NPD September 2007

[patsu]

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.

You'll have to ask him that. Perhaps it's because FPS on PS2 was not that big ? Preferences like this do shift with time, so some day sports + fitness titles may overshadow FPS.

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.

That's true. I didn't think of it that way. For R&C, they may want to adopt new ways to market it (e.g., together with CG movies). It sounds like a worthy investment based on early feedback.

 

[SugarCoat]

I don't think the 360 has ever been bundled with Gears. I think the first official bundles are only now appearing.

It was unofficial but from March through April Dell was offering Premium/Pro 360s with a free copy of Gears.

 

[Nesh]

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

Since the GC days you mean.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

You'll have to ask him that. Perhaps it's because FPS on PS2 was not that big ?

It was the second biggest genre after racing games, (well, maybe third sports is huge aswell).....

 

[fearsomepirate]

Some people are talking about PS3 dev tools like the dev kit is little more than a workstation with a ">" prompt. Sony has also been putting together development tools since the early 1990's. It's not as though the PS3 is their first-run attempt at delivering hardware and development tools. "Sony's not a software company" just means that Sony doesn't sell software on shelves. It doesn't mean they have no experience developing software or have no clue what the concerns of developers are or how important a good development environment is to taking advantage of hardware. It's also not true that the Xbox 360 is just like a PC, thus it was practically trivial for Microsoft to just port over Visual Studio, and voila just have instant great dev tools.

 

[patsu]

I am not saying Sony is new to the block. I am also not saying it's a piece of cake to put them together for MS. However MS has very clear advantages in these areas due to its Windows business and the familiar architecture to the PC world.

Few companies have the resources to invest that much money into dev tools and developer support infrastructure like MS. Even Apple's dev tools can feel a little clunky and limited compared to MS's (because Apple's momentum was disrupted, and so there are much fewer Apple developers to sustain the development platform business; they have to do it "out of pocket" so to speak).

Because Cell has a different architecture and a harsher "personality", the devtool will fall short in supporting the advanced feaures (or limitations) too. For one thing, many common/basic libraries and run-time probably need to be rewritten to take advantage of it (instead of ported and optimized). Testing should be a nightmare (and longer) for them because there are so many new components.

 

[Arwin]

On the bright side though, at least Cell itself is supported by IBM and all its documentation is pretty good and available to all. But we know from developers that Microsoft has the better tools, and there are very clearly obvious reasons for it.

 

[Pozer]

Something that hasn't been brought up for awhile is how Sony having in house chip foundries have hurt/helped their pricing........

I think it has hurt them more than helped. MS seems to get better bang for the buck with outsourcing and not having to pay all the overhead. That just my Opin. Then again the cell is more complex than the xenos. But the RSX is less complex than the Xenon.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think it has hurt them more than helped. MS seems to get better bang for the buck with outsourcing and not having to pay all the overhead. That just my Opin. Then again the cell is more complex than the xenos. But the RSX is less complex than the Xenon.

Without actual chip prices that's a hard one to call, but given Sony's selling off of foundries, they certainly feel any benefits aren't worth the effort and revenues from the sales.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

We should put the Sony discussion in a separate thread, there's plenty of strange numbers to talk about...