NPD Nov. You know you want it!

[Schaden]

The "Sony has games" argument always boils down to MGS4 and FF13, with a second tier of KZ2, Home and LBP.

Gran Turismo 5 firmly belongs in the first tier.

 

[assen]

As usual, me and Arwin don't seem to inhabit the same celestial plane

In the last few months its gaming library expanded rapidly with some great exclusive titles that make the platform stand out again for its broad range of titles.

Yeah, it was a rapid expansion from... 4 to 10 exclusive titles?

Home is nearing completion, and if it works, it could mean a big change in this area.

Wasn't it recently pushed back to Fall 2008? At this rate, I'm willing to bet good money on Duke Nukem Forever coming out before it.

BluRay for games is starting to pay off visibly in its exclusive titles.

Where?

Also, early adapters are more into checking out new developments, but the next wave of consumers tend to be a little bit more conservative and brand-minded.

So, it was the adventurous and willing to experiment early adapters that slaughtered Lair, Heavenly Sword, Ratched and Clank and Uncharted in the marketplace, but bought decent numbers of Call of Duty and Guitar Hero? Interesting then what the conservative late-comers will do... pick the $200 console instead of the $400 one, I think.

...if developers won't change to more Burnout-like development strategies, that may keep them from getting that 'best performing hardware' status.

The Burnout technical lead, I think, was the biggest third-party industry figure to go on record and say that they are "Playstation fans" and are working on the PS3 version first and foremost; and all they achieved was parity with the 360? I don't see any signs of mass switching to the PS3 as the lead platform in the industry

Finally, they'll have a tough battle in getting the cost down.

This is where I agree with you, especially if "down" means "down to Xbox 360 levels". If they ever have price parity with the Xbox 360 HDD-less edition, it will be due to criminal stupidity on the part of Microsoft - they have a bigger CPU, a GPU for which they have to pay license fees to NVIDIA, a hard disk drive and more expensive RAM.

 

[assen]

Gran Turismo 5 firmly belongs in the first tier.

OK, I agree, I'll ninja-edit the previous post

 

[Laa-Yosh]

In the last few months its gaming library expanded rapidly with some great exclusive titles that make the platform stand out again for its broad range of titles.

I'm sorry but the market clearly doesn't give a damn about these exclusive titles. It's like Lair, Heavenly Sword, Ratchet and maybe even Uncharted has never existed... I know it's disappointing, it is to me too, but the fact is that the market thinks there aren't any big exclusives for the PS3 at all.

 

[liolio]

The 360 is going to stick around as well. It's close enough to the PS3 (and vice versa) to ensure that multi-platform games will typically be released on both of these systems, and this won't change very soon either, especially not in the US, but it's doing well in the UK also, which is an important European market. Right now, the 360 is benefitting a lot from Live and being closer to PCs in terms of development environment and tools, and this helps the 360 maintain a good reputation in terms of mostly having the better performing multi-platform titles, as did the Xbox.

As PCs move on, the question will be how long before the 360 games become very weak versions of their PC counterparts, as happened last year.

Another genuine risk is, I keep saying it because I don't think it has changed yet , the DVD drive, and Sony's Home project.

Is this different for the ps3?

 

[Arwin]

I'm sorry but the market clearly doesn't give a damn about these exclusive titles. It's like Lair, Heavenly Sword, Ratchet and maybe even Uncharted has never existed... I know it's disappointing, it is to me too, but the fact is that the market thinks there aren't any big exclusives for the PS3 at all.

Titles have to come first though eh?

I'm thinking of SingStar, Eye of Judgment (plus the range of EyeToy games), Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, Unreal Tournament 3 (though that won't be exclusive for long obviously) all becoming available in the last two months. Before that, you basically had MotorStorm and Resistance, as universally accepted good games (8 or higher average - maybe F1 can be added, but that had little appeal in the US anyway). Warhawk wasn't that long ago either, and Heavenly Sword was also in the last quarter, basically. So in the last half year, we moved from 2 to 10, with 5 of those in the last two months.

In those same months the number of important multi-platform games also shot up (Guitar Hero 3, Assassin's Creed, CoD4, Rockband in the US, etc.). Before that time, the PS3 was somewhat lacking in terms of supported games (especially if you disregarded PSN), and even other good titles such as Warhawk were released in the last four months, basically. That period of draught is over now, and the PS3 is building a solid list of unique and varied titles. I don't know if it is soon enough to make the mainstream feel that its starting to become valuable to go PS3 (from a PS2 perspective), but it's certainly getting there (and I personally can't find enough time to play all the good stuff ). You have to have this phase where friends come over and see the new stuff you can do and go wow. (though ironically, I get a lot of people over who tend to like stuff like PS Eye Mesmerize or Fl0w, especially the latter now that I have 4 controllers - it's something that non-gamers really dig into right away it seems).

One good exclusive title doesn't make a sale, in most cases. You need a solid library.

@liolio: traditionally, few games made it to the PS2 from PC, because it was much more work. Only later when the install base of the PS2 turned out so overwhelming, attempts were made, but by this time it was starting to get almost impossible, with half the memory of the Xbox which was much more like a PC to boot. In this generation, it's different insofar as that it is comparatively (you wouldn't believe it if you weren't around during PS2 days maybe ) much easier to bring games from PC to PS3, because now at least it has a PC style graphics card, and Unreal Engine games can be done on both machines equally well as of this month, basically. So in that sense, yes, I suppose this holds true for the PS3 to some respect, but most PS3 exclusives aren't going to be released on Windows PCs anyway, unlike their 360 counterparts, and they can focus on using stuff like the CBEA, BluRay and sixaxis without worrying about such things. In the later stages of console development, console games end up optimising for the platform a lot more than on the start. Because exclusive developers on PS3 have been doing much more of this initially (making a bigger initial investment), and the hardware rewards doing so more as well, this will will become more and more important as PC and consoles move away from each other again. At least, that's how it's traditionally been as far as I remember.

 

[Acert93]

One small comment...

For those comparing the sell through of AC and CoD4 between the PS3 and 360, please note that as an install base grows it diversified. A couple months back in the NPD thread I did some number crunching and showed how an example, Madden, of how

/ Total 360 Madden sales increased
/ Tie ratio of 360 Madden to 360 consoles decreased

Ditto the same for the PS3. Due to many, many factors it would be expected that the smaller consumer base has a higher tie ratio, all things even. There are exterior forces (console sale spikes, market tastes, general software competition, etc) but in general as a console user base increases title tie ratios drop. Hence why you will see million sellers in the first year of a console with less than 10M units, but won't see the same number of 10M sellers when the install base exceeds 100M.

The last time I checked the general end of gen attach rate was 10-13 titles per console sold (someone asked). How this all trends for current consoles has a lot of factors. e.g. The 360 is up to 6.8 which seems odd due to all the high selling games. But it also should be noted that new consumers don't buy 7 games at the point of purchase, so they drag down tie ratio. This effect is more noticable the higher the tie ratio. e.g. 1M new 360 owners buying 2 games at PoP is going to be a bigger strain than 1M new Wii owners buying 2 games at PoP. Buying habits on each of the platforms also appear quite different.

--

On the actual numbers...

Software: Wow at CoD4--great game. I love it... although I want BF3 like now AC did very well... lets hope a sequal addresses the many issues to a title with a lot of potential. ME is doing ok--not as good as I expected in NA, but I think some of the roughness and poor MGS marketing hurt. Halo 3 has some legs, upscaling and all US PS3 owners obviously dislike exclusives...

Wii: Less hardware constrained than I thought. And amazing numbers... I wish I bought one when I saw one last month! Nice Mario sales! About time! Now can someone other than Nintendo get consistantly high sales figures with existing, proven games and designs? Same story with the Wii: amazing hardware sales, Nintendo IPs mostly do well, and flat 3rd party sales, especially if you are a traditional game. Please welcome our new old overloard!

PS3: Ok, PS3 owners... go sit in the corner. R&C and Uncharted not selling crazy numbers is a shame to PS3 owners. If your exclusives don't sell great, what can we tell you? While the Sony price drop screws with my past figures, I was expecting more from a huge price drop. Sitting at $399, free game, 5 free Blu-ray movies, next gen HD optical playback, and the PlayStation brand with a number of new exclusives and it doesn't best 360 2006 November figures? Something is wrong here. Not bad numbers... but all the "just wait" excuses need to go bye-bye. How long were we told, "It is selling great at $600, so it has much better sales days ahead below $400". Well, there goes yet another theory. It is nice to see good software like CoD4, AC, Madden, etc is selling well. But the PS3 obviously has an identity problem.

360: Good numbers, much better than last year and historically top 10 (5?) for November... and software is still gangbusters... but I was expecting more. Part of this is I think MS missed the boat on pricing and isn't recognizing the market impact the Wii is having. While a refuge for the general market momentum (you have a next gen game? put it on the 360) I am wondering if the divide between haves and have nots is too large. And without the aggressive install base growth in the non-prime period of the year to shore up the have nots I fear that the platform will put a kabosh on some innovation and risk taking. With strong FY results in hand, I would predict a price drop in 2008 and continued strong sales. Wii is still gonna hand it its rear, but software sales should continue to be brisk for all the big guys. I still think MS missed their chance and am dissappointed with their market leadership. Personally I don't want to see 3 MiiWii2s in 2011 :| As long as people continue to buy 'traditional' software at historic levels that shouldn't be an issue though.

I would be more down on MS, but how poorly PS3 owners are buying their exclusive content is pretty shocking and just a cherry on the top of Sony PS3 mistakes... pretty shocking. And we don't need to wait another year to say it: PS3 exclusives aren't making an impact with consumers.

Even I got off my duff and picked up CoD4 for the PC. Woot! Support the home team! I just cannot fathom how someone can pay $600 for a PS3 and not pickup either R&C, HS, or Uncharted. It is really looking like MS captured the hardcore software buying market and with Live (demos, online play) have fostered an environment where games like Saint's Row, Dead Rising, Lost Planet, and so forth can be million sellers. And as Zassk's chart shows, the first 30-60 days are critical. If they don't sell well now, in 99% of titles they ain't gonna upswing later outside other factors like being a packin.

Even if MGS4, GT5, KZ2, etc capture big sales it doesn't diminish the fear of new games not soliciting the attention of the PS faithful.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Arwin, you're ignoring my point completely. Yes there are exclusive titles available, but noone's buying them at all.

 

[Arwin]

Arwin, you're ignoring my point completely. Yes there are exclusive titles available, but noone's buying them at all.

You're ignoring my point also though, so in that sense we're equal then.

To answer your point, obviously the multi-platform titles have been hyped much longer and received much more attention, so they were the titles people looked forward to more, were better known and obviously CoD4 is something that chimes with the US taste very well also, including online. I think Uncharted and Ratchet will see good life-time sales nonetheless and I'm curious as to what December will bring.

I agree with Joshua's 'short' comment to some extent. At least I did buy all three of these titles though. Ironically though, my four PS3 owning colleagues are barely getting down to buying games yet. Two of them bought Fifa 08, and there rest is doing PSN only stuff. One guy's kids don't need much more than the demos at this point in time, and he himself is playing almost exclusively Blast Factor. All of them I think have MotorStorm (and we're planning to do some online gaming with that together soon) and some also Resistance, as those were the pack-in games. They're very obviously all not hardcore gamers, and this is reflected right there, in the game-sales (in comparison, with MotorStorm, Resistance, Heavenly Sword, Warhawk, Uncharted, SingStar, Ratchet & Clank, Eye of Judgment and Guitar Hero 3, not to mention most of the PSN games, I am very much hardcore ).

For all these colleagues, BluRay as a HD movie player weighed in considerably by the way, as they all but one bought an HDtv along with or before it.

I'm sure they'll start buying more games eventually though. I'm trying to get them to at least try the Uncharted and Ratchet demos, though maybe I should just bring my PS3 to the office some day and show off some stuff .

The important thing to improve sales right now is simply that the PS3 needs to become known as a system where you have lots of cool games, so that those people who are hardcore gamers get one and buy a lot of games. The 360 stole some of that thunder by releasing a year earlier, and wowing the hardcore public with the first batch of next-gen games. These high tie-ratio buyers are potential PS3 buyers still, and the sooner the PS3 distinguishes itself, the better. For the other part of the hardcore audience, these are enthusiasts of certain titles/genres only, and for that you need a broad base of distinguishing titles (with, say, UT3 on one end of the spectrum vs SingStar on the other hand). And finally, to get the mainstream, you need a good price combined with new versions of the popular stuff (Madden / Fifa) that clearly stands out from previous gen cousins in more than just graphics (though they do help, obviously).

 

[DUALDISASTER]

Arwin, you're ignoring my point completely. Yes there are exclusive titles available, but noone's buying them at all.

I wouldn't call those games strong exclusives... And the reputation for most of PS3's recent exlusives were tarnished by bad press and reviews. And to top it off, those games are brand new titles. COD4 wasn't hyped on tv, it was hyped by the press so your point of bad marketing was shot down right there. Fact is, they are not strong, ie fresh enough, to sell well. As someone pointed out earlier, Ms has some great exclusive titles i forgot about...at the same time the titles seem to have the appeal of ME which didn't go so well.

 

[DUALDISASTER]

Final Fantasy games are far from innovative - and this comes from someone who loves them. The only innovative thing I've seen in the long MGS4 trailer was the innovative application to farting and bare buttocks in what I thought was a rather serious game with ambitions for political commentary mumbo-jumbo. Sure, the graphics was amazing when the trailer came out, they had mastered the gritty/realistic lighting like no one at the time, but everyone else has caught up with them.

There's only 1 gameplay movie to base that off of, and even if you did, which you have, 1 of 5 locations were shown. (mgs4) FF has fans waiting cause they're not getting it on 360 atm.

 

[Gerry]

I just cannot fathom how someone can pay $600 for a PS3 and not pickup either R&C, HS, or Uncharted.

This what I don't get. Spend that much on a PS3 and you'd think you'd be queuing up to buy not just one but all three of those games. They're all very good games so I just don't get it.

Then again a friend of mine has just won a PS3 and I'm having difficulty persuading him that Uncharted is a must-have for him. He's more interested in Lair.

 

[Arwin]

Lair got much more hype, though I have to say I'm also still interested in trying the game at least. I wish rentals for games were more readily available where I live, or that we got a demo on PSN.

Also, not that many people actually bought the PS at $600 though, and some of them are BluRay fans.

@Dualdisaster, CoD4 was hyped among others by being the sequel to CoD3, and more importantly, to CoD2.

 

[Acert93]

I wouldn't call those games strong exclusives

Then why is it after 12 months Sony lacks strong exclusives? As scoob said, their titles aren't resonating with consumers in NA.

And I agree with Laa-Yosh: exclusives don't matter if they don't sell. They aren't a sales point if people don't want them.

Fact is, they are not strong, ie fresh enough, to sell well. As someone pointed out earlier, Ms has some great exclusive titles i forgot about...at the same time the titles seem to have the appeal of ME which didn't go so well.

ME is actually a counter example to your point as it did nearly 500K in the US and 1M WW. And it was caught in a tight spot with the BioWare/EA/MS tensions and a number of criticisms. And then there is Assassin's Creed that sold amazingly well and is a new IP. Rockband, considering its price at $160 with no non-bundles, did well (almost 400K on 360/PS3).

Some titles are selling very well on the PS3: Madden, NCAA Football, CoD, Assassin's Creed, etc... But they obviously have issues with their exclusives, and one big part is they don't appear to be giving consumers what they want. When a middling title like skate (September, 360) sells better in its first month than R&C, Lair, HS, and Uncharted (2 of those very good and 1 good) then you know that there are problems on many levels.

 

[DUALDISASTER]

We don't know much about Fable 2 yet I think and on a general not why fix something tht don't need fixing with the risk of breaking it...

Usually in any sequel you want them to up the anty with the things you loved on the original. But the MS is playing the game too safe, explore a little. Try something with the leftovers.

 

[Acert93]

That is a pretty broad generalization with far too many counterexamples of "trying new things" to stick.

Further, more isn't always better... as much as I lament such :lol"

 

[rekator]

As someone pointed out earlier, Ms has some great exclusive titles i forgot about...at the same time the titles seem to have the appeal of ME which didn't go so well.

ME is a other new IP who reach the "One millions" sell in less one month…
So I thinking Sony would like to have only one of these "not so appeal exclusive"…

Get real, Sony have a problem with their "New exclusives", and the problem is PS3 owners don't buy, they bought games you find on the 360!!
Or Games who have good press on the 360 , and also good "téléphone arabe" (arab phone?).

So we can have some interested data with the sells of UT3 on PS3, a game who got no press test release on the 360 before the PS3 launch, it's the only multi-plateform I know release before on PS3…

 

[liolio]

I don't knowwhere to post this http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=31577

But if this guy serious future won't be better, MS will be @199$ in two year pretty easily in fact!

It seems that Sony is not in position to react to MS if they decide to price cut an other 50 bucks this spring/summer to keep descent sales. Sony must have bleed money @399$

 

[DUALDISASTER]

Then why is it after 12 months Sony lacks strong exclusives? As scoob said, their titles aren't resonating with consumers in NA.

And I agree with Laa-Yosh: exclusives don't matter if they don't sell. They aren't a sales point if people don't want them.



ME is actually a counter example to your point as it did nearly 500K in the US and 1M WW. And it was caught in a tight spot with the BioWare/EA/MS tensions and a number of criticisms. And then there is Assassin's Creed that sold amazingly well and is a new IP. Rockband, considering its price at $160 with no non-bundles, did well (almost 400K on 360/PS3).

Some titles are selling very well on the PS3: Madden, NCAA Football, CoD, Assassin's Creed, etc... But they obviously have issues with their exclusives, and one big part is they don't appear to be giving consumers what they want. When a middling title like skate (September, 360) sells better in its first month than R&C, Lair, HS, and Uncharted (2 of those very good and 1 good) then you know that there are problems on many levels.

Seems to me that you guys over complicate the situation. It seems as though PS3 owners are waiting for something better. As i said before, r&c never did crazy numbers, lair was not by any means a good game, and HS was haled as a GOW reject. If I were a PS3 owner, I would be a little on the apprehensive side. AC and were hyped way before their outtings. Then some may argue that Sony failed to market Uncharted well enough. I wonder why? I have the game and its just not a must have...period. Great production, wonderful story, but the gameplay was lacking. I wouldn't have shown it until they did either because once you saw one level, you saw them all.

 

[DUALDISASTER]

ME is a other new IP who reach the "One millions" sell in less one month…
So I thinking Sony would like to have only one of these "not so appeal exclusive"…

Get real, Sony have a problem with their "New exclusives", and the problem is PS3 owners don't buy, they bought games you find on the 360!!
Or Games who have good press on the 360 , and also good "téléphone arabe" (arab phone?).

So we can have some interested data with the sells of UT3 on PS3, a game who got no press test release on the 360 before the PS3 launch, it's the only multi-plateform I know release before on PS3…

It does look that way too...I read somewhere ME wasn't doing well and completely over looked the first page.