NPD September 2007

From vgchartz.com:

 

Ms didn't just wake up with dev tools in their laps. They had to create them.

Sony could have done the same thing and likewise, they didn't just wake up one day and ps3 was on their desk. Sony's planning for ps3 was slow and passive at a time they couldn't afford to be. That's either incompetence, or arrogance. Given the fact they have orchastrated system launches and hardware before, my bet isn't on incompetent.

Again, management had to be involved on what would and wouldn't be included in the box and had to be aware of the BOM and consequent required MSRP when factored in with acceptable losses.

These guys weren't/aren't incompetent. They didn't just slap a bunch of specs and components together and say, "what's it cost?"

The final product is on the shelf.

Games will get better with time just as they do for all platforms. This isn't exclusive to ps3. In some cases, the cell has more room to grow, but this requires more time/money. Thus, it will be exclusive to a handful of titles, likely from Sony. Even in such cases, the difference between a title maximizing ps3's advantage and the same for xb360 will not be so large as to sway the general consumer.

Evidence? Xbox v ps2

Further, more recent evidence: Wii, DS

As we all should be. Like I've said all along, these guys know a thing or two about hardware. They aren't incompetent, just too arrogant.

 

But they had been creating those tools for decades! They are ported over in substantial part from the PC space. Looking at some of the hardware specific stuff that MS had to create for the platform, like libraries for predicated tiling, they were late to the party.

Or...perish the thought...creating tools is actually quite hard? It's not like PS3 launched into a vacuum of tools. Sony provide a vastly superior development platform to the PS2, bought in know-how, and have continued to provide support for what's a difficult platform. Considering they aren't a software company like MS, and haven't been focussed on creating OSes and development tools for the past 10+ years, they aren't doing too badly. Sure it can be better, but then MS's hardware reliability could be better. You don't expect everyone to get everything right 100% of the time. At least you shouldn't.

Actually to a degree they could have. Design of these systems is a long-term process with some basis on predictions. Design of Cell began in 2000, long before even 90nm was available. When choosing to go with Cell and RSX, Sony may have had an expectation that 65nm would be available at launch in 2006, and Blue Laser production would be cost effective. They designed the hardware perhaps with the expectation of a $400 price (which has been achieved with efficient BRD production and 65nm process availability) but these technologies weren't actually available when they had hoped, and the best they could do was launch at the price they were forced into by over-optimism that could never have accounted for the difficulties chip fabs have had in reaching 65nm.

It would be nice if technology could be designed with a perfect understanding of what's going to happen, and an exact roadmap for n years can be plotted with certainty, but it's just not like that. It's wrong to assume everything that has happened, every choice made, is exactly according to Sony's Grand Master Plan set in motion 5, 6, even 7 years ago. MS aren't incompetant but their hardware kept breaking, costing them a billion dollars. Do you think that was part of their plan? Or do you think their best expectations and forecasts and predictions just didn't pan out how they hoped?

 

Good post Shifty but again, none if these events were surprises and some of the goals were rather lofty (and risky) when they knew an up and coming MS was coming to steal their lunch.

If you reach for the cookie jar before dinner, knowing that your parents are over your shoulder, don't be surprised if you get smacked. If you are surprised, well, you're either dumb or arrogant.




Further:

If it were one or two things, they could be overlooked, but every phase of their plan for ps3 wreaks of arrogance.

Software timing
Software exclusives
Dev tool planning
MSRP
HW Timing
BR inclusion
BR mandated games (could have been an out if BR failed or if the ps3 were rejected at such a high price)
2005 cgi vids
Marketing/interviews
etc.

 

No offense but I personally think seeing inclusion of Blu-ray as dumb and arrogant is at least as such, without any data or crystal ball.

 

??? Sorry, I don't follow.

 

None of the points you brought are explained necessarily by arrogance.
Shifty explained you the possible reasons in his posts already.

Unpredictable events and lack of conservatism

 

[modhat]Whether Sony's arrogant or not (a matter really not worth debating as opinions have been expressed before and its clear neither 'side' is going to change their opinion!) is not a subject to be continued in the NPD sales thread. Time to agree to disagree and end it now please.[/modhat]

 

My only point of the subject is what Sony could have done differently to enable better sales currently.

The pickle they find themselves in is a direct relation to how they predicted this market would unfold.

They predicted wrong and they are now seeing those poor choices reflected in their sales.

 

I see once again the mod's requests are politely upheld... For those that didn't listen, rather than be accused of silencing the angry masses, I've spun the Sony arrogance talk into a separate thread, leaving this one to talk about market share rather than get bogged down.

 

Can people stop uttering such statements?

It seems like everybody whos either hung around B3D since the PS2 days, or has been an hardcore ps2 owner seems to think that the "FPS" and sports genre games haven't been popular in the past.

After racing games, last generation, across all platforms, FPS and sports games where the two biggest genres by far. Just look at the sales.

But for some reason, this fact seems to go unnoticed around at beyond 3d, because everybody has been hearing wierd theories from demented playstation fans about what the playstation fans like to play. Here is a newsflash: Playstation 2 owners in general, are casual gamers.

And since the PS2 era, FPS\Racing\Sports have been by far the most selling genres across all platforms. RPGs to well, but overall come in behind on a fourth place.

 

Good point and post.

 

I don't think this is unique to B3D. It is the same for every forum. The opinionated minority will always talk about what's the latest and greatest to them. The silent majority may prefer a different flavor indeed.

Wii may change that picture somewhat if the momentum sustains (and new content continues to evolve). It doesn't only have to be the "largest 3 or 5". It's a changing picture, as long as something is "fastest growing", then there are cause for excitement too.

 

Maybe not, but B3D is considered a tad "smarter" than your average gaming forum. Such myths should be gone from here.

If EA's generic Medal Of Honor and NFS games combined sold more than all Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Hideo Kojima delivered on the PS2 platform, then FPS and racing genres are faaaaaaaaaaaar bigger than any demented playstation fan is willing to admit.

So seriously, can we please stop refering to the FPS genre as something for hardcore players only, or as a new genre? Ever since we got the hardware to make decent FPS games relatively easy (year 2000ish?) the genre has been big. Casuals like it as much as hardcore owners. And i dont want to hear any more crap about how FPS games dont sell consoles, because for some reason, even thought they rapidly outsell all examples usually given by the demented people, apparently they aren't system sellers.

Infact, talking about what is and what isn't a system seller gets dumber every freaking day. R&C is supposedly a huge system seller. The last incarnation of R&C sold 2 million. 2 MILLION!!! On a console that 100million people own. So, 2% of all PS2 owners, actually played it.

How can you people make a logical argument that this game, or some LBP beta is going to sell systems, when you cannot even acknowledge that the sequel to the biggest selling title on the xbox 1 console sells consoles????

Now just to put some numbers on this, didn't halo 2 sell something like 8 million? Out of 20 million xboxes? Thats 40% !!! 40% of all Xbox owners played Halo, while 2 % of all PS2 owners played R&C, yet R&C is, if we judge by the comments on this forum, probably going to move more systems.

Personally, the only explanation i can find for that, is that me and many others actually enjoy playing R&C, while Halo is the most overrated series of all times, so maybe that 8 million people just instantly bought PS2s after playing that horrid FPS sequel??

/rant

 

I am a FPS guy, not a platformer or sports game guy too. If you're comparing genra, I think you forgot the numbers for platformers like Mario, Sonic, ... (I don't know what the actual numbers are)

It kind of depends on what the "total population" is. If you're refering to existing gamers, I think there are a lot of FPS fans. If you're refering to casuals who bought Wii and people who bought DS for brain training, it becomes less clear.

It is title specific, time dependent and context sensitive. Mario may be a better example for platformer selling (Nintendo) console. And I actually don't play PS2 FPSes. So I can't comment whether FPS is successful on PS2 or not (as a reference vs R&C on PS2).

The 40% percent figure for Xbox may be due to a more concentrated hardcore gamer-base and a smaller library. As you draw more people in, the others tend to dilute the identity. I have quite a few friends who bought titles for EyeToy, Dance Dance Revolution, that sort of things. And that's it.

Btw, RobertR1 is hardly a demented person, let alone a demented Playstation fan (Check his post history). I don't think people are saying Halo/FPS doesn't sell console.

 

As I said before: It's completely obvious that Halo 3 will sell X360's and that LBP will be a footnote in Sony's terrible business plan.

 

Sales data seems to indicate the Wii casual's aren't buying very many games in any genre. Atleast not in proportion to the hardware sales. Which seems to follow the trend that I see among my friends. Windows solitaire gamer type buys a wii, gets into wii sports for a week, collects dust following week. Ive seen it happen to atleast 3 friends.

 

Sure, but the software (e.g. Wii Sports) sold Wii right ? Otherwise, what do people do with that "stick" ? Whether these people go on to buy another title is a separate project altogether. Their taste is different, it may require some fundamental rethinking in product marketing.

But to Ostepop's credit, fitness titles may extend the sports genre further to bring in loads of casual. It can be huge.

 

I agree that FPS games have displaced platformers - and all other genres - in terms of console moving power, save maybe the special place reserved RPGs by their unique nature.

It'll be interesting to see where the new R&C ends up. Great game, by Insomniac, all the elements to go up against the present best-seller on PS3... the FPS Insomniac game, Resistance. At 2 million sold, that's about 40% as well so far. It'll be interesting to see how much R&C sells in this early, limited install-base, hardcore context.

 

Platform genre has been dying since... N64? Sales levels as a genre is absymal except for the Mario franchise.

i dont think robertR1 is demented, nor do i think hes a demented playstation fan, i just think he has read to much demented playstation logic on B3D before he figured out that FPS was a "new" genre.