Personally, I think that EA's and Activision's quarter reports are much more worrisome than the dubious vgchartz numbers for weekly sales. The quarter reports show sales revenue advantage for the Xbox 360 over a prolonged period for western publishers. That is bound to have a much larger effect.
Personally, I think that EA's and Activision's quarter reports are much more worrisome than the dubious vgchartz numbers for weekly sales. The quarter reports show sales revenue advantage for the Xbox 360 over a prolonged period for western publishers. That is bound to have a much larger effect.
scooby_dooby
Legend
@archangel - Well, that goes hand in hand with Sony being unable to generate hype for their big titles...
For the capcom brand, sure that's a factor, but I don't think anyone can honestly argue that Lost Planet or Dead Rising are even close to being comparable in quality to R&C and Heavenly Sword, there's a large gulf in quality there imo.
And for the record, I did enjoy both these games, though Dead Rising was much better than Lost Planet.
For the capcom brand, sure that's a factor, but I don't think anyone can honestly argue that Lost Planet or Dead Rising are even close to being comparable in quality to R&C and Heavenly Sword, there's a large gulf in quality there imo.
And for the record, I did enjoy both these games, though Dead Rising was much better than Lost Planet.
Dead Rising with all its faults is still a quality title.
What Sony (and Nintendo) failed to do is bulding an online community which has huge impact on buying habits of console owners. Things like private cross-game chats, gamercards etc. aren't damaging 360. I almost bought COD4 because I saw that some of my friends have it and so that I'd play with them. Then I reminded myself that I can only afford Mass Effect this month. :/
Also, some percentage of PS3 owners bought the machine exclusively for Blu-Ray capacities, which isn't helping games sales.
What Sony (and Nintendo) failed to do is bulding an online community which has huge impact on buying habits of console owners. Things like private cross-game chats, gamercards etc. aren't damaging 360. I almost bought COD4 because I saw that some of my friends have it and so that I'd play with them. Then I reminded myself that I can only afford Mass Effect this month. :/
Also, some percentage of PS3 owners bought the machine exclusively for Blu-Ray capacities, which isn't helping games sales.
My guess is two fundamentally different markets. MS have captured the 'hardcore' gamer who buy the usual titles en masse as a major hobby. Sony have instead attracted a technology enthusiast and more casual gaming market, spreading their interests over a wider set of activities. That's understandable as that's what Sony intended, but it looks to biting them in the butt big-time. Nintendo went for the new market and found it (though it may fizzle out). Sony went for a broad market, and that's not adopting them quickly enough to show they were worth seeking out. MS targeted the existing market directly, and landed them. From a pure gaming market perspective, kudos to MS for knowing what people want and providing it, keeping the whole experience simple.
I'd completely agree if you didn't include Heavenly Sword. If anything HS is very comparable to Lost Planet. As I recall reviews ranked them similiarily as well.
R&C is a step above them all.
Agreed. The Online component is so integrated into games that it takes place of the 360 in normal conversation. Take CoD4 for example. About 6 friends have it already.
A generic conversation goes something like this. "hey, you hoppin on Live tonight?" "yeah, around 8" "cool"
The moment I turn on my 360, I can see who is online. At this point I can go look at demo's or whatever other dashboard functions. I can even play a demo or an arcade title. So my buddy gets done with his game and sends me an invite. I simply accept and the 360 takes care of the rest. It'll take me out of whatever I'm in, load up the game and join me to the lobby. All with one click. That seamless transition promotes interaction. And because you friends are really visible to you online at all times, chances are you'll want to play the same games they do. In a group, if one or two of them are more hardcore gamers than the others, that visibility might influence the more casaul friends to go out and buy that game to play alongside.
The GHIII numbers were quite shocking when I first saw them. The CoD4 numbers should be quite interesting also. The 360 will have the following million dollar sellers released in the last 3months, (just counting NA sales):
Guitar Hero 3
Mass Effect
CoD4
Halo3 (not counting sept numbers)
Likely:
Assassin's Creed
Rock Band
That still doesn't include the YTD million dollar sellers. Software simply sells on the 360 for whatever reason. And let's not forget that the hardware numbers aren't exactly record breaking. In my social circle, the transition to Online game is through the 360. The online aspect along with the gamerscore/achievements lure goes a long way to sell software on the 360. And that damn controller is sooooo nice for FPS and driving games. The only thing holding back the 360 in NA is the price. I don't live in Japan or the little places in Europe so I can't comment on such.
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scooby_dooby
Legend
I'd totally agree with teh former, but the latter? Other than poor SW sales, what leads you to believe Sony has captured more casual gamers than MS has?
It seems counter intuitive. 360 is cheaper, and offers a wider selection of casual titles, both in terms of retail releases, and Arcade titles. I would think 360 has a larger casual userbase than PS3 at this point.
Sony's strategy points to a more concentrated drive for casual consumers, with items like Home, and Little Big Planet, but that stuff is all on the horizon, none of it has been launched at this point. R&C seems to be the one PS3 exclusive that is actively targeting this market.
I don't think platformers are "casual" anymore. They were maybe in previous times, the times of Super Mario Brothers and Crash and Sonic. Now "casual" means Guitar Hero, Singstar, Bejewelled. For it to be casual, it means it must overcome the social stigma of gaming, to be something you are not at all afraid to whip out in front of your cool non-gamer friends. A funny-talking furry animal wielding enormous powertools is not it.
By casual, I mean gaming habits, not genre preferences. If these were golf-clubs, MS is selling to 3-times-a-week golfers with their excellent golfing clubs, whereas Sony's 'integrated media player and digital radio' golf clubs are principally selling to those who go golfing once every two weeks.
mister slim
Newcomer
I doubt the Wii and PS2 GH3 sales will be as frontloaded as the 360 version. Same thing happened with 360 and PS2 Madden.
It closely mimics the way Heavenly Sword sold - it's not even in the chart anymore.
Even with the longer legs of the PS2 Madden, the three-month results of EA are still strongly skewed in favor of the 360.
It's hard to tell why exclusives such as HS and R&C don't seem to sell very well, but for multiplatform titles it's not that strange to see 360 outsell PS3. Achievements, Xbox Live interface and most importantly a larger userbase to play online with all make the 360 version more attractive. The ability to see what your friends are playing stimulates sales, especially for the hard-core that prefers multiplayer games. For those, even single-player only games are preferable on 360, as they can still get invites for other games while playing. IMO, all these factors will skew the attach ratio (even when normalized for installed base) to the 360.
There's some good stuff in this developmag pdf. You have to sign up but it's free. Nothing earth shattering. But an interview with MGS and also Bungie.
http://www.developmag.com/news/28769/Develop-78-available-now
Bungie interview only also here:
http://www.developmag.com/interviews/95/Single-Player
MGS interview states a few interesting tidbits, such as that Turn 10 seems unlikely to do PGR5, they're looking at other studios.
Credit Titanio at GAF.
http://www.developmag.com/news/28769/Develop-78-available-now
Bungie interview only also here:
http://www.developmag.com/interviews/95/Single-Player
MGS interview states a few interesting tidbits, such as that Turn 10 seems unlikely to do PGR5, they're looking at other studios.
Credit Titanio at GAF.
R&C sales have been very disappointing. This leads me thinking what are all the PS3 enthusists doing nowadays with their system? Many PS3 owners have been asking for AAA exclusives and R&C is just the one that is suppose to stop the dry spell. If something like this were to hold up for the future then I don't see Uncharted doing well either as this could result in a disaster for Sony gaming divison. I wonder what kind of impact MGS4 or FFXIII will make. But right now, I'll have to lower the sales forecase for those two from my initial predictions.
mister slim
Newcomer
I wouldn't consider the 360 Madden having 1.25X the sales of the PS2 version that major an advantage. They're probably each making about the same amount of money for EA.
iceberg187
Regular
The only platformer that will sell is Mario
The crux of the PS2/360 debate though is the 360 has something like 5% of the userbase while still beating sales. So where should EA (or others) put their resources for 2008/2009 releases (which they would of course be starting/in the middle of today)?
Of course it's not as cut-and-dried as that, but the generation-shift always starts with stepping stones like that.
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