (Ubisoft; Free Radical Design)
Heavy Rain (Quantum Dream) - The title of the project hasn't been confirmed yet
Shin Megami Tensei (Atlus)
Fifth Phantom Saga (Sega)
WarDevil Enigma (Digi-Guys)
Kurayami (Grasshopper; Suda 51) - EDGE's interview with Suda 51
Infamous (Sucker Punch)
White Knight Story (Level 5)

Edit:
Bumpy Trot 2 (a.k.a. Steambot Chronicles) (Irem Software) - IGN's article
Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan (Sega)

 

I would eliminate this from the list:

I would add Valkyria of the Battlefield and Yakuza 3.

 

Where was Haze confirmed to be only timed exclusive?

http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200709/N07.0913.1203.57923.htm?Page=1

And when Kurayami and Fifth Phantom Saga were canned?

Infamous and White Knight Story are published by Sony, the developers aren't owned by Sony. If they should be excluded from the PS3 list, so should Gears of War, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey and Alan Wake be excluded from the 360 list.

 

Hmm. Sony could use GTA4 next month IMHO...

On the bright side, I can use a €399 PS3 by the end of this year.