What can Sony do about Japan?

[tongue_of_colicab]

PS2 may be dying, but software sales aren't necessarily, for a while yet. Popular titles, precisely because we'll see fewer of them, are likely to do well. Case in point, Musoui Orochi in week 18-25 March, which sold as many copies as all the other titles that week combined and put Koei as the best selling publisher that week even above Nintendo.

Wii is successfully tapping into a different market. It will do well, I'm sure, but PS3 will get its slice.

Well ps2 software sales arnt very good either considering how much consoles are sold in Japan. Besides your occasional Anime title and a few rare AAA titels ps2 software doesnt really sell well either. DS software basically 0wned the charts for the past months.

Look at the zillions of titles possible now that weren't in the 8bit era.

I dont totally agree with that. Ofcourse you can do more with ps3 hardware than Wii hardware but I think the differance between the two is so small you cant make a ps3 game wich is totally impossible on Wii. Ofcourse the Wii version will need to be downgraded but not in the sense of gta1 -> gta4.

 

[Rolf N]

Apparently you didn't get the point.

Edit: Apparently you just needed an excuse to go ahead with the negative rep option...well I hope you feel better now.

I didn't neg-rep you. If I did, I would have let you know.
Your point seemed to be "I hate Blu-ray and predict it'll be useless" but it was hard to decipher.

 

[DUALDISASTER]

Sony is trying to move something very big. It just needs time to roll over the competition, very risky stuff. Once all the pieces are in place ps3 will have enough momentum and like all things with a lot of mass, it will be unstoppable. I can dream right? It's easy to release something simple to keep safe. And i understand why nintendo have done what it did, but that could only go so far. A handheld is one thing, but this is a home console. They are meant to draw you in at your house. You're not on the move so you have some time to sit back and be immersed. Nintendo is treating it's home console like a handheld which is limited in the gameplay aspect. I don't care what price it's at, that can't last very long. And if it's the "new thing" then why isn't the ds selling like the wii and vice verse?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

It's easy to release something simple to keep safe. And i understand why nintendo have done what it did, but that could only go so far.

Excuse me? I dont think nintendo played safe at all. How many companies took the gamble to release a low powerd console with a totally new controller? Nintendo had to gamble because they couldnt keep things simple anymore because just releasing a new high powered console would give the same result as n64 and gc did.

And I dont think nintendo tries to make the wii into a handheld. Its obvious its also designed to let people play games for a short time but its perfectly capable of playing for hours too.

 

[Crossbar]

The only reason why GC was even brought up was because someone claimed that PS2 is still selling and futily tried to equate that to PS3 still selling when PS4 comes around. Well GC is still selling when Wii was released and? What does PS3 and PS4 have anything to do with PS2 still selling?

It never struck you that Sony still has a console from the previous generation that is selling in large numbers compared to the competition, Sony still makes money from the PS2, Nintendo has ceased the GC production, that says a lot.
If the PS3 initially ramps up volumes of the new generation consoles slower than the competition, that does not imply they will start ramping down volumes at the same time or earlier as the competition or ramping down at the same speed. I predict the opposite.

To drive the original point home, if PS3 is still trailing Wii by a large gap in Japan by 2011, it's too late to do anything about it since PS4 will be around the corner. The fact PS3 will still be selling when PS4 arrives is moot since PS3 sales will be declining at that point not picking up.

Trailing in totally sold units or in monthly sales?

 

[Capeta]

I think many of you is miss the point.If the wii is the main platform, the dev will go down to hex if that will have to do to bring games for the wii.They make money from it,and if they want to feed they child,they have to create softwares thet sell as much as possible.The ps3/xb2 can be a good free time hobby,but if the wii will sell as now, the monthly paycheck will come from it.

The hardware limitations of the wii are seems as terible,but if you want to bring great software for it,and you push the money(money=a few Ph.d. geek) into it you can bring the gears of war to the wii. It is just a mater of resources.(of course,anybody can complain many thing,but the point is not with the same texture etc,but to have something that look as good as the gow.good looking game != high texture detail and high poly count)
Remember for the 6510?Or for the 68000?A few hard core geek was able to get out more from that things that was supposed by anybody.

I agree it's all about development budget and art. I'm pretty sure you could use the RE4 engine to create a GoW-like game. Since Wii is at least 2X as powerful as GC, I'd imagine it would look quite nice.

IMO PS3 will not catch up to Wii quickly enough in Japan to overtake it by the end of the generation. I'm pretty sure Nintendo would be ready to release Wii2 if needed if Wii longevity declines faster than they expect.

 

[DUALDISASTER]

Excuse me? I dont think nintendo played safe at all. How many companies took the gamble to release a low powerd console with a totally new controller? Nintendo had to gamble because they couldnt keep things simple anymore because just releasing a new high powered console would give the same result as n64 and gc did.

And I dont think nintendo tries to make the wii into a handheld. Its obvious its also designed to let people play games for a short time but its perfectly capable of playing for hours too.

If you say so. At either rate if it's " perfectly capable of playing for hours", that game will never see the light of day due to greedy dev/pubs.. Just like with GTA, when people saw have successful that game was, emulation followed. If nothing but 1st party games sell on the system, you will start to see more of the same. You can only do so much with that controller and what you can do will be simple. I.E. simplier games, I.E. games you could pick up/down easy, I.E. "fun" games. Oh yeah, i went there!

 

[Capeta]

It never struck you that Sony still has a console from the previous generation that is selling in large numbers compared to the competition, Sony still makes money from the PS2, Nintendo has ceased the GC production, that says a lot.
If the PS3 initially ramps up volumes of the new generation consoles slower than the competition, that does not imply they will start ramping down volumes at the same time or earlier as the competition or ramping down at the same speed. I predict the opposite.

Again it doesn't matter that SONY is still making money from PS2 and the fact MS and Nitnendo have ceased production of the previous generation consoles. It's a flawed analogy to use for this generation. It's totally different this generation or have you forgotten? MS launched first and is ahead by a large margin. Nintendo launched at the same time as PS3 and at a MUCH lower price while at the same time kicking PS3's @ss in sales. The fact PS3 will still be sold even after X720, Wii2, and PS4 is available is moot. Most likely so will X360 and Wii. When do you expect SONY to lauch PS4? 2 years AFTER both Xbox720 and Wii2 so that they could milk the PS3?

Trailing in totally sold units or in monthly sales?

It wouldn't really matter either way because everyone would be looking forward to X720, Wii2, PS4 so even IF both PS3's monthly as well as LTD sales start catching up to Wii in 2011 it will start to decline by 2012 when the next generation starts.

 

[Deusp]

Excuse me? I dont think nintendo played safe at all. How many companies took the gamble to release a low powerd console with a totally new controller? Nintendo had to gamble because they couldnt keep things simple anymore because just releasing a new high powered console would give the same result as n64 and gc did.

It's not a gamble because they had nothing to lose. They won't even lose any money. The real gamble is the PS3, since they have everything to lose.

 

[Archgamer]

If the PS3 can get at least 8 to 10 million sold in Japan by the time the PS3 life cycle is done I think they should be fine. The PS3 is probably the only next gen system over there since the XBox 360 is not an option for them. Nintendo have already said that they are aim at a different maket and if Japan continues to prefer quirky and dating sims titles for the Wii then so be it. Japan as a market will only continue to shrink. That's my take at least.

 

[Deusp]

Again it doesn't matter that SONY is still making money from PS2 and the fact MS and Nitnendo have ceased production of the previous generation consoles. It's a flawed analogy to use for this generation. It's totally different this generation or have you forgotten? MS launched first and is ahead by a large margin. Nintendo launched at the same time as PS3 and at a MUCH lower price while at the same time kicking PS3's @ss in sales. The fact PS3 will still be sold even after X720, Wii2, and PS4 is available is moot. Most likely so will X360 and Wii. When do you expect SONY to lauch PS4? 2 years AFTER both Xbox720 and Wii2 so that they could milk the PS3?

Do you honestly think the Wii will still be sold 6+ years from now? Not even Nintendo is that optimistic.

Xbox 360 faces at least 4 major problems being sold past the next Xbox: 1) No next-gen media 2) No built-in harddrive 3) Not price competitive against cheap PSthree 4) A fragmented userbase. By 2010, I expect most games to really start tapping the hardware and thus needing significantly more storage space. I also expect lots of MMO and downloadable stuff, making the lack of a built-in HDD an anchor to its viability in that field. If the future announcements for PSN come true, then it is going to quickly catch up or pass XBL in terms of features and games. Of course MS could EOL the 360 Core, but that just leads to the third and fourth point, which is lack of cost competitiveness and fragmented userbase. By the next decade, both consoles will be the same price, so that advantage will be completely gone. Adding more features just makes this more apparent if not outright give the PS3 the price advantage. And the last is the fragmented userbase, which is already starting to get worse: Do you make your game Core friendly? What about the Elite? What about the nearly unavoidable Elite+ with HD-DVD/Blu-ray? Development becomes a messy venture and unless you dumb down your game, you may be stuck with a smaller userbase.

It wouldn't really matter either way because everyone would be looking forward to X720, Wii2, PS4 so even IF both PS3's monthly as well as LTD sales start catching up to Wii in 2011 it will start to decline by 2012 when the next generation starts.

If you haven't noticed, the "next-gen" of PS3/360/Wii has long started, and still the PS2 outsells the 360 and PS3. This shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. PSOne also sold something like 30 million after the end of its gen. PS2 is on track to do even better, perhaps 40 million or so. If the PS3 outdoes both, and sells like 50 million after the end of the generation, then can you really say it doesn't matter?

 

[iceberg187]

Do you honestly think the Wii will still be sold 6+ years from now? Not even Nintendo is that optimistic.

Xbox 360 faces at least 4 major problems being sold past the next Xbox: 1) No next-gen media 2) No built-in harddrive 3) Not price competitive against cheap PSthree 4) A fragmented userbase. By 2010,

1) Crysis is going to come on 1 DVD, if that isn't 'hitting the hardware, I don't know what is. Microsoft offers great compression for games. It's why the PS2 version of GTA: San Andreas fills a DVD5 while the Xbox version is 2.86GB

2) Built in hardware wasn't really taken advantage of during the first Xbox, why would that change now? The 360 is the lead sku for most games and will remain that way for quite some time.

3) By the time the PS3 will hit a mass market price, the generation will have been decided long before that.

4) Over 90% of the 360 population owns a premium, so, while it is fragmented, it does not cause detriment.

 

[quest55720]

Do you honestly think the Wii will still be sold 6+ years from now? Not even Nintendo is that optimistic.

Xbox 360 faces at least 4 major problems being sold past the next Xbox: 1) No next-gen media 2) No built-in harddrive 3) Not price competitive against cheap PSthree 4) A fragmented userbase. By 2010, I expect most games to really start tapping the hardware and thus needing significantly more storage space. I also expect lots of MMO and downloadable stuff, making the lack of a built-in HDD an anchor to its viability in that field. If the future announcements for PSN come true, then it is going to quickly catch up or pass XBL in terms of features and games. Of course MS could EOL the 360 Core, but that just leads to the third and fourth point, which is lack of cost competitiveness and fragmented userbase. By the next decade, both consoles will be the same price, so that advantage will be completely gone. Adding more features just makes this more apparent if not outright give the PS3 the price advantage. And the last is the fragmented userbase, which is already starting to get worse: Do you make your game Core friendly? What about the Elite? What about the nearly unavoidable Elite+ with HD-DVD/Blu-ray? Development becomes a messy venture and unless you dumb down your game, you may be stuck with a smaller userbase.



If you haven't noticed, the "next-gen" of PS3/360/Wii has long started, and still the PS2 outsells the 360 and PS3. This shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. PSOne also sold something like 30 million after the end of its gen. PS2 is on track to do even better, perhaps 40 million or so. If the PS3 outdoes both, and sells like 50 million after the end of the generation, then can you really say it doesn't matter?

If the PS3 does not have the same type of market share the PS1/PS2 had it won't sell after the generation is over. You think the N64 and saturn sold well after the generation ended nope because they were big time losers. If the PS3 is not a run away winner it will not sell well after the next gen starts. It is GAME LIBRARY and price that are selling the PS2 right now. With out being a run way winner there is no killer game library to sell systems after the generation is over. You think the PS2 was more powerfull than the xbox or CG and that is why it sold after the generation is over? Also this thread is mainly about japan where the Wii has been outselling the PS2. Hell this week the Wii sold twice the P2+P3 combined.

1. Next gen media is worthless if the 360 becomes the next gen lead platform for multiconsole developers. You think developers are going to spend a ton of extra time and money to add expensive content to a console with a smaller user base. Look at the 3rd party multiconsole games that are released on the PS3/360. Unless the dev has an extra year like oblivion the PS3 version is very much inferior.

2. No built in hard drive will be an advantage when the 360 can hit 199 then 149 price point long a head of the PS3. Outside MMORPG find me all these games where a hard drive makes or breaks the game.

3. Cheap and PS3 LOL MS will have the pricing advantage for years to come. Right now MS is making money on the premium while sony is losing 100's on the PS3. Sony has even unofficially killed the 499 PS3 because they were losing to much money on it. I won't even get in the Wii pricing.

4. The only fragmented user base of the 360 will be non hard drive and hard drive systems. Developers will just assume people have no hard drive no big deal. Sony released a hard drive for the PS2 that did not fragment the userbase.

Every day right now the PS3 under performs is one day closer sony is to losing its last remaining exclusive 3rd party games. If sony loses those 3rd party exclusives you can kiss good bye to selling a ton after the next gen has started. Even worse if many people buying PS3s are doing for media functions and not buying games you might see some 3rd party exclusives for the 360. That and the worst case for sony were the Wii becomes the platform of choice for 3rd partys.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

It's not a gamble because they had nothing to lose. They won't even lose any money. The real gamble is the PS3, since they have everything to lose.

If you call losing you position in the only market you are competing on (games), losing a 22million userbase and multi billion profit nothing, than I agree. Ofcourse the ps3 has everything to lose, but thats the problem when you own 70% of the market, things are alot more likely to go down than up. They didnt really gamble with the ps3 as a machine though. They followed the old route of more horsepower. The only gamble was deleying the console to ship it with Blu ray.

Do you honestly think the Wii will still be sold 6+ years from now? Not even Nintendo is that optimistic.

God, Capeta tried to explain it for 5 times by now and you still dont get it. It doesnt matter what kind of hardware you have, all that matters is the userbase and how that userbase is buying software. The only reason the PS2 is still alive is because it has 70% marketshare and thus is generating money in software sales and keeps doing that because so many people own one. If the Wii has 70% marketshare 6 years from now and people will still buy software for it there is no reason for the Wii not to be sold after 6 years. Its not something Nintendo is counting on, its not something any console builder is counting on, but you can bet nintendo (or MS or sony for that matter) wouldnt cut the Wii off if they still can make a good amount of money on it like ps2. Thats the same reason ps2 is still around. GC and Xbox died because they didnt generate enough money anymore. ps2 does so sony is keeping it alive.

 

[Crossbar]

It doesnt matter what kind of hardware you have, all that matters is the userbase and how that userbase is buying software.

What kind of market penetration do you think HD television sets will have in Japan 6 years from now? What price delta do expect there to be between the PS3 and the Wii 6 years from now?

 

[Diamond.G]

2. No built in hard drive will be an advantage when the 360 can hit 199 then 149 price point long a head of the PS3. Outside MMORPG find me all these games where a hard drive makes or breaks the game.

AFAIK, Every PS3 game needs the hard drive. I recall there being talk about the BR drive have crappy seek time and a relatively low throughput. The hard drive is faster. So devs can rely on it. Which leads an interesting question. Does Sony have a recommended chart of hard disks? I imagine putting n a 200gb 4200 rpm disk may give you lots of space, but how does that impact the games? BTW, I still think the PS3 would own Japan if they were to drop the price to the equivalent of 200 dollars in yen.

 

[NovemberMike]

AFAIK, Every PS3 game needs the hard drive. I recall there being talk about the BR drive have crappy seek time and a relatively low throughput. The hard drive is faster. So devs can rely on it. Which leads an interesting question. Does Sony have a recommended chart of hard disks? I imagine putting n a 200gb 4200 rpm disk may give you lots of space, but how does that impact the games? BTW, I still think the PS3 would own Japan if they were to drop the price to the equivalent of 200 dollars in yen.

Of course they would, but it will never happen (in time to make a difference).

The HDD might keep it from being cost reduced to the extreme though. The 360 can come out with a 360mini at some point that is effectively a PS2 mini with only Memory Card support, but the PS3 will always have the HDD in there, and will likely have problems getting below the $150 point because of it.

 

[djskribbles]

1) Crysis is going to come on 1 DVD, if that isn't 'hitting the hardware, I don't know what is. Microsoft offers great compression for games. It's why the PS2 version of GTA: San Andreas fills a DVD5 while the Xbox version is 2.86GB

sure Crysis looks good, but we don't know how long Crysis is, or how much content there is.
there have been several developers who have said that blu-ray, or more space will be needed this gen (or "next gen") including Mark Rein (VP of Epic), Kojima, Brian Hastings (Insomniac) and Starbreeze Studios. i don't think i've ever seen a developer say that extra space isn't needed.

 

[Deusp]

sure Crysis looks good, but we don't know how long Crysis is, or how much content there is.
there have been several developers who have said that blu-ray, or more space will be needed this gen (or "next gen") including Mark Rein (VP of Epic), Kojima, Brian Hastings (Insomniac) and Starbreeze Studios. i don't think i've ever seen a developer say that extra space isn't needed.

Not only that, Kojima has mentioned that a single-layered Blu-ray is not enough. Mark Rein has mentioned 20GBs or something like that, and Hastings has basically mocked skeptics as "not game developers." Plus history is on Blu-ray's side. There has never been a single generation where the media format wasn't upgraded. Saying DVDs are enough will be the first time in 25-30 years that has ever happened.

 

[TheChefO]

Do you make your game Core friendly? What about the Elite? What about the nearly unavoidable Elite+ with HD-DVD/Blu-ray?

FUD

Every xb360 game is developed "core friendly" and will be for the lifetime of the platform. And FYI, there is no difference to the developer between elite and premium models... But I'm sure you knew this.

On topic:
The only "target" j-devs need to worry about is Userbase, and right now ths stat is sufficiently limiting their abilities far more than any Wii (or xb360) stat you can throw out.