NPD March 2009
- Thread starter RobertR1
- Start date
I was only basing my opinion on those I know around me, I do not have the capability to take a large enough sample to determine what the underlying cause of lackluster PS3 sales for Hardware and Games of each group might be.
I do know that the PS3 was heavily targeted at the begining for an older crowd, while I can't argue that the 360 wasn't targetted to an older crowd as well; I think it wasn't aimed as high as the PS3. The PS3 had almost an elite status attached to it for a while (mostly due to price) and because of the awkward add campaigns. I think the PS3 attracted a segment of consumers that were not sustainable to the lengths Sony had hoped for and I think it had/has a lot to do with those individuals now defunct disposable income.
I never meant to say education level determined who owned what console, just that those I know who are in college or at college age own 360's much more often then PS3's; even though they want a PS3. While the PS3 owners I know either "had" a 360 (couldn't handle the RROD's) or are not considering buying a 360. The couple people I know who own both the PS3 and the 360 are those who have disposable income, single, not married (honestly seem to have more fun) and have more free time to devote to that hobby.
However as it has been pointed out, its just my experience with those that I know; without a massive sample size it's impossible to determine if this "could" be the cause.
I do know that the PS3 was heavily targeted at the begining for an older crowd, while I can't argue that the 360 wasn't targetted to an older crowd as well; I think it wasn't aimed as high as the PS3. The PS3 had almost an elite status attached to it for a while (mostly due to price) and because of the awkward add campaigns. I think the PS3 attracted a segment of consumers that were not sustainable to the lengths Sony had hoped for and I think it had/has a lot to do with those individuals now defunct disposable income.
I never meant to say education level determined who owned what console, just that those I know who are in college or at college age own 360's much more often then PS3's; even though they want a PS3. While the PS3 owners I know either "had" a 360 (couldn't handle the RROD's) or are not considering buying a 360. The couple people I know who own both the PS3 and the 360 are those who have disposable income, single, not married (honestly seem to have more fun) and have more free time to devote to that hobby.
However as it has been pointed out, its just my experience with those that I know; without a massive sample size it's impossible to determine if this "could" be the cause.
"I ain't no big city lawyer but..."
the huge number of people using the exploit for firmware hacks is another piece of evidence.
I have never said that all of them bought it for that reason, but there is no doubt that a large number did.
I don't know, do you?
This is how I see it:
1) Piracy on PSP is an enourmous problem
2) PSP is a popular platform for "homebrew"
3) For this to be the case a very large number of people must use "hacked" psp's
4) LCS was the most popular way to hack a psp
I'm not sure where I'm going wrong here?
Price should also play its part in demographics. The lower the price, the easier is for younger audiences to adopt a certain product
Sure, I was just trying to throw some data into all the 'well, my friends...' anecdotes.
I think both of your points could be related. For the record, I also agree with you that many "hardcore" gamers have DSs. In fact, I know more people that would qualify for the stereotype that own a DS rather than a PSP.
I also agree with you that GTA: CW may be looked down upon by very same people the game is trying to catter to, either because a recent AAA GTA is on the market or because the gameplay is just too different (though it's interesting, if true, that the genre that made the series popular is now unpopular).
Incidentaly, a Nintendo VP is saying they expect sales of the game to improve. On one end, it's possible the launch of the DSi may have depleted gamer's pockets (or rather, made them save up for it). On the other hand, a Nintendo VP spinning for a third-party that isn't getting the sales that were expected of the brand can be quite telling.
If I'm understanding you correctly, Wii/DS ought to have exclusive games? I agree, back in the day when I owned consoles (NES, GB, SNES), one argument for Nintendo, rather than Sega was that I'd get higher-quality exclusive games more often. Sega would get more higher-quality Arcade ports but in those days the Arcade wasn't dead so if I wanted to play those games I could spend a few coins and get an even better experience. Anyway, right or wrong, that was one of my reasons for sticking with Nintendo consoles.
As an outsider, the XBOX360 and PS3 do seem to blend together when it comes to games and exclusives. You have your Gears of War and your Killzone, LBP and Viva Piñata, and GT5 and Forza. Then you have a lot of ported games: CoD, SF4, etc. But you don't have a Mario, Zelda, Wii Play, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, whatever.
I think it would have been a good fit (no pun intended) for the Wii's default simplified controller while in NES operation. As you say, I also don't think it would have brought Valve as much money though.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I originally would have agreed with this, however...
The problem arises in that 3rd party titles that are cross platform tend to sell quite well. At least the popular ones. The less popular ones tend to sell significantly better on X360 it appears. Skate 3 for example.
But anyway, back to the point. Popular 3rd party titles tend to sell (in NA) fairly close to the X360/PS3 install base division. GTA4, CoD4, CoD5, etc... There are some exections however, SF4 doing better relatively on PS3.
While 1st party titles generally tend to do quite a bit worse.
If your theory was true it should be quite the opposite of that since PS3 exclusives aren't available on X360 then people that have a PS3 also would be more inclined to buy those for PS3 rather than say GTA4 (which they can get on X360).
But that isn't happening. Big budget exclusives for the most part are seriously lagging behind big budget cross platformers on PS3.
However, the fact that sales of big budget cross platformers tend to die quite fast on PS3 compared to X360 might be explained by the theory that many X360 owners also have PS3's.
The sales numbers I'm most interested in seeing going forward are...
1. God of War III being a runaway blockbuster. I very much expect it will be, but then PS3 owners have surprised me quite often in the past by not buying as many games as I expect them to. If it isn't a runaway blockbuster, I just don't know what to think of PS3 owners.
2. Halo: ODST. By all accounts, even with the Halo name it shouldn't be a runaway blockbuster. It's a "budget" FPS title. It's being released into a market supposedly "flooded" by quality FPS titles (one reason put forth by others that KZ2 didn't sell to expectations). So, while it will probably chart it shouldn't have phenomenal sales, but I have a feeling it's still going to sell like gangbusters. Moreover, I have a feeling that many of the sales won't be driven purely by the Halo name, but by word of mouth.
3. If Final Fantasy XIII releases simultaneously on PS3/X360 in NA, how will it do comparatively on both platforms. I "think" it should do better on PS3 than X360, but I wouldn't be surprised if it followed install base splits or did better on X360.
Regards,
SB
This ties into what CarlB was saying: for some reason PS3 owners seem to have more of a taste for 'PS3-titles', whatever that means. Devil May Cry sold slightly out of proportion on PS3, as did RE5 and SF4 was almost even. Or maybe they just like Capcom games, but I think SE will see a bit of that, too.
On God of War... I don't know. It'll probably sell very well, but take GoW2. In March 2007 it sold 833k, which is very impressive. But then it dropped to 101k. But I don't doubt it continued to sell well into 2007, though, probably into 2008. But 1 million NPD in 2 months, even if it's in March, won't blow anyone away. It might change this generation, since I get the impression gamers seem more desperate for games right out of the gate this gen. RE5, for instance, apparently surpassed the RE4 PS2's LTD just in march.
And I'd bet that ODST will be in top-5 360, mingled somewhere with Madden and Guitar Hero. Probably below CoD4-2.
If I may interject, I think what obonicus is pointing out is that:
1) Yes, no doubt.
2) PSP is a popular platform for homebrew, yes, but the relevant point is whether homebrew is a popular use for the PSP. If you have 10 million PSP owners, you could have only 100K which are interested in homebrew games, these 100K would make the PSP a popular platform for the homebrew scene but they wouldn't skew game sales that far because they are a niche market compared to overall PSP users.
3) Again, true.
4) Like 2, the important question is how many of those that bought the game would actually hack their own PSP? I know three people IRL that own a PSP. All of them are inveterate warez monkeys and yet neither of them actually hacked anything: they paid some shady guy to do it for them.
So whilst everything you said is completely correct, inferring that points 2, 3, and 4 would make a significant bump in game sales (as in 50% higher than equivalent games) is, perhaps, what's not sitting right.
Essentially. I'd be willing to grant him his point if it were, say, Disgaea having sold 1 million. But this is a GTA game. Both GTA games sold over a million. In fact, up until Chinatown Wars, that's what GTA games did. They sold a lot.
RE5 sold 938K on the 360 vs 585K on the PS3. I say that a pretty significant gap unless we are talking relative to the user base.
Clearly relative to userbase.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yes, relative to the user base.
Which means other than a few fist party Wii titles and a Kart title here and there X360 titles are also generally outperforming Wii titles.
I'm not sure what kind of drugs MS laced their games with, but apparently X360 users just can't get enough.
Regards,
SB
The drug is called LIVE. You can get it for $50 a year and its legal.
Ironically, before I started playing Halo 3 on Fridays with some posters here, I kind of avoided MP unless I knew the person. I play more now with strangers on Live but I tend to not have my mic on. I've been a LIVE user since the BETA too.
I'm starting to believe this now. As of late, I'm getting peer pressure to get WaW, GeoW2 and Halo3 map packs.
Would you buy a Doom (1) or Quake (1) like game today? Sometimes somethings are good only as a spark. They are both really good game, as important as the more important games out there but they belong to the past.
I agree.
What I think it that if one try to replicate HD games or last gen games on the Wii, they will always look like an inferior thing (I can easly agree with that), because for that one already have better consoles/PCs
Devs should try to do games more with a clean state of mind (ok it is probably impossible but you got my point), thinking what would be good and fun on Wii, and not that a FPS need A, B and C.
Despite sales, none is looking at Madworld or the Conduit as inferior games, they already earned respect (I hope they get sales too).
One could have said the same last gen about XB (too a much lesser extent) as Halo or FC are a diferent enought experience (possible by its superior specs) from PS2 FPSs.
It is a diferent console it need diferent games.
It is just Wii owners bad luck that Valve have money enought to do the game on HD, anyway is 1 vs 3.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I would buy a Doom (I or II) type game in a heartbeat. If it had modern graphics, massive number of enemies, secrets hidden on all levels (with an end map that tells you how many secrets you got out of the total), artificial jump in you chair scares, massive amount of enemies, cheesy music, and did I mention massive amount of enemies? Oh and co-op... Where you can hurt your buddy... By accident... Or on purpose (big grin)... And massive amount of enemies...
I hated Doom 3 because it was nothing like Doom 1 or 2. Absolutely nothing.
Quake 1 on the other hand I probably wouldn't play or buy again. It was notable only for introducing real 3d and a bit better multiplayer. But it really didn't have the atmosphere or crazy number of enemies or secrets that you just wanted to find.
Serious Sam was the only modern 3D shooter that even attempted to replicate Doom I or II, however they screwed up (IMO) by making it just too comedic and too bright and fluffy. Was still a great game though.
Then again, I'm sure that I'm probably in the minority about Doom I and II. I always cry a little everytime I think of how ID screwed up Doom 3 by not making it like Doom I and II.
Regards,
SB
Fair enought, but it is that what happened to DSs GTA? It seems just the old game with new levels.
