The biggest hurdle in pirating sony exclusive ps3 games is that they are absolutely ginormous
Actually that's going to be the biggest problem for pirates in the coming years for PC as well, as I assume the next generation of consoles will be blu-ray and in much of the country internet speeds aren't going up at all (problem for digital distribution as well)
Pirates will just rent and rip the games to the ps3's hard drive.
Sony would also be concerned about any possibility of a remote atack that could be done to a unhacked PS3 now that the keys to the house have been given out and people are poking around under the couch. The system is probably quite safe from this but the risk is still there. Imagine the fallout if a bunch of peoples consoles were bricked or their credit card info stolen because someone found a backdoor into the system.
On the one hand, Harmonix has a new owner that's taken on $100 million in debt on their behalf.
On the other, third-party trackers have noted that Wii RBN sales have long blown serious chunks, at least compared to the 360 and PS3.
It probably doesn't help that the Wii port of Rock Band has always been half assed and that there's a mod out there that literally lets Wii players download songs from the Nintendo servers for free via the in-game store.
FyreWulff on
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
Reports claim Q4 release, dual sticks, HD screen; source tells us that’s a “reasonable description”.
Reports today claim that Sony’s long-rumoured PSP successor is as powerful as the PlayStation 3, with a source confirming to us this morning that the leaks are a “reasonable description” of the device’s capability.
MCV reports that Sony has made the claim to its licensees, and is pitching the HD handheld as a “high-end portable equivalent” of PS3.
The console is expected to be announced at a modest event in Tokyo on January 27. A fourth quarter launch – possibly as early as October – has been reported, and the system includes an HD screen.
Perhaps most importantly for Sony’s intent to pitch the device as a portable PS3, the device apparently has dual analogue sticks. Sony is specifically asking developers to focus on deep, content-rich game experiences to differentiate PSP2 from app-focused smartphones.
While the PSP redesign PSPgo dropped support for UMD media in favour of downloads, Sony intends to keep retail on side by making use of a media format, though it will also offer downloads of smaller games and apps through PSN.
According to a source with experience of working on the device, the reports are “a perfectly reasonable description of the hardware’s capabilities.” Our source also notes that in comparison to 3DS, PSP2’s processing power is “comparable to the difference which exists between PSP and DS.”
If true, the decision to announce the device just eight days after Nintendo’s European 3DS launch event, in Amsterdam on January 19, indicates confidence on Sony’s part that its PSP successor can compete with Nintendo’s hotly anticipated 3D device, which is released in Japan next month and is expected to make its European debut in March.
As we all know by now, Moar Powarz = Top selling console/handheld.
On the one hand, Harmonix has a new owner that's taken on $100 million in debt on their behalf.
On the other, third-party trackers have noted that Wii RBN sales have long blown serious chunks, at least compared to the 360 and PS3.
It probably doesn't help that the Wii port of Rock Band has always been half assed and that there's a mod out there that literally lets Wii players download songs from the Nintendo servers for free via the in-game store.
Wouldn't that rather be an odd case where piracy increases sales of the game? Sure, it hurts from the DLC sales perspective, but you'd have a higher install base at least.
On the one hand, Harmonix has a new owner that's taken on $100 million in debt on their behalf.
On the other, third-party trackers have noted that Wii RBN sales have long blown serious chunks, at least compared to the 360 and PS3.
It probably doesn't help that the Wii port of Rock Band has always been half assed and that there's a mod out there that literally lets Wii players download songs from the Nintendo servers for free via the in-game store.
Wouldn't that rather be an odd case where piracy increases sales of the game? Sure, it hurts from the DLC sales perspective, but you'd have a higher install base at least.
The DLCless RB1 Wii outsold the 360 and PS3 versions.
Then the shitty port of RB2 happened with much delay, and Guitar Hero basically took over from there. Harmonix/EA basically blew their chance at taking off on Wii.
I kind of expected that Epic Mickey would get the one million mark from combined sales of November and December or early into thir year. That they got 1.32 million in just one month is really surprising. Of course, so is Just Dance 2 being the best selling game by individual platform. I thought it would assuredly go to Black Ops on the 360 or WoW Cataclysm by a good margin.
I'm a couple pages late to this, but I wanted to reiterate that there were no combined November/December sales. The NPD calendar is not equivalent to the normal calendar we use. The retail calendar is close, but not the same. It uses 4 or 5 week months (the last month of a quarter is 5 weeks, the other two are 4) that start on a Sunday and end on a Saturday. This way, when you're looking at year-over-year numbers, you can directly compare the numbers without worrying about things like a different number of weekend vs. weekdays skewing the results. It's still not perfect, particularly towards the holidays (the week following Black Friday sometimes ends up in November and sometimes December), but it's far better than using the traditional calendar. Epic Mickey came out in calendar November, but retail December. It's November sales were 0 because the game hadn't been released yet, so what you're seeing in those December numbers are from launch date forward.
On the one hand, Harmonix has a new owner that's taken on $100 million in debt on their behalf.
On the other, third-party trackers have noted that Wii RBN sales have long blown serious chunks, at least compared to the 360 and PS3.
It probably doesn't help that the Wii port of Rock Band has always been half assed and that there's a mod out there that literally lets Wii players download songs from the Nintendo servers for free via the in-game store.
Wouldn't that rather be an odd case where piracy increases sales of the game? Sure, it hurts from the DLC sales perspective, but you'd have a higher install base at least.
The DLCless RB1 Wii outsold the 360 and PS3 versions.
Then the shitty port of RB2 happened with much delay, and Guitar Hero basically took over from there. Harmonix/EA basically blew their chance at taking off on Wii.
It outsold the PS3 version, but I think the 360 version still had the highest total sales (this was also true for Rock Band 2, which Harmonix equally screwed up, launching the Wii version less than a week before Christmas and months after the HD releases). It wasn't until Rock Band 3 that Harmonix treated the Wii as an equal citizen, and by then the rhythm genre was in full contraction. In addition, the Guitar Hero franchise treated the Wii equally almost from the start (GH3 lacked DLC, but that was about the only thing it lacked) and sold incredibly well (as far as I know, the Wii version has been the top-selling SKU of every GH game starting with 3 and going forward). By the time RockBand caught up, GH was incredibly entrenched on the Wii and Harmonix was fighting an uphill battle to get anywhere.
I'll also point out that what's being killed on the Wii are the Rock Band Network indie DLC tracks. The full DLC isn't being affected. I suspect this is because the RBN stuff originates on the 360 and then has to be ported to the PS3 and Wii, and sales on the Wii don't justify this effort. In comparison, the full commercial DLC is probably developed in-house to be platform agnostic and can be converted automatically, so the Wii costs virtually nothing to support there.
While I'll admit that all CoD games (not just Black Ops) suffer from going from one set piece to the next, at least it makes it clear. MoH (and BFBC2 did this too) do a bad job of telling you what to do. In MoH's case the lack of a HUD exacerbates the problem. Black Ops never kept you in one place longer than you needed to (except in Khe Sahn where it should have been more blatant about it) and the action felt great since the controls were tight. MW2 probably has a better overall campaign, but if you're going to tell me the story in MW2 isn't downright laughable then I'll go ahead and keep thinking Black Ops did something a bit interesting with its story.
In any case, I played enough of the big three (I can't believe I just gave MoH that honor) to know that MoH is not only firmly planted in mediocrity but none of its game modes hold a candle to either of the other two shooters from last year. Also, if you're going to deny the bugs don't break the gameplay then you must play some pretty awful games to stand for it.
I'm not sure why you're bringing up MW2 but I've had numerous rants about its stupidity in this thread. But I think the difference between it and Black Ops, is MW2 was quite obviously a bunch of scenarios tied together by a stupid story. Black Ops on the other hand was a stupid(er) story with a bunch of scenarios designed to fit within it. IW thus had a lot more freedom to design their scenarios (because they clearly didn't give a shit where things ended), add in IW more talented designers (otherwise Treyarch wouldn't need to constantly mimick their ideas) and you end up with two games that have shitty stories but only one that's actually fun.
As for the 'big three', even if you combined the best aspects of Black Ops and MoH, the result wouldn't be close to Bad Company 2. It's by far the superior game.
Shitty support from the producer/manufacturer doesn't stop third parties from releasing games on the system.
Look at Nintendo. Third parties constantly complain about them but haven't stopped supporting it.
Where as if Sony has crappy support AND your game is easy to pirate, then there's not much of an incentive to support it.
I'm not saying it's the major factor, but it definitely will be. If the cost of porting to the PS3 doesn't offset worries about piracy, then you may see the market dry up.
First parties are the ones that establish a direction for their platforms. Because really, if Sony is completely ignoring their own platform in favour another (the PS3), why should third parties or even the userbase care about it? Clearly Sony seemed to think the PS3 was the better platform, going by the fact that pretty much all of SCEA and SCEE's developers were working on PS3 games, while the PSP got some spinoffs to established titles, often developed by external teams (which only really worked well in the case of Ready at Dawn). And then you look at their E3 conferences and the PSP constantly received not much more than a cameo before the PS3 threw it off the stage. SCEA even contributed to the PSP->PS2 porting, bringing R&C Size Matters and the Syphon Filter's over to it. I don't think I've ever seen such horrendous support for a platform.
The PS3 on the other hand, is supported incredibly well by Sony on the software side (OS and marketing are a bit iffy but eh), the install base between it and the 360 has narrowed to just a million or two, software sales are only growing (even though piracy has been possible since June) and third parties haven't shown any sign of going anywhere. So no, it really isn't even comparable to the PSP. This generation will end long before piracy manages to somehow dry up PS3 support. And even if it somehow did happen, it would drag the 360 down with it. Third parties are barely sustaining themselves with a combined ~100 million userbase, let alone half that.
While I'll admit that all CoD games (not just Black Ops) suffer from going from one set piece to the next, at least it makes it clear. MoH (and BFBC2 did this too) do a bad job of telling you what to do. In MoH's case the lack of a HUD exacerbates the problem. Black Ops never kept you in one place longer than you needed to (except in Khe Sahn where it should have been more blatant about it) and the action felt great since the controls were tight. MW2 probably has a better overall campaign, but if you're going to tell me the story in MW2 isn't downright laughable then I'll go ahead and keep thinking Black Ops did something a bit interesting with its story.
In any case, I played enough of the big three (I can't believe I just gave MoH that honor) to know that MoH is not only firmly planted in mediocrity but none of its game modes hold a candle to either of the other two shooters from last year. Also, if you're going to deny the bugs don't break the gameplay then you must play some pretty awful games to stand for it.
I'm not sure why you're bringing up MW2 but I've had numerous rants about its stupidity in this thread. But I think the difference between it and Black Ops, is MW2 was quite obviously a bunch of scenarios tied together by a stupid story. Black Ops on the other hand was a stupid(er) story with a bunch of scenarios designed to fit within it. IW thus had a lot more freedom to design their scenarios (because they clearly didn't give a shit where things ended), add in IW more talented designers (otherwise Treyarch wouldn't need to constantly mimick their ideas) and you end up with two games that have shitty stories but only one that's actually fun.
As for the 'big three', even if you combined the best aspects of Black Ops and MoH, the result wouldn't be close to Bad Company 2. It's by far the superior game.
Maybe in terms of multiplayer, but the campaign in BFBC2 is pretty laughable and downright unfun at times. It's actually funny how cookie cutter it became after the success of CoD4. The first Bad Company had a quirky charm to it. BC2 has only dashes of it wrapped around what is a melodramatic campaign with sections that out stay their welcome. I would hope they go back to being like the first but they might have already pigeon holed themselves into a way more generic story.
I'll also point out that what's being killed on the Wii are the Rock Band Network indie DLC tracks. The full DLC isn't being affected. I suspect this is because the RBN stuff originates on the 360 and then has to be ported to the PS3 and Wii, and sales on the Wii don't justify this effort. In comparison, the full commercial DLC is probably developed in-house to be platform agnostic and can be converted automatically, so the Wii costs virtually nothing to support there.
I doubt it's the cost to convert the files. It's going to be the costs involved in negotiating with bands to get the rights to use the converted tracks in other consoles (lawyer fees aren't cheap) and then the cost to maintain the payment schedules for disbursements.
On the 360, the whole thing is about 95% hands off after the rules HMX sets forth.
The only people who think that all DLC support will be cut are people who probably jump at their own shadow.
First parties are the ones that establish a direction for their platforms. Because really, if Sony is completely ignoring their own platform in favour another (the PS3), why should third parties or even the userbase care about it? Clearly Sony seemed to think the PS3 was the better platform, going by the fact that pretty much all of SCEA and SCEE's developers were working on PS3 games, while the PSP got some spinoffs to established titles, often developed by external teams (which only really worked well in the case of Ready at Dawn). And then you look at their E3 conferences and the PSP constantly received not much more than a cameo before the PS3 threw it off the stage. SCEA even contributed to the PSP->PS2 porting, bringing R&C Size Matters and the Syphon Filter's over to it. I don't think I've ever seen such horrendous support for a platform.
Although the PS3 has been Sony's focus of late, they've hardly completely ignored the PSP. Several of the system's best games were developed or published by Sony - the LocoRoco, Patapon, and Wipeout series and Jeanne d'Arc just to name a few.
First parties are the ones that establish a direction for their platforms. Because really, if Sony is completely ignoring their own platform in favour another (the PS3), why should third parties or even the userbase care about it? Clearly Sony seemed to think the PS3 was the better platform, going by the fact that pretty much all of SCEA and SCEE's developers were working on PS3 games, while the PSP got some spinoffs to established titles, often developed by external teams (which only really worked well in the case of Ready at Dawn). And then you look at their E3 conferences and the PSP constantly received not much more than a cameo before the PS3 threw it off the stage. SCEA even contributed to the PSP->PS2 porting, bringing R&C Size Matters and the Syphon Filter's over to it. I don't think I've ever seen such horrendous support for a platform.
Although the PS3 has been Sony's focus of late, they've hardly completely ignored the PSP. Several of the system's best games were developed or published by Sony - the LocoRoco, Patapon, and Wipeout series and Jeanne d'Arc just to name a few.
I'm pretty sure the creator of the hardware has the ability to make quality games for it. But the question is whether their commitment to it is high enough to encourage third-parties to also make quality games for it.
I would think that probably only Nintendo could get away with that. But even then, I'm not entirely sure. Exploitable IPs that can easily be used to create and maintain interest is not something I'd associate with SONY.
First parties are the ones that establish a direction for their platforms. Because really, if Sony is completely ignoring their own platform in favour another (the PS3), why should third parties or even the userbase care about it? Clearly Sony seemed to think the PS3 was the better platform, going by the fact that pretty much all of SCEA and SCEE's developers were working on PS3 games, while the PSP got some spinoffs to established titles, often developed by external teams (which only really worked well in the case of Ready at Dawn). And then you look at their E3 conferences and the PSP constantly received not much more than a cameo before the PS3 threw it off the stage. SCEA even contributed to the PSP->PS2 porting, bringing R&C Size Matters and the Syphon Filter's over to it. I don't think I've ever seen such horrendous support for a platform.
Although the PS3 has been Sony's focus of late, they've hardly completely ignored the PSP. Several of the system's best games were developed or published by Sony - the LocoRoco, Patapon, and Wipeout series and Jeanne d'Arc just to name a few.
Of late? Did you miss the first 4 or 5 years of the PSP's life? It was overshadowed by the PS3 almost immediately. Look at the E3 conferences from back then, look at the software support and look how long it took them to set up an adequate PS Store on it (2 years before the PSN existed, 2 further years before it was added to the PSP). Like I'm sure I've said a few times before, it was the red headed stepchild of the family.
As for the software, that is why I specifically said SCEA and SCEE, because three of those games had nothing to do with them outside of localization (except for Jeanne d'Arc, it never had a PAL release). Besides, I never said they didn't make good games for it anyway, I like a number of Sony's PSP games, I was saying that the PSP mostly got the leftovers (Wipeout, Syphon Filter and lots of spinoffs), while pretty much all their top talent (Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, etc) and important series were strictly for the PS3.
Not sure about 1st party games, but PSP's 3rd party support is just as good (maybe a little better?) than the DS. At least, the system is popular enough now that it's nearly impossible to find anywhere where it isn't sold out in Japan.
CygnusZ on
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Dr Mario KartGames DealerAustin, TXRegistered Userregular
edited January 2011
You seem to be suggesting that a 1st party doesnt have the development resources to fully support and "set the direction for" two high selling machines at once, whether its PSP/PS3, or Wii/DS. One of them is going to appear ignored.
Reports claim Q4 release, dual sticks, HD screen; source tells us that’s a “reasonable description”.
Reports today claim that Sony’s long-rumoured PSP successor is as powerful as the PlayStation 3, with a source confirming to us this morning that the leaks are a “reasonable description” of the device’s capability.
MCV reports that Sony has made the claim to its licensees, and is pitching the HD handheld as a “high-end portable equivalent” of PS3.
The console is expected to be announced at a modest event in Tokyo on January 27. A fourth quarter launch – possibly as early as October – has been reported, and the system includes an HD screen.
Perhaps most importantly for Sony’s intent to pitch the device as a portable PS3, the device apparently has dual analogue sticks. Sony is specifically asking developers to focus on deep, content-rich game experiences to differentiate PSP2 from app-focused smartphones.
While the PSP redesign PSPgo dropped support for UMD media in favour of downloads, Sony intends to keep retail on side by making use of a media format, though it will also offer downloads of smaller games and apps through PSN.
According to a source with experience of working on the device, the reports are “a perfectly reasonable description of the hardware’s capabilities.” Our source also notes that in comparison to 3DS, PSP2’s processing power is “comparable to the difference which exists between PSP and DS.”
If true, the decision to announce the device just eight days after Nintendo’s European 3DS launch event, in Amsterdam on January 19, indicates confidence on Sony’s part that its PSP successor can compete with Nintendo’s hotly anticipated 3D device, which is released in Japan next month and is expected to make its European debut in March.
As we all know by now, Moar Powarz = Top selling console/handheld.
Yeah I'm not buying it as powerful as a PS3, they always tend to say the systems are much more powerful then they really are to begin with. I'm still waiting on the Ultra 64 being capable of rendering real life Robocop games and awesome Macross/Robotech ones. No doubt whatever portable system will indeed be powerful by Sony for their next one however we already see how much the whole 3D thing drains the 3DS batteries so damn quick, anything more powerful would be even worse. And people use to complain about the PSP battery enough in the past alone.
The 3DS's battery life is the same as an iPhone playing games for the same amount of time. And real world performance will be higher than what Nintendo states (which is a safe number)
First parties are the ones that establish a direction for their platforms. Because really, if Sony is completely ignoring their own platform in favour another (the PS3), why should third parties or even the userbase care about it? Clearly Sony seemed to think the PS3 was the better platform, going by the fact that pretty much all of SCEA and SCEE's developers were working on PS3 games, while the PSP got some spinoffs to established titles, often developed by external teams (which only really worked well in the case of Ready at Dawn). And then you look at their E3 conferences and the PSP constantly received not much more than a cameo before the PS3 threw it off the stage. SCEA even contributed to the PSP->PS2 porting, bringing R&C Size Matters and the Syphon Filter's over to it. I don't think I've ever seen such horrendous support for a platform.
Although the PS3 has been Sony's focus of late, they've hardly completely ignored the PSP. Several of the system's best games were developed or published by Sony - the LocoRoco, Patapon, and Wipeout series and Jeanne d'Arc just to name a few.
I'm pretty sure the creator of the hardware has the ability to make quality games for it. But the question is whether their commitment to it is high enough to encourage third-parties to also make quality games for it.
I would think that probably only Nintendo could get away with that. But even then, I'm not entirely sure. Exploitable IPs that can easily be used to create and maintain interest is not something I'd associate with SONY.
Don't people use the exact opposite argument about Nintendo? That it is the strength of their first party and the amount of support that scares third parties away? Since they "can't compete". People look at open spots in the year where there aren't any Nintendo games as a place where third parties can shine.
To me the hardware maker has one obligation to third parties. Sale units of their hardware. That can be because of price, power, gimmicks, great games, etc. They just need to get as many people/families to own their hardware as possible.
The PSP has a lot better third party support in Japan where both the system and the games sale more.
To me the hardware maker has one obligation to third parties. Sale units of their hardware. That can be because of price, power, gimmicks, great games, etc. They just need to get as many people/families to own their hardware as possible.
Manufacturers don't just release a console into the wild and then hope for the best. Nintendo gets the benefit of pushing sales because of first party games, but that only goes so far.
Nintendo's strategy for the 64 and GC almost killed the company. The only reason their strategy is working now is because the Wii was a smash hit.
To me the hardware maker has one obligation to third parties. Sale units of their hardware. That can be because of price, power, gimmicks, great games, etc. They just need to get as many people/families to own their hardware as possible.
Manufacturers don't just release a console into the wild and then hope for the best. Nintendo gets the benefit of pushing sales because of first party games, but that only goes so far.
Nintendo's strategy for the 64 and GC almost killed the company. The only reason their strategy is working now is because the Wii was a smash hit.
I didn't say that they hope for the best. They use whatever strategies they deem necessary to sale more hardware.
The problem with the 64 and the GC is that they did not sale enough units. Had either of them matched the Playstation or PS2 history would have been much different.
To me the hardware maker has one obligation to third parties. Sale units of their hardware. That can be because of price, power, gimmicks, great games, etc. They just need to get as many people/families to own their hardware as possible.
Manufacturers don't just release a console into the wild and then hope for the best. Nintendo gets the benefit of pushing sales because of first party games, but that only goes so far.
Nintendo's strategy for the 64 and GC almost killed the company. The only reason their strategy is working now is because the Wii was a smash hit.
What exactly was Nintendo's strategy, you got me wondering if some perceive it different then I do or not.
I know with the 64 the biggest issue was the whole cart format plus Nintendo's unrelenting way to change.
As for the GC, I'm really not sure what they were trying to go for there. Especially with them making a small purple lunch box as people called it in the day, that seems to go against the thought they were trying to compete with the PS2 and Xbob though it could be blamed on the whole Japanese view as some have suggested.
Nintendo's strategy for the 64 and GC almost killed the company.
No. It didn't.
As for the GC, I'm really not sure what they were trying to go for there. Especially with them making a small purple lunch box as people called it in the day, that seems to go against the thought they were trying to compete with the PS2 and Xbob though it could be blamed on the whole Japanese view as some have suggested.
They hoped to appeal to developers with a fairly cheap game focused console rather than the more multimedia stuff like the PS2 and easier to develop for console. This was meant to be in contrast to the hard to develop for N64.
Nintendo's strategy for the 64 and GC almost killed the company. The only reason their strategy is working now is because the Wii was a smash hit.
Even if the N64 and GC had been big failures (they weren't; just less successful than the competition), Nintendo's thriving portable business would have been plenty to keep them afloat.
Nintendo's strategy for the 64 and GC almost killed the company. The only reason their strategy is working now is because the Wii was a smash hit.
Even if the N64 and GC had been big failures (they weren't; just less successful than the competition), Nintendo's thriving portable business would have been plenty to keep them afloat.
Didn't the GC and Xbox have nearly the same numbers? I remember reading they were pretty close.
And yeah no matter what even if the consoles weren't the massive hits they were profitable, back in those days I do recall how many said that Nintendo might just stay in the portable market considering how successful those were doing while dumping consoles.
There's the old gem that even though the Playstation absolutely raked the N64 over the coals, Nintendo still pulled in more total profit from that generation.
The GC/Xbox were essentially a permanent second place but it was fairly profitable for Nintendo, while the only month the OXbox division wasn't bleeding red was the month Halo 2 came out.
Nintendo's strategy for the 64 and GC almost killed the company. The only reason their strategy is working now is because the Wii was a smash hit.
Even if the N64 and GC had been big failures (they weren't; just less successful than the competition), Nintendo's thriving portable business would have been plenty to keep them afloat.
Didn't the GC and Xbox have nearly the same numbers? I remember reading they were pretty close.
The oXbox was a few million (2 or 3, I think) ahead. Not really a financial disaster for Nintendo, I'd say, but given that they were goddamn Nintendo, versus a newcomer whom literally everyone was going "DOOOOOOOMED!" for, and were selling the least expensive console of the cycle, I'd say it was a pretty big embarrassment in the end.
But not a financial disaster. Again, not an expert in this matter, just observing.
I remember hearing the main reason the N64 didn't use discs was because there was some weird legal issue due to the SNES-CD fallout that prevented them from making their own console that used CDs (which is why their only CD games are for another company's console). I don't know if it's true, it's just as likely Yamauchi was like "fuck I hate Sony so much our next console will not have a CD drive" and that was that.
And in regards to GC vs Xbox: with the GC from every console was sold at a profite (except for a small time right after it dropped to $99) and the Xbox was never sold at a profit and the losses are enough to eat up all (most? I don't have the numbers handy) of the profit from this generation.
I remember hearing lots of reasons why they didn't go with disc, what's true and not who can say.
Load times were the most common answer followed by piracy. Also supposedly they didn't want to pay anyone for any format they used and that they would need to do so with CD's at the time. Just as Mario 64 kind of had an impact on how the controller was designed (C buttons and all) it was also said to be one of the reasons since it just didn't run as well on CD as compared to a cartridge. Plus they were able to charge any third party that wanted to make games via cartridges and get more cash from them due to that which wouldn't necessary be the case with CD's.
I've said it before, but the weird lesson of the Gamecube is that low prices don't always equate to greater sales. Nintendo priced the cube aggressively from the get-go, and dropped it to $99 when the others were at $199. People just didn't want to buy it in great numbers, for whatever reason. I think that's one reason Sony will justify trying to sell the PSP2 for $Belgium. (Well, that, and because that's what Sony generally does.)
And Sony DID push the PSP... for about six months there two years ago with The Great Moneyhattening when Sony execs came out of the woodwork and said they were so excited about the PSP their pants were about to explode. But by then it was far too late for the PSP to really turn around. And after that six months were up they went back to largely ignoring it, aside from that stupid campaign with Marcus.
Are they still doing the Marcus thing, by the way?
cloudeagle on
Switch: 3947-4890-9293
0
KorKnown to detonate from time to timeRegistered Userregular
To me the hardware maker has one obligation to third parties. Sale units of their hardware. That can be because of price, power, gimmicks, great games, etc. They just need to get as many people/families to own their hardware as possible.
Manufacturers don't just release a console into the wild and then hope for the best. Nintendo gets the benefit of pushing sales because of first party games, but that only goes so far.
Nintendo's strategy for the 64 and GC almost killed the company. The only reason their strategy is working now is because the GameBoy line and in particular Pokemon was a smash hit.
The 3DS's battery life is the same as an iPhone playing games for the same amount of time. And real world performance will be higher than what Nintendo states (which is a safe number)
What does this mean?
Different iPhone games suck up different amounts of power
Playing Angry Birds will make my battery power last a lot longer than playing Infinity Blade
Posts
Pirates will just rent and rip the games to the ps3's hard drive.
Sony would also be concerned about any possibility of a remote atack that could be done to a unhacked PS3 now that the keys to the house have been given out and people are poking around under the couch. The system is probably quite safe from this but the risk is still there. Imagine the fallout if a bunch of peoples consoles were bricked or their credit card info stolen because someone found a backdoor into the system.
It probably doesn't help that the Wii port of Rock Band has always been half assed and that there's a mod out there that literally lets Wii players download songs from the Nintendo servers for free via the in-game store.
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/psp2-%E2%80%9Cas-powerful-as-ps3%E2%80%9D
As we all know by now, Moar Powarz = Top selling console/handheld.
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
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Wouldn't that rather be an odd case where piracy increases sales of the game? Sure, it hurts from the DLC sales perspective, but you'd have a higher install base at least.
The DLCless RB1 Wii outsold the 360 and PS3 versions.
Then the shitty port of RB2 happened with much delay, and Guitar Hero basically took over from there. Harmonix/EA basically blew their chance at taking off on Wii.
I'm a couple pages late to this, but I wanted to reiterate that there were no combined November/December sales. The NPD calendar is not equivalent to the normal calendar we use. The retail calendar is close, but not the same. It uses 4 or 5 week months (the last month of a quarter is 5 weeks, the other two are 4) that start on a Sunday and end on a Saturday. This way, when you're looking at year-over-year numbers, you can directly compare the numbers without worrying about things like a different number of weekend vs. weekdays skewing the results. It's still not perfect, particularly towards the holidays (the week following Black Friday sometimes ends up in November and sometimes December), but it's far better than using the traditional calendar. Epic Mickey came out in calendar November, but retail December. It's November sales were 0 because the game hadn't been released yet, so what you're seeing in those December numbers are from launch date forward.
It outsold the PS3 version, but I think the 360 version still had the highest total sales (this was also true for Rock Band 2, which Harmonix equally screwed up, launching the Wii version less than a week before Christmas and months after the HD releases). It wasn't until Rock Band 3 that Harmonix treated the Wii as an equal citizen, and by then the rhythm genre was in full contraction. In addition, the Guitar Hero franchise treated the Wii equally almost from the start (GH3 lacked DLC, but that was about the only thing it lacked) and sold incredibly well (as far as I know, the Wii version has been the top-selling SKU of every GH game starting with 3 and going forward). By the time RockBand caught up, GH was incredibly entrenched on the Wii and Harmonix was fighting an uphill battle to get anywhere.
I'll also point out that what's being killed on the Wii are the Rock Band Network indie DLC tracks. The full DLC isn't being affected. I suspect this is because the RBN stuff originates on the 360 and then has to be ported to the PS3 and Wii, and sales on the Wii don't justify this effort. In comparison, the full commercial DLC is probably developed in-house to be platform agnostic and can be converted automatically, so the Wii costs virtually nothing to support there.
I'm not sure why you're bringing up MW2 but I've had numerous rants about its stupidity in this thread. But I think the difference between it and Black Ops, is MW2 was quite obviously a bunch of scenarios tied together by a stupid story. Black Ops on the other hand was a stupid(er) story with a bunch of scenarios designed to fit within it. IW thus had a lot more freedom to design their scenarios (because they clearly didn't give a shit where things ended), add in IW more talented designers (otherwise Treyarch wouldn't need to constantly mimick their ideas) and you end up with two games that have shitty stories but only one that's actually fun.
As for the 'big three', even if you combined the best aspects of Black Ops and MoH, the result wouldn't be close to Bad Company 2. It's by far the superior game.
First parties are the ones that establish a direction for their platforms. Because really, if Sony is completely ignoring their own platform in favour another (the PS3), why should third parties or even the userbase care about it? Clearly Sony seemed to think the PS3 was the better platform, going by the fact that pretty much all of SCEA and SCEE's developers were working on PS3 games, while the PSP got some spinoffs to established titles, often developed by external teams (which only really worked well in the case of Ready at Dawn). And then you look at their E3 conferences and the PSP constantly received not much more than a cameo before the PS3 threw it off the stage. SCEA even contributed to the PSP->PS2 porting, bringing R&C Size Matters and the Syphon Filter's over to it. I don't think I've ever seen such horrendous support for a platform.
The PS3 on the other hand, is supported incredibly well by Sony on the software side (OS and marketing are a bit iffy but eh), the install base between it and the 360 has narrowed to just a million or two, software sales are only growing (even though piracy has been possible since June) and third parties haven't shown any sign of going anywhere. So no, it really isn't even comparable to the PSP. This generation will end long before piracy manages to somehow dry up PS3 support. And even if it somehow did happen, it would drag the 360 down with it. Third parties are barely sustaining themselves with a combined ~100 million userbase, let alone half that.
Maybe in terms of multiplayer, but the campaign in BFBC2 is pretty laughable and downright unfun at times. It's actually funny how cookie cutter it became after the success of CoD4. The first Bad Company had a quirky charm to it. BC2 has only dashes of it wrapped around what is a melodramatic campaign with sections that out stay their welcome. I would hope they go back to being like the first but they might have already pigeon holed themselves into a way more generic story.
I doubt it's the cost to convert the files. It's going to be the costs involved in negotiating with bands to get the rights to use the converted tracks in other consoles (lawyer fees aren't cheap) and then the cost to maintain the payment schedules for disbursements.
On the 360, the whole thing is about 95% hands off after the rules HMX sets forth.
The only people who think that all DLC support will be cut are people who probably jump at their own shadow.
Although the PS3 has been Sony's focus of late, they've hardly completely ignored the PSP. Several of the system's best games were developed or published by Sony - the LocoRoco, Patapon, and Wipeout series and Jeanne d'Arc just to name a few.
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I'm pretty sure the creator of the hardware has the ability to make quality games for it. But the question is whether their commitment to it is high enough to encourage third-parties to also make quality games for it.
I would think that probably only Nintendo could get away with that. But even then, I'm not entirely sure. Exploitable IPs that can easily be used to create and maintain interest is not something I'd associate with SONY.
Of late? Did you miss the first 4 or 5 years of the PSP's life? It was overshadowed by the PS3 almost immediately. Look at the E3 conferences from back then, look at the software support and look how long it took them to set up an adequate PS Store on it (2 years before the PSN existed, 2 further years before it was added to the PSP). Like I'm sure I've said a few times before, it was the red headed stepchild of the family.
As for the software, that is why I specifically said SCEA and SCEE, because three of those games had nothing to do with them outside of localization (except for Jeanne d'Arc, it never had a PAL release). Besides, I never said they didn't make good games for it anyway, I like a number of Sony's PSP games, I was saying that the PSP mostly got the leftovers (Wipeout, Syphon Filter and lots of spinoffs), while pretty much all their top talent (Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, etc) and important series were strictly for the PS3.
Yeah I'm not buying it as powerful as a PS3, they always tend to say the systems are much more powerful then they really are to begin with. I'm still waiting on the Ultra 64 being capable of rendering real life Robocop games and awesome Macross/Robotech ones. No doubt whatever portable system will indeed be powerful by Sony for their next one however we already see how much the whole 3D thing drains the 3DS batteries so damn quick, anything more powerful would be even worse. And people use to complain about the PSP battery enough in the past alone.
Don't people use the exact opposite argument about Nintendo? That it is the strength of their first party and the amount of support that scares third parties away? Since they "can't compete". People look at open spots in the year where there aren't any Nintendo games as a place where third parties can shine.
To me the hardware maker has one obligation to third parties. Sale units of their hardware. That can be because of price, power, gimmicks, great games, etc. They just need to get as many people/families to own their hardware as possible.
The PSP has a lot better third party support in Japan where both the system and the games sale more.
Manufacturers don't just release a console into the wild and then hope for the best. Nintendo gets the benefit of pushing sales because of first party games, but that only goes so far.
Nintendo's strategy for the 64 and GC almost killed the company. The only reason their strategy is working now is because the Wii was a smash hit.
I didn't say that they hope for the best. They use whatever strategies they deem necessary to sale more hardware.
The problem with the 64 and the GC is that they did not sale enough units. Had either of them matched the Playstation or PS2 history would have been much different.
What exactly was Nintendo's strategy, you got me wondering if some perceive it different then I do or not.
I know with the 64 the biggest issue was the whole cart format plus Nintendo's unrelenting way to change.
As for the GC, I'm really not sure what they were trying to go for there. Especially with them making a small purple lunch box as people called it in the day, that seems to go against the thought they were trying to compete with the PS2 and Xbob though it could be blamed on the whole Japanese view as some have suggested.
They hoped to appeal to developers with a fairly cheap game focused console rather than the more multimedia stuff like the PS2 and easier to develop for console. This was meant to be in contrast to the hard to develop for N64.
Even if the N64 and GC had been big failures (they weren't; just less successful than the competition), Nintendo's thriving portable business would have been plenty to keep them afloat.
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Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
Didn't the GC and Xbox have nearly the same numbers? I remember reading they were pretty close.
And yeah no matter what even if the consoles weren't the massive hits they were profitable, back in those days I do recall how many said that Nintendo might just stay in the portable market considering how successful those were doing while dumping consoles.
The GC/Xbox were essentially a permanent second place but it was fairly profitable for Nintendo, while the only month the OXbox division wasn't bleeding red was the month Halo 2 came out.
The oXbox was a few million (2 or 3, I think) ahead. Not really a financial disaster for Nintendo, I'd say, but given that they were goddamn Nintendo, versus a newcomer whom literally everyone was going "DOOOOOOOMED!" for, and were selling the least expensive console of the cycle, I'd say it was a pretty big embarrassment in the end.
But not a financial disaster. Again, not an expert in this matter, just observing.
And in regards to GC vs Xbox: with the GC from every console was sold at a profite (except for a small time right after it dropped to $99) and the Xbox was never sold at a profit and the losses are enough to eat up all (most? I don't have the numbers handy) of the profit from this generation.
Load times were the most common answer followed by piracy. Also supposedly they didn't want to pay anyone for any format they used and that they would need to do so with CD's at the time. Just as Mario 64 kind of had an impact on how the controller was designed (C buttons and all) it was also said to be one of the reasons since it just didn't run as well on CD as compared to a cartridge. Plus they were able to charge any third party that wanted to make games via cartridges and get more cash from them due to that which wouldn't necessary be the case with CD's.
And Sony DID push the PSP... for about six months there two years ago with The Great Moneyhattening when Sony execs came out of the woodwork and said they were so excited about the PSP their pants were about to explode. But by then it was far too late for the PSP to really turn around. And after that six months were up they went back to largely ignoring it, aside from that stupid campaign with Marcus.
Are they still doing the Marcus thing, by the way?
I wondered the same thing when I saw him on 30Rock the other day playing a DS.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
You see more Kevin Butler ads but Marcus? Nope.
Marcus isn't.
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
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fixed that for you there
Pretty sure Marcus wasn't made to be funny though, he was the hardcore cool kid with attitude.
Oddly enough you know he would have been very popular in the 90's as Sega's front man pimping Sonic.
What does this mean?
Different iPhone games suck up different amounts of power
Playing Angry Birds will make my battery power last a lot longer than playing Infinity Blade
Did that actually happen?
That seems like exactly the awesome kind of thing 30 Rock would do. I really need to catch up on seasons four and five.
I just watched season 3 on netflix, so it's somewhere in there. I think it was the vasectomy episode.
edit: For the record, he plays Tracy Jr.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
Oddly enough they put a Marcus-free Invisimals trailer on there in November, so yeah, it's looking like Marcus got chucked. Finally.