Hi and welcome to the Video Game Industry Thread, a place for discussing the business side of the games market. This includes sales figures, happenings with publishers and developers, goings-on with important people in the business, interesting development trends and similar things.
To keep things civil, informative and (most importantly) unlocked, here's some mod-enforced guidelines:
- Stay on topic. Don't just randomly chat about your day, don't post things that are just stupid images or memes, and don't get too distracted by talking about how much you personally think Game X is awesome or sucks. Though pointing out a game sucks due to publisher mistreatment during the development process and sold horribly as a result is fair game.
- No System Warzz. This includes keeping calm in the face of bad news. Just because someone points out that a system/game sells horribly doesn't mean he's saying it's poop from a butt. Sometimes great stuff doesn't sell; this is the nature of the beast.
- No posting random fluff articles. We don't care about poorly thought-out lists or gaming sites doing reviews of cheezy poofs, or how awful those articles are. We're not really the general games journalism thread, except for big stuff like publications going out of business or getting sued.
- Don't cite VGChartz. Ever. They literally make shit up. Read more here.
- NEW:Take care when citing Forbes blogs. Yes, Forbes the magazine is a highly respected business publication. But Forbes blogs are completely different -- they'll allow any gibbering diseased simian that can pound on a keyboard to contribute, and it's quickly become legendary for garbage. So if you see an article saying stuff like "Sony will kill the PlayStation division next month!" don't assume it's likely true because it has the respected Forbes name attached to it.
That said, have fun! We ain't stodgy accountants.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/japanese-wii-u-sales-fall-behind-playstation-vita/0111547
Nintendo’s Wii U failed to outsell Sony’s struggling PlayStation Vita in Japan last week.
The news is a big blow for the machine that initially started strongly in Japan, although sales have now significantly tailed off.
Media Create numbers reported by Eurogamer show that Nintendo’s machine sold just 9,633 units last week – somewhat short of Vita’s 11,456 unit sales, although that is Vita’s best performance for a while.
Note too that Sony slashes the price of the handheld this week, meaning a spike is likely in next week’s numbers.
PS3 sales last week hit 18,529 units while the mighty 3Ds shifted an impressive 74,729.
Last thread and December NPD:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/172172/industry-thread-impossible-games-sets-the-speed-record-for-studio-closure/p1
Posts
Does it feel like being called up to the big leagues?
More like being the stripper being pointed at from across the room by the fat dude in the corner.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Ahem. So there's a Gamasutra article out on the rough times Nintendo's heading into. You're probably aware of most of the stuff that's listed, but this chart was particularly eye-opening:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/186368/Nintendos_hard_path_to_thirdparty_support_in_2013.php#.URqjZWdR3To
Admittedly the Wii was winding down in 2012 and the Wii U was just out for a month and a half, but still: yikes.
Also, great googly moogly mobile's taking off.
It broke hearts man, it broke hearts.
There's already some word out that Gearbox didn't do the main campaign, and outsourced it to some guys with a baaad track record, but that's from an anonymous disrguntled source, so.
Remember that this thread is only about the money, much like real life. Posts about a dev saying stupid shit, announcing new games, and so forth really don't fall under this thread. There CAN be exceptions, like a failing company throwing out a weird, unexpected sequel as a hail mary pass to stave off bankruptcy, but use discretion.
This is not a catch-all thread for gaming news.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
Well, financials and stuff too. But not random non-important game announcements.
All about if people even want new consoles, used game market and more too.
It's actually the style of D&D Chat Thread making. Mod locks it, and declares who makes the next one with a backup thread-maker.
It doesn't surprise me. Electronic Arts is probably against the concept of backwards compatibility because it's an obstacle to selling people games they already own again. That's not me being snarky or anything, I mean really, that's the thing to try to do, right?
I agree with the logic to an extent, but these threads have never been in danger of hitting 100 pages daily or even weekly. Is it a burden to recycle the thread once a month?
I always thought a thread for an entire month wasn't a bad idea (Unless it does go over 100 pages). That way we can have them all in order if you needed to go look something up for a specific month.
...then again I made a thread special for the L.A. Noire gag reel that was able to be made in a day and its exciting suggestions for the increasing ease and future of motion capture, and it got all of two replies before fading into oblivion. So I dunno.
Whoa man.. Somebody asked a question and I answered it. No need to get moderator-y about it. Nobody was complaining.
I still think my "Collections will be the new HD release" theory for the next generation will turn out to be true. We'll have things like "The Dead Space Ultimate Terror Collection". Dead Spaces 1-3 in one package with maybe some kind of additional content.
HD re-releases I can see being a valuable thing to consumers when there's a couple generations' worth of gap. But going from console to console is literally a nickel & dimed version of the concept and I'm pretty sure people will resent the publishers while still paying the money for it. It's a means of monetizing the lack of backward compatibility. So why not take it (on the business-end's part)?
The problem, obviously, is not all products are equal. HD reprints aren't universally applied. People will have stacks of games no longer playable when their hardware for it fails and the manufacturers discontinued the support.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sDW-5b5abk
XBL, Steam & Tribes: elmartino333
I wonder if they can do a 3DS-style emergency price cut twice, since the first time lead to a year of losses.
They could afford to cut 3DS's price, they can't afford to do the same for Wii U.
Unlike Vita they've got known software coming. Like I said earlier, we get to see here what 3DS may have been like without the price cut.
"Just cut the 3DS price again, that worked last time"
Iwata basically said he'll quit if they aren't profitable again. A price cut might move units to set up future profitability, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards this year.
That said, a lot is going to depend on what Sony and Microsoft do. Nintendo might be forced to do something drastic if they want to keep investors happy.
Nintendo Network ID - PirateLuigi 3DS: 3136-6586-7691
G&T Grass Type Pokemon Gym Leader, In-Game Name: Dan
Oh, I like the idea too. I didnt mean to imply I thought it was shady.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Oh yea, I was just kinda rambling about it in general. I've seen some people be like RABBLERABBLE CHEAP CASH GRAB RABBLERABBLE about it though which I really don't get.
Because then when Gamestop gets flooded with copies of Madden XX once Madden XX+1 comes out, people will still be forced to buy Madden XX+1 instead of just staying a year behind the series and playing the games for like 5 bucks.
Something about those numbers feels off. All I've heard about for the last few months is how the gaming industry's year over year sales have been down by 20-25%, and yet those numbers show a growth of 3 billion for each player except Nintendo. I'm not usually one to question Gamasutra, but.. like I said, something's not jiving.
Meanwhile, after years of cutting back, Microsoft is finally adding a studio for Xbox development!
...don't get excited.
http://mashable.com/2013/02/11/microsoft-la-studios-xobox/
Man, Microsoft is going bonkers for streaming content for Xbox.