Sony's Exclusives Coming Up Short?

[jewishornet]

Sort of like your avatar?

You don't see me constantly posting negative threads on the 360 board about the 360 in fact you don't see me posting on the 360 board at all.

[soniqstylz]

You don't see me constantly posting negative threads on the 360 board about the 360 in fact you don't see me posting on the 360 board at all.

Me either, since I have nothing to contribute at all over there, but your avatar is basically a constant outdated slam on the 360.

[Vice]

I think Sony has sold to many PS3 consoles to people who wanted to watch Blurays and didn't want to play Games or perhaps only bought the PS3 with the possibility of being able to play games but mainly just for the Bluray player.

Sony marketed it heavily in the beginning for the Bluray and indeed it was for a long time the cheapest and highest quality Bluray player around and the only one compatible with each new Bluray version like the Picture in Picture stuff. It has continually been pinned as the Bluray player of choice and not just because of its Bluray playing abilities but because you can also play Games on it if you ever wanted to. Like selling a Radio with an Alarm Clock in it some consumers see that extra feature (which they will never use) as a bonus and get that over a cheaper radio-only device just because it has that bit extra.

And of course the prices we are in a bad economy right now and paying ?44 for each game is a lot. I personally wait until games hit low prices before buying them but that can take a really long time and I know I'm not alone in my 'wait and save' purchase mentality which definitely must affect some of these charts.

You guys know when COD4 came out it was ?44 on the PS3 and ?17.99 on the PC. Both prices from Amazon. Left 4 Dead was ?26.99 on Amazon for PC and ?50 on Amazon for PS33600 at launch. With such huge price differences I am not willing to purchase the title on the PS3 if I can enjoy it at launch on my PC, of course this topic is specifically looking at PS3 exclusive titles but what I'm talking about definitely affects non-exclusive sales numbers on Consoles and not just the PS3 but the XBOX360 as-well.

I think when you combine all these factors the PS3 is fighting an up-hill battle. The Wii has been a runaway success for Nintendo and it is guaranteed that every single unit sold is going to be used to play games while with the PS3 your wondering is it being used to watch Bluray movies is it being used for protein folding or scientific research is it being used as a general media centre is someone running Linux on it? It just has so many uses beyond gaming. I think the 360 can be put in the same corner as the Wii people buying that are definitely doing so to play Games no one is buying it for HD-DVD anymore and no one is going to buy it for its DVD player.

These are just my views on the situation I think the PS3 is great and I hope these low sales numbers don't hurt its popularity as I've bought one to play Games and I'd hate to see publishers abandon the platform I've bought in to.

Edited July 1, 2009 by Vice

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

I think Sony has sold to many PS3 consoles to people who wanted to watch Blurays and didn't want to play Games or perhaps only bought the PS3 with the possibility of being able to play games but mainly just for the Bluray player.

Sony marketed it heavily in the beginning for the Bluray and indeed it was for a long time the cheapest and highest quality Bluray player around and the only one compatible with each new Bluray version like the Picture in Picture stuff. It has continually been pinned as the Bluray player of choice and not just because of its Bluray playing abilities but because you can also play Games on it if you ever wanted to. Like selling a Radio with an Alarm Clock in it some consumers see that extra feature (which they will never use) as a bonus and get that over a cheaper radio-only device just because it has that bit extra.

And of course the prices we are in a bad economy right now and paying ?44 for each game is a lot. I personally wait until games hit low prices before buying them but that can take a really long time and I know I'm not alone in my 'wait and save' purchase mentality which definitely must affect some of these charts.

You guys know when COD4 came out it was ?44 on the PS3 and ?17.99 on the PC. Both prices from Amazon. Left 4 Dead was ?26.99 on Amazon for PC and ?50 on Amazon for PS3 at launch.. With such huge price differences I am now willing to purchase the title on the PS3 if I can enjoy it at launch on my PC, of course this topic is specifically looking at PS3 exclusive titles but what I'm talking about definitely affects non-exclusive sales numbers on Consoles and not just the PS3 but the XBOX360 as-well.

I think when you combine all these factors the PS3 is fighting an up-hill battle. The Wii has been a runaway success for Nintendo and it is guaranteed that every single unit sold is going to be used to play games while with the PS3 your wondering is it being used to watch Bluray movies is it being used for protein folding or scientific research is it being used as a general media centre is someone running Linux on it? It just has so many uses beyond gaming. I think the 360 can be put in the same corner as the Wii people buying that are definitely doing so to play Games no one is buying it for HD-DVD anymore and no one is going to buy it for its DVD player.

These are just my views on the situation I think the PS3 is great and I hope these low sales numbers don't hurt its popularity as I've bought one to play Games and I'd hate to see publishers abandon the platform I've bought in to.

L4D isn't available on the PS3...

And if anyone paid ?44 for PS3 COD4 they were off their heads. Mid to high 30's at launch, same price as Xbox 360. (even low 30's - http://www.bargainspy.co.uk/node/48581)

[Vice]

L4D isn't available on the PS3...

And if anyone paid ?44 for PS3 COD4 they were off their heads. Mid to high 30's at launch, same price as Xbox 360. (even low 30's - http://www.bargainspy.co.uk/node/48581)

Sorry I meant the 360 version of Left 4 Dead. And the COD4 prices were what I said at launch. But just look at Amazon you can see all the original prices they have a strike through now telling you how much you've saved since its been listed. Prototype was ?49.99 is now ?36.46 infamous was ?49.99 now ?32.40. Modern Warfare 2 which isn't even out yet is listed as ?54.99 on there but can be got at a pre-order price of ?44.96.

These prices are not realistic for anyone living in the real world who is going to spend ?85-?90 on two games?

Also the rest of my post do you have any comments about the other points I raised?

EDIT:// Also I just wanted to make clear that I am not saying the 360 does not have games costing the same as the PS3 because it clearly does its games cost the same as the PS3 around ?50 to ?40 at launch.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Sorry I meant the 360 version of Left 4 Dead. And the COD4 prices were what I said at launch. But just look at Amazon you can see all the original prices they have a strike through now telling you how much you've saved since its been listed. Prototype was ?49.99 is now ?36.46 infamous was ?49.99 now ?32.40. Modern Warfare 2 which isn't even out yet is listed as ?54.99 on there but can be got at a pre-order price of ?44.96.

These prices are not realistic for anyone living in the real world who is going to spend ?85-?90 on two games?

Also the rest of my post do you have any comments about the other points I raised?

Some sites often inflate the RRP of popular titles to make you think their prices are better than they really are. MW2 at ?45 is a fools price.

There's always deals around the launch of new console titles to pick them up for around ?32-36, sometimes a little cheaper.

Not really got much else to comment on but

I think Sony has sold to many PS3 consoles to people who wanted to watch Blurays and didn't want to play Games or perhaps only bought the PS3 with the possibility of being able to play games but mainly just for the Bluray player.

That I agree with, but that's actually helped the install base, home cinema enthusiasts buying blu ray players have made Sony's annual sales for the first 2 years of the PS3 look very respectable considering it's $600 launch price for the best part of a year, then it's $400 price since. It's actually tracked on par or slightly better than the 360's sales for it's first 2 years (PS3 and 360 worldwide sales equal in 2008).

Once it gets it's price cut this year it will be much more affordablegamersgamers to jump on board, something that's needed now for 2 main reasons

a) Economy

and

b) Blu Ray players are much cheaper than a PS3 now (the role reversal of that for the first 1~2 years helped the PS3).

For as bad as it sounds to be in 3rd position in terms of install base, when considering the actual figures for the first 2 years at such high price tags, they are actually pretty good. What Sony need to make sure now though is they cut the price in advance of Christmas so as they don't end up selling less in their 3rd year than 2nd (which they're on course for with PS3 sales slowing this year as people get restless for a cut).

Due to a % of the install base probably using it primarily as a Blu Ray player, or only for 1 or 2 games, will aid why software sales may not seem as high as you thought they would be.

Edited July 1, 2009 by Audioboxer

[gigapixels Veteran]

If you all don't quit with the ridiculous bickering, this thread will be closed.

Discuss the OP in a cool, collected manner. The arguing is pointless. It's just that simple.

[Vice]

I agree that it helped the PS3 install base. But it perhaps damaged the PS3's reputation for developers. With an install base of 22 million units (as of march 09) developers may be expecting larger sales volumes on there games that they sell for the PS3 but with so many consumers buying it for the Bluray instead of planning to buy Games, Developers (Like Activision) may think twice about spending the millions of dollars upfront to develop for the console. (phew that was a mouthful lol)

The sales numbers posted on the first page of this topic look really bad and with a developer as big as Activision saying games sell better on the 360 so much so that if Sony don't fix things Activision may stop developing for the PS3 (possibly an empty threat, but still they did say it which isn't something to ignore) then I think the Bluray angle that Sony went for in the beginning has not panned out well at all.

I have always thought the very high launch price of the PS3 hurt it. The 360 launched first and had a great advantage in the higher price bracket to the PS3 and the Wii was priced so cheaply that it's just flying off shelves as parents are getting a great deal (An affordable family orientated console that actually gets your kids off the couch and moving).

This whole situation with the PS3 is difficult to surmise in a single post there are so many different factors contributing to its low sales and only really Sony can give us a good idea about how many of the consoles are actually being used, I mean you would agree that nearly everyone who owns a PS3 to game is going to be using PSN at some point for Multiplayer it would be of great interest to me to see the PSN activity numbers vs consoles sold and also for the 360 how many users have XBOX Live vs its install base.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

I agree that it helped the PS3 install base. But it perhaps damaged the PS3's reputation for developers. With an install base of 22 million units (as of march 09) developers may be expecting larger sales volumes on there games that they sell for the PS3 but with so many consumers buying it for the Bluray instead of planning to buy Games developers (Like Activision) may think twice about spending the millions of dollars upfront to develop for the console. (phew that was a mouthful lol)

The sales numbers posted on the first page of this topic look really bad and with a developer as big as Activision saying games sell better on the 360 so much so that if Sony don't fix things Activision may stop developing for the PS3 (possibly an empty threat, but still they did say it which isn't something to ignore) then I think the Bluray angle that Sony went for in the beginning has not panned out well at all.

I have always thought the very high launch price of the PS3 hurt it. The 360 launched first and had a great advantage in the higher price bracket to the PS3 and the Wii was priced so cheaply that it's just flying off shelves as parents are getting a great deal (An affordable family orientated console that actually gets your kids off the couch and moving).

This whole situation with the PS3 is difficult to surmise in a single post there are so many different factors contributing to its low sales and only really Sony can give us a good idea about how many of the consoles are actually being used, I mean you would agree that nearly everyone who owns a PS3 to game is going to be using PSN at some point for Multiplayer it would be of great interest to me to see the PSN activity numbers vs consoles sold and also for the 360 how many users have XBOX Live vs its install base.

The sales on page 1 aren't worldwide, that's been covered a few times.

The largest portion of PS3s will reside in Europe, followed by America, then Japan. It will most likely remain that way for the whole generation, with a possibility for Japan to get close to America. Seeing as that is the case there's a greater chance for software sales in Europe to be higher than that of America, unless we're talking about something like MLB, which is baseball. Europe doesn't accurately track game sales due to all the countries, so we don't have "NPDs". You need to wait till a developer says what their sales are before you know how well the game has done in Europe. Japan has tracked stats every week.

Activision and other 3rd party developers know what their budget pool is before making a game, if PS3 multiplatform titles weren't aiding profit but losing developers money you'd of heard more about that by now. Thing is most devs port from 360 to PS3 anyway, so the PS3 port probably doesn't need that high a sales figure to cover porting expenses.

And you'll never get accurate PSN vs XBL numbers for two reasons

a) Duplicate accounts - There's dupes on Live also, but PSN in larger numbers due to the benefits of the console being region free

and

b) PSN is universal, there's PSP only owners who have PSN for the PSP - In fact once the PSPGo hits, everyone who buys one will need to create a PSN unless they already have on their PS3. Finally when you signup for the official PS forums, your account is a PSN account meaning even if you don't own a Sony platform, you're adding to the PSN install base.

Also, MS probably won't ever release exact Gold Subscription figures.

To aid what I'm saying, GT5P sales for the PS3

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (North America) 760 2008/04/15

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (Europe) 2,160 2008/03/28

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (Asia) 100 2008/02/15

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (Japan) 650 2007/12/13

http://www.polyphony.co.jp/english/list.html

As you can see in Europe it's exceeded 2 million units, but on page 1 of this topic it looks "bad" because it's only in the 500-750k bracket.

(That's in thousands by the way, not 760 copies in America) :p

Edited July 1, 2009 by Audioboxer

[Vice]

It would be easy for Sony to separate people using duplicate accounts and people accessing accounts from a PSP or a PS3 etc so it's not really an issue.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

It would be easy for Sony to separate people using duplicate accounts and people accessing accounts from a PSP or a PS3 etc so it's not really an issue.

How would all dupe accounts be known? You can have brothers and sisters in your house using their own account on your PS3 (if you're coming from an angle of tracking multiple accounts logging from one PS3). Many people have both PS3s and PSPs, so would you essentially count them "twice" in both the PSP stats and the PS3 stats?

Because PSN is universal, it isn't that easy to give accurate break downs. You have one PSN account, that's used on 3 devices - PC/PS3 and PSP.

It's not as black and white as Live where you can say Silver or Gold, PSN has no subscriptions as you know. MS also don't have a handheld device using XBL either, yet...

[Vice]

It can be done really easily. Sony operate both ends of the connection the Server infrastructure and the Client software. We already know the PS3's are all unique with specific identification and if you have multiple people using 1 PS3 that is still a single PS3 (as an install number) which is what we care about not how many people are playing from it. PSP's aren't counted if the Account was used on a PS3 it's counted in PS3 charts as Active if its a PSP account it isn't counted.

It's really not that complicated for Sony to track this stuff and I'm willing to bet they already do so I know I would if I was operating something so large and my companies future depended on how popular the platform is. And the PSN knows what games you play if your signed on that is the most easiest way to tell if a PSN account is being used by a PS3 owner obviously.

No need to complicate it I know it can be done but Sony wont share that data unless its unbelievably positive.

[jewishornet]

Me either, since I have nothing to contribute at all over there, but your avatar is basically a constant outdated slam on the 360.

True

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

It can be done really easily. Sony operate both ends of the connection the Server infrastructure and the Client software. We already know the PS3's are all unique with specific identification and if you have multiple people using 1 PS3 that is still a single PS3 (as an install number) which is what we care about not how many people are playing from it. PSP's aren't counted if the Account was used on a PS3 it's counted in PS3 charts as Active if its a PSP account it isn't counted.

It's really not that complicated for Sony to track this stuff and I'm willing to bet they already do so I know I would if I was operating something so large and my companies future depended on how popular the platform is. And the PSN knows what games you play if your signed on that is the most easiest way to tell if a PSN account is being used by a PS3 owner obviously.

No need to complicate it I know it can be done but Sony wont share that data unless its unbelievably positive.

Probably could be worked out like that actually. Sony will only ever give off PSN numbers as a whole though, it makes it sound better.

Whatever the case every PS3 can play online and use all the online functionality, there's no tiers of access involved, Sony just need to encourage everyone to get their PS3 connected online if they have internet, over wireless or wired, both out of the box. I dunno if they include Playstation Network leaflets in PS3 boxes? Anyone remember? I got my PS3 a while back now when PSN was a bit more prehistoric.

[soniqstylz]

Part of the slower sales this year for the PS3 might have a little to do not only with the NEED for a price cut, but the constant rumors that it is around the corner as well would keep people from holding off (the faux announcement after GDC that ended up being the PS2 price cut for example).

Since we pretty much know that a price drop (most likely a $100 cut) is being announced @ the end of September (TGS), no real reason to buy one now, especially with new bundles and a slimline version on the way as well. I think you'll see a spike in older exclusive software by that time as well (inFamous, LBP, MGS4 "Greatest Hits", Killzone, etc.) from those who have heard the hype, but didn't want to spend that kind of money on the console in the first place. If the rumors of PS2 BC coming back via emulation are true, that will boost sales as well.

[Ricardo Gil]

Why even bother posting in the Sony board at all if all you are going to do is rip on it?

How your posts can not be considered trolling is beyond me. Maybe I should go onto the 360 board and post, "this PlayStation game owns anything on the 360". You are telling me that that wouldn't be considered trolling?

Wow, such a clever avatar. :laugh:

I'm trolling? So, where's that racing racing game on the PS3 that beats Forza2 overall? In my opinion there's still none.

[soniqstylz]

Wow, such a clever avatar. :laugh:

I'm trolling? So, where's that racing racing game on the PS3 that beats Forza2 overall? In my opinion there's still none.

In sales, or quality? Since the point of this thread is the lack of sales for Sony exclusives, we'll go with that:

Forza Motorsport 2 - 2.674 million

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - 3.31 million

Motorstorm - 3.31 million

Source is the wikipedia page on total console game sales, so take that for what you will.

If you mean quality, then yes, Forza wins (metacritic score of 90, Motorstorm 82, GT5:P 80).

But then again, metacritic scores on these exclusives aren't lacking either (LBP 95, MGS4 94, Killzone2 91, Uncharted 88, etc.) despite claims of lacking sales.

Completely unrelated note: WTF is BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

In sales, or quality? Since the point of this thread is the lack of sales for Sony exclusives, we'll go with that:

Forza Motorsport 2 - 2.674 million

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - 3.31 million

Motorstorm - 3.31 million

Source is the wikipedia page on total console game sales, so take that for what you will.

If you mean quality, then yes, Forza wins (metacritic score of 90, Motorstorm 82, GT5:P 80).

But then again, metacritic scores on these exclusives aren't lacking either (LBP 95, MGS4 94, Killzone2 91, Uncharted 88, etc.) despite claims of lacking sales.

Completely unrelated note: WTF is BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger?

I posted the official GT5P sales above, 3.67 million as of March this year. That's from PD themselves - http://www.polyphony.co.jp/english/list.html

I believe that's retail units as well, doesn't include digital downloads.

[HilariousNinja]

Completely unrelated note: WTF is BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger?

It's a 2D fighting game, similar to Street Fighter and Tekken and the like. I'm assuming the 90+ ratings on metacritic caught your eye?

Impressive ey? Sorry about being completely off-topic :D

[Vortex566]

From the same people who made Guilty Gear right? The game is going to be great I was a huge fan of Guilty Gear X2.

[Draken]

wow!! those are very low numbers for a zero piracy platform :blink:

[soniqstylz]

It's a 2D fighting game, similar to Street Fighter and Tekken and the like. I'm assuming the 90+ ratings on metacritic caught your eye?

That too, but there was a cosplay pic on kotaku or someother site that originally brought the game to my attention, the metacritic score just made me take even more notice.

[HilariousNinja]

^ Heelllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllooo :woot:, anybody know where I can get one of them (the game of course :shifty: )

[bob_c_b]

These threads never end well, but even as a staunch PS3 supporter I have to say the numbers speak for themselves. I like a lot of those games but clearly my taste are not that of the mainstream but it does point to serious issues for Sony.