Curmudgeon Gamer
14 May 2007
GameDaily: How Microsoft can win (if by win you mean lose)
I think you can rightly accuse me of being an occasional ivory tower pundit, but even I can see that this tripe from GameDaily is, well, tripe. Apparently Microsoft can take five steps to a definitive lead over Sony and Nintendo, and those steps can be summed up as "Lose money on everything."
The steps are:
They are not going to give up on making a profit -- I just don't think the company or shareholders are prepared to see another year or two of massive losses in the Xbox venture. They're not going to discount the one game that every owner -- or prospective owner -- will happily pay $60+ for this holiday season. They're not going to kill the Xbox Live goose which keeps laying those golden eggs. So far Microsoft hasn't shown the best judgment when it comes to buying studios (although Bungie turned out well), and the age of buying exclusive games has passed for now. More likely is that Microsoft should pay for exclusive bonuses for their version of a cross-platform game -- and that should be a lot cheaper than buying the whole game outright.
I understand the usual argument is that Microsoft can afford to lose money hand over fist, but does anyone really think that this reckless strategy is sound? Other than GameDaily, of course.
The steps are:
- Slash the price (i.e. lose money)
- Bundle Halo 3 for Holiday '07 (i.e. lose money)
- Make Xbox Live free (i.e. lose money)
- Acquire more studios, pay for exclusives (i.e. gamble)
- Enter the kiddie game market (i.e. go up against Nintendo on its own turf)
They are not going to give up on making a profit -- I just don't think the company or shareholders are prepared to see another year or two of massive losses in the Xbox venture. They're not going to discount the one game that every owner -- or prospective owner -- will happily pay $60+ for this holiday season. They're not going to kill the Xbox Live goose which keeps laying those golden eggs. So far Microsoft hasn't shown the best judgment when it comes to buying studios (although Bungie turned out well), and the age of buying exclusive games has passed for now. More likely is that Microsoft should pay for exclusive bonuses for their version of a cross-platform game -- and that should be a lot cheaper than buying the whole game outright.
I understand the usual argument is that Microsoft can afford to lose money hand over fist, but does anyone really think that this reckless strategy is sound? Other than GameDaily, of course.
Labels: business, microsoft, nintendo, sony, xbox360, xboxlive
--jvm at 21:27
Comment
[ 9 ]
30 April 2007
360 Elite Has Issues.
In what should be received with little to no surprise by anyone, we're starting to see reports that the Xbox 360 Elite is (allegedly) the same clumsy old accident-prone oaf cheekily stuffed into sexy black casing. I can believe this, for various reasons, but mostly because it conforms to my cynical tendencies and a rather drab and pessimistic view on Microsoft's business practice.
Of course, the Elite is an SKU that has divided opinion since it was announced (a brief perusal of the comments attached to my last post about it should act as a friendly microcosm) and for a while - at least in my mind - there was hope that the hardware revisions were going to cut down on the allegedly extreme failure rates experienced by various poor 360 owners. To be fair, I think it's safe to say that it's far too soon to take these reports as definite, as no launch these days is perfect and various units will inevitably break down within the first few days. As things pan out, we might start to see that the Elite actually fails less then the current Premium. It could really go either way.
Yet, news like this can hardly help matters. I've said it before, but I still breathe a little sigh of relief every time I turn my 360 on and it doesn't break. I think it's safe to say that this isn't damaging to Microsoft's sales figures, or the success of the 360 as a whole, but it would certainly cheer up cynical and fearful owners like myself. First impressions are vital, as Sony will tell you after last years E3, and if the opinion of the internet cronies is that the machine is unreliable then it'll probably stick. The curmudgeons are not a significant part of the sales market, but keeping the fans on your good side can't be a bad idea for an industry that relies, far too often, on hype and fanaticism to get its sales.
Of course, the Elite is an SKU that has divided opinion since it was announced (a brief perusal of the comments attached to my last post about it should act as a friendly microcosm) and for a while - at least in my mind - there was hope that the hardware revisions were going to cut down on the allegedly extreme failure rates experienced by various poor 360 owners. To be fair, I think it's safe to say that it's far too soon to take these reports as definite, as no launch these days is perfect and various units will inevitably break down within the first few days. As things pan out, we might start to see that the Elite actually fails less then the current Premium. It could really go either way.
Yet, news like this can hardly help matters. I've said it before, but I still breathe a little sigh of relief every time I turn my 360 on and it doesn't break. I think it's safe to say that this isn't damaging to Microsoft's sales figures, or the success of the 360 as a whole, but it would certainly cheer up cynical and fearful owners like myself. First impressions are vital, as Sony will tell you after last years E3, and if the opinion of the internet cronies is that the machine is unreliable then it'll probably stick. The curmudgeons are not a significant part of the sales market, but keeping the fans on your good side can't be a bad idea for an industry that relies, far too often, on hype and fanaticism to get its sales.
--Martin at 11:58
Comment
[ 0 ]
17 April 2007
Gates: No strategy for a console (in 1996)
While I'm recovering use of my thumb, I've been doing some reading. I ran across this fun bit in a Next Generation interview with Bill Gates from June 1996.
We don't have a strategy to do a $200 game console that is a direct competitor to what Nintendo, Sega, and Sony are doing, and our business model isn't to charge software developers money. So if you compare a Nintendo game, where you've got to have that big ROM that's very expensive and pay a royalty, versus a CD-ROM on the PC, where there's a zero royalty, it's quite different.Just over a decade later and:
- Microsoft has released two consoles, one of which essentially was a Windows PC.
- Microsoft charges to develop for and publish on those consoles.
NG: So are the games Microsoft is developing primarily designed to showcase Windows 95?
Bill: No, it's to make money.
Labels: history, interviews, microsoft, xbox, xbox360
--jvm at 22:42
Comment
[ 10 ]
07 March 2007
Shivering Isles on Xbox Marketplace
The quick two month wait for Oblivion expansion Shivering Isles is over. The game will be released on March 27th for download through the 360's Xbox Live Marketplace, or as a physical, retail product on Windows. Gamespot says:
Then, to add insult to injury, the PC version will be reduced to $15 within a year and the 360 version will still be $30. Bethesda are infamous for squeezing every last cent of profit out of Oblivion, so this comes as no surprise. But, still, they could have at least knocked $5 off. Other than "because people will pay", Bethesda have no justification for the equal prices.
I disagree with Greg Costikyan's notion that the fixed price of online distribution is justifiable because games don't spoil, as it's counter-intuitive to the joy of trawling through rows of games and the sense of sheer euphoria when you do a bit of bargain hunting. Online distribution never has a sale, and is loathe to knocking a few bucks off its prices. These long-term issues will develop over time. The problem right now is that is that 360 owners are expected to pay the same for a delivery system that adds more hassle. Every megabyte of bandwidth, at least with the system of imposed monthly limits which proliferate almost all UK ISP's, costs the customer. There's an extra cost in time from downloading the game and, while I could probably get the game a few hours sooner if I obtained it through the Marketplace, I might just as easily spend those hours in luxury, waiting for the postman to deliver the game whilst using that precious bandwidth to play Worms online. Bethesda is, once again, using 360 owners. And we're all just going to sit back and let them do it.
Shivering Isles will be available "everywhere" for the PC and downloadable through Xbox Live on March 27, according to executive producer Todd Howard. The PC edition of the expansion can be purchased at retailers for $30, while Xbox 360 players will have to download it from the Xbox Live Marketplace for 2400 Microsoft Points ($30).I've been sceptical about Shivering Isles for a while, since it was announced that it was going download-only for the 360. This makes sense on some levels, but my assumption was that a digital product would cost less than a retail one. The PC gamers get to experience the joy of owning an actual product, complete with shiny, enticing jewel case, manual and disc and 360 owners get to pay the same price to spend extra time downloading it?
Then, to add insult to injury, the PC version will be reduced to $15 within a year and the 360 version will still be $30. Bethesda are infamous for squeezing every last cent of profit out of Oblivion, so this comes as no surprise. But, still, they could have at least knocked $5 off. Other than "because people will pay", Bethesda have no justification for the equal prices.
I disagree with Greg Costikyan's notion that the fixed price of online distribution is justifiable because games don't spoil, as it's counter-intuitive to the joy of trawling through rows of games and the sense of sheer euphoria when you do a bit of bargain hunting. Online distribution never has a sale, and is loathe to knocking a few bucks off its prices. These long-term issues will develop over time. The problem right now is that is that 360 owners are expected to pay the same for a delivery system that adds more hassle. Every megabyte of bandwidth, at least with the system of imposed monthly limits which proliferate almost all UK ISP's, costs the customer. There's an extra cost in time from downloading the game and, while I could probably get the game a few hours sooner if I obtained it through the Marketplace, I might just as easily spend those hours in luxury, waiting for the postman to deliver the game whilst using that precious bandwidth to play Worms online. Bethesda is, once again, using 360 owners. And we're all just going to sit back and let them do it.
--Martin at 21:42
Comment
[ 2 ]
06 March 2007
Microsoft's XNA Dream-Build-Play Contest
A week after flash-gamed-turned-real-game Alien Hominid HD was released on XBLA, Microsoft announce that they're running an XNA game design competition for budding developers. Coincidental? Probably not.
The way I see it, Alien Hominid HD has set a precedent. It's living proof that independent games developers can get ahead with Microsoft. While the game has been around since its Flash game prototype in 2002, the original console release in 2005 was virtually impossible to acquire in stores (I certainly didn't spot one) and this re-release on XBLA gives it the potential to reach a very significant audience, many of whom are more than likely prepared to drop 800 Microsoft points for it.
This ties in well with XBLA itself; it really needs more indie games. Josh over at Cathode Tan has an article up about what the XNA competition might mean for developers, and that's well worth a read, but this should also affect gamers. People are going on the record stating how digital distribution is becoming the only real way for independent developers and Microsoft should really be listening to this. Seriously listening, not just running a little competition for good PR.
Microsoft have people eating out of their hands right now when it comes to XBLA: a mere mention of the notion of porting some classic game over (no matter how much of an April Fools it's likely to turn out to be) is enough to satiate our lust for speculation. Clever independent games would be a godsend, certainly beating seemingly endless reams of arguably lousy retro titles, hastily updated with HD graphics. The mistake Microsoft are making with the XNA competition is saying how only one game will get released on XBLA. They should be more accommodating: it should be many games.
Imagine a year where something unique is released every other week. It would be incredible. Alien Hominid is a start, but it's an update of a game that's already been released twice. Original, new, independent games would be a great way forward. Quality isn't exactly an issue: if people are prepared to pay for Time Pilot and Root Beer Tapper they're probably willing to buy whatever Microsoft decide to sell. It would turn XBLA into a varied, interesting distribution platform instead of a retro dumping ground with the occasional decent title.
The way I see it, Alien Hominid HD has set a precedent. It's living proof that independent games developers can get ahead with Microsoft. While the game has been around since its Flash game prototype in 2002, the original console release in 2005 was virtually impossible to acquire in stores (I certainly didn't spot one) and this re-release on XBLA gives it the potential to reach a very significant audience, many of whom are more than likely prepared to drop 800 Microsoft points for it.
This ties in well with XBLA itself; it really needs more indie games. Josh over at Cathode Tan has an article up about what the XNA competition might mean for developers, and that's well worth a read, but this should also affect gamers. People are going on the record stating how digital distribution is becoming the only real way for independent developers and Microsoft should really be listening to this. Seriously listening, not just running a little competition for good PR.
Microsoft have people eating out of their hands right now when it comes to XBLA: a mere mention of the notion of porting some classic game over (no matter how much of an April Fools it's likely to turn out to be) is enough to satiate our lust for speculation. Clever independent games would be a godsend, certainly beating seemingly endless reams of arguably lousy retro titles, hastily updated with HD graphics. The mistake Microsoft are making with the XNA competition is saying how only one game will get released on XBLA. They should be more accommodating: it should be many games.
Imagine a year where something unique is released every other week. It would be incredible. Alien Hominid is a start, but it's an update of a game that's already been released twice. Original, new, independent games would be a great way forward. Quality isn't exactly an issue: if people are prepared to pay for Time Pilot and Root Beer Tapper they're probably willing to buy whatever Microsoft decide to sell. It would turn XBLA into a varied, interesting distribution platform instead of a retro dumping ground with the occasional decent title.
--Martin at 20:52
Comment
[ 2 ]
04 March 2007
Online game servers going dark all over
Almost exactly four years ago I warned this was coming. I said that one key difference between Twisted Metal Black: Online and SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs was the existence of a LAN mode in the former and not in the latter. Now more and more online games are shutting down and some game functionality will be lost forever.
The latest casualties are:
Which makes me wonder how much thought goes into these shutdowns. In particular, companies talk of cultivating online communities of fans and the economic advantages of having such groups identifying with a game and the company behind the game. Taking these ideas at face value, it must take some serious financial advantage to disrupt those communities.
Which means the communities are tiny. Of course, I knew that. Back when I tried to play Twisted Metal Black: Online in 2003, few people playing online. And when I played Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast recently, there wasn't even a single other player to be found online. I suspect the same is essentially true about MGS3 and Resident Evil Outbreak, in that the true number of people who will care is small enough to ignore.
Which leads me to wish that more games were like Daytona USA: CCE for the Sega Saturn and Netlink: player-to-player online modes. I believe that Ruffin and I could still play that game right now (as we once did, long distance across state lines) as it only depends on a Saturn, a game disc, a Netlink, and a phone line. I suppose with cell phones overtaking land lines, it might soon be difficult to do even that much. Ah well, I'm committed to being perpetually in the minority.
The latest casualties are:
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2)
- Resident Evil Outbreak: Files #1 & #2 (PS2) [as seen on NeoGAF; note: DO NOT visit later pages in that thread, they've been hacked to take over your browser with some nasty stuff; you've been warned]
- Phantasy Star Online Episodes I & II (Xbox)
Which makes me wonder how much thought goes into these shutdowns. In particular, companies talk of cultivating online communities of fans and the economic advantages of having such groups identifying with a game and the company behind the game. Taking these ideas at face value, it must take some serious financial advantage to disrupt those communities.
Which means the communities are tiny. Of course, I knew that. Back when I tried to play Twisted Metal Black: Online in 2003, few people playing online. And when I played Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast recently, there wasn't even a single other player to be found online. I suspect the same is essentially true about MGS3 and Resident Evil Outbreak, in that the true number of people who will care is small enough to ignore.
Which leads me to wish that more games were like Daytona USA: CCE for the Sega Saturn and Netlink: player-to-player online modes. I believe that Ruffin and I could still play that game right now (as we once did, long distance across state lines) as it only depends on a Saturn, a game disc, a Netlink, and a phone line. I suppose with cell phones overtaking land lines, it might soon be difficult to do even that much. Ah well, I'm committed to being perpetually in the minority.
--jvm at 21:55
Comment
[ 6 ]
02 March 2007
Xbox is the new PlayStation
By now most of the videogame industry has realized that the Xbox 360 is the new PlayStation 2. What many have yet to comprehend, however, is that Sony is perfectly happy to let that happen.
Seeds of this Generation
Go back to the launch of the Xbox and GameCube back in 2001. The first console generation of the 21st century had completely launched and Sony was building its commanding lead. The seeds of our current generation -- Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3 -- were sown then and are just now beginning to bear fruit.
Microsoft covets that role for its Xbox 360, and it will have it. Sony is willingly giving up. Like the PlayStation 2 before, it will offer thousands of games, from dreck to art, from cross-platform million-sellers to unique third-party exclusives. Only, there won't be as many of that last group -- the unique third-party exclusives -- much to Microsoft's dismay.
Sony's Gambit: First-Party Power
This is Sony's vision for the PlayStation 3: a powerful multi-use system headlined by huge first-party exclusives, bolstered by big-name cross-platform titles. They want their first-party games to be to their console what the Spider-man movies have been to their movie business. They want to diminish the role of the cheaper, lesser games that plagued its PSOne and PlayStation 2. They want you to think premium cable, only for videogames.
From that perspective Sony's apparent indifference to exclusivity for games like Grand Theft Auto 4, Assassin's Creed, Virtua Fighter 5 makes a lot more sense. Sony expects publishers and developers to feel obligated to make those big games for PlayStation 3, along with other platforms. Indeed, to maximize profits, publishers will need to bring those games to several platforms, and the Wii isn't even in the running. Eventually developers will tame the Cell, out of necessity, and Sony will have its sufficient software base.
As the importance of third-party exclusives diminishes, and cross-platform games become the norm, the first-party offerings will be the key to attracting consumers. And that is Sony's ace.
Phil Harrison recently explained exactly this to The Guardian: "[Developing new titles in-house is] absolutely the strategy. When we launched the PlayStation, there were no accompanying games developed by Sony. When we launched the PlayStation 2, there was one: Fantavision, which, beautiful game though it was, was no game on which to launch a platform. But the PS3 will launch with more exclusive, high-quality games from our studios than we've ever done before."
As reported by Screen Digest in late February, Sony's internal studios have more than 2.5 times the manpower of Microsoft's studios. In fact, Sony has more studio staff than Nintendo and Microsoft combined. If cross-platform exclusives are taken for granted, then Sony is in a far stronger position than Microsoft to define its platform with unique software. Killzone 2, Warhawk, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune -- these are but the beginning for Sony and their stable of developers. Microsoft had its year to set the standard for next-generation games with the likes of Gears of War, but from this point forward Sony intends to define the standard for which everyone else strives. It is the quality Sony hopes to achieve with software, the exceptional experience that they intend to offer, that justifies the high price of entry that the PlayStation 3 commands.
Incidentally, Sony isn't shutting out smaller games on the PlayStation 3 altogether. Lesser games, by developers big and small, will find room not on store shelves but on Sony's PlayStation Network as low-cost downloads. Think of it as one more step toward Phil Harrison's dream of disc-less PlayStation 4. And as can happen on Xbox Live Arcade, developers will perform an end run around the big publishers, something they all want to do.
The Stakes
In about a year's time we should have an idea of whether Sony's plans are going to pay off. Sony's initial crop of big-budget first-party games should have had a chance with reviewers and consumers. Europe's reception of the PlayStation 3 will have been assessed, and the viability of a $600 console will have been determined. This has to be the year of the PlayStation 3, or Sony will have a grim five years burning money to support a product few people wanted.
The greatest risk right now is that frustrated third parties could balk at the abstruse Cell architecture and the Blu-Ray data transfer issues and start handing exclusives to Microsoft. The added Xbox 360 momentum could create the positive feedback loop that sold more than 100 million PlayStation 2 consoles. If that happens, Sony would have handed Microsoft the keys to the kingdom on a silver platter.
Seeds of this Generation
Go back to the launch of the Xbox and GameCube back in 2001. The first console generation of the 21st century had completely launched and Sony was building its commanding lead. The seeds of our current generation -- Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3 -- were sown then and are just now beginning to bear fruit.
- The original Xbox attracted developers with its easy-to-use tools and integrated online services. Despite the change in machine architecture and continuing subscription costs for consumers, the Xbox 360 is lauded for improving on the gold standard its predecessor set for developers and online consumers.
- The GameCube played host to Nintendo's first party games, nontraditional games like Animal Crossing, and experimental controls like the Donkey Konga bongos and the Odama microphone. The Wii got a Zelda game at launch, packed in the crowd favorite Wii Sports, and would be nothing without its remarkable Wii controller.
- The PlayStation 2 puzzled developers with its non-standard architecture and primitive toolchain, leaving them to make of it what they could. The PlayStation 3 and its Cell architecture are even more unusual than the PS2, and developers are striving to understand its strengths and limitations.
Microsoft covets that role for its Xbox 360, and it will have it. Sony is willingly giving up. Like the PlayStation 2 before, it will offer thousands of games, from dreck to art, from cross-platform million-sellers to unique third-party exclusives. Only, there won't be as many of that last group -- the unique third-party exclusives -- much to Microsoft's dismay.
Sony's Gambit: First-Party Power
This is Sony's vision for the PlayStation 3: a powerful multi-use system headlined by huge first-party exclusives, bolstered by big-name cross-platform titles. They want their first-party games to be to their console what the Spider-man movies have been to their movie business. They want to diminish the role of the cheaper, lesser games that plagued its PSOne and PlayStation 2. They want you to think premium cable, only for videogames.
From that perspective Sony's apparent indifference to exclusivity for games like Grand Theft Auto 4, Assassin's Creed, Virtua Fighter 5 makes a lot more sense. Sony expects publishers and developers to feel obligated to make those big games for PlayStation 3, along with other platforms. Indeed, to maximize profits, publishers will need to bring those games to several platforms, and the Wii isn't even in the running. Eventually developers will tame the Cell, out of necessity, and Sony will have its sufficient software base.
As the importance of third-party exclusives diminishes, and cross-platform games become the norm, the first-party offerings will be the key to attracting consumers. And that is Sony's ace.
Phil Harrison recently explained exactly this to The Guardian: "[Developing new titles in-house is] absolutely the strategy. When we launched the PlayStation, there were no accompanying games developed by Sony. When we launched the PlayStation 2, there was one: Fantavision, which, beautiful game though it was, was no game on which to launch a platform. But the PS3 will launch with more exclusive, high-quality games from our studios than we've ever done before."
As reported by Screen Digest in late February, Sony's internal studios have more than 2.5 times the manpower of Microsoft's studios. In fact, Sony has more studio staff than Nintendo and Microsoft combined. If cross-platform exclusives are taken for granted, then Sony is in a far stronger position than Microsoft to define its platform with unique software. Killzone 2, Warhawk, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune -- these are but the beginning for Sony and their stable of developers. Microsoft had its year to set the standard for next-generation games with the likes of Gears of War, but from this point forward Sony intends to define the standard for which everyone else strives. It is the quality Sony hopes to achieve with software, the exceptional experience that they intend to offer, that justifies the high price of entry that the PlayStation 3 commands.
Incidentally, Sony isn't shutting out smaller games on the PlayStation 3 altogether. Lesser games, by developers big and small, will find room not on store shelves but on Sony's PlayStation Network as low-cost downloads. Think of it as one more step toward Phil Harrison's dream of disc-less PlayStation 4. And as can happen on Xbox Live Arcade, developers will perform an end run around the big publishers, something they all want to do.
The Stakes
In about a year's time we should have an idea of whether Sony's plans are going to pay off. Sony's initial crop of big-budget first-party games should have had a chance with reviewers and consumers. Europe's reception of the PlayStation 3 will have been assessed, and the viability of a $600 console will have been determined. This has to be the year of the PlayStation 3, or Sony will have a grim five years burning money to support a product few people wanted.
The greatest risk right now is that frustrated third parties could balk at the abstruse Cell architecture and the Blu-Ray data transfer issues and start handing exclusives to Microsoft. The added Xbox 360 momentum could create the positive feedback loop that sold more than 100 million PlayStation 2 consoles. If that happens, Sony would have handed Microsoft the keys to the kingdom on a silver platter.
--jvm at 05:39
Comment
[ 9 ]
27 February 2007
Where is GNU/Viva Pinata when you need it?
On Sunday while out shopping with the family, my four-year-old son and I stopped in a nearby GameStop. I skimmed through the used PlayStation 2 and PSP games and he found his way to the Xbox 360 kiosk which was running a demo of Viva Pinata. He stayed glued to that for about five minutes, and as I was finishing up a peek at the GameCube games he came over to ask me to start "the pinata demo" again for him. We fired it up, to his visible elation, but he was soon bored with the series of chatty cinemas that run before you can play.
I looked at the time and realized we would need to leave soon, so after a few more minutes I prompted him that we needed to head next door and find his mother and brother. He dropped the controller and off we went.
As I was leaving, I realized I had glimpsed a bit of my future.
I don't provide rigid rules about which books he can get when we go to a bookstore, which movie we can watch together on Friday nights, or which friends he plays with at school. I do make suggestions, and the books and movies are for kids his age, but within reason he has mostly been free to pursue his interests.
So what happens in the next five years when he asks for a game console of his own? And what if he asks for an Xbox 360, hardware that I don't intend to own for myself until it has ceased production, at the earliest? Or Microsoft's next system? Or some future Microsoft handheld system?
In short, what if he wants to play Viva Pinata, or some other game that can only be had on a system that I refuse to buy for myself?
I looked at the time and realized we would need to leave soon, so after a few more minutes I prompted him that we needed to head next door and find his mother and brother. He dropped the controller and off we went.
As I was leaving, I realized I had glimpsed a bit of my future.
I don't provide rigid rules about which books he can get when we go to a bookstore, which movie we can watch together on Friday nights, or which friends he plays with at school. I do make suggestions, and the books and movies are for kids his age, but within reason he has mostly been free to pursue his interests.
So what happens in the next five years when he asks for a game console of his own? And what if he asks for an Xbox 360, hardware that I don't intend to own for myself until it has ceased production, at the earliest? Or Microsoft's next system? Or some future Microsoft handheld system?
In short, what if he wants to play Viva Pinata, or some other game that can only be had on a system that I refuse to buy for myself?
--jvm at 09:05
Comment
[ 11 ]
09 February 2007
The best selling game systems of all time
In a business whose headlines are dominated by the hardware and software sales of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, it helps to have a little perspective. In this case, the needed context is probably in your pocket right now.
Let's review some numbers. In the last two generations, Sony has sold over 230 million PlayStation-branded game machines. Nintendo has sold nearly 400 million from its home consoles -- NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, and GameCube -- to its long-dominant handheld systems -- Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS. While it has only had a console on shelves since 2001, Microsoft has already racked up combined sales of over 30 million of its two Xbox systems.
Yet these are not the game systems most people own. Their game systems don't say Nintendo or Microsoft or Sony. They say Nokia or Motorola or Samsung. (Ok, some of them actually do say Sony: Sony Erricsson. But they're still relatively small.) Even the cheapest phones can play some form of Tetris nowadays and many are far, far more capable.
According to Strategy Analytics, over one billion mobile phones shipped during all of 2006. In all of 2006, the leading vendor, Nokia, shipped almost 350 million phones. Those numbers are just staggering when compared to the sales of dedicated game systems. For example, if we consider all the systems shipped by Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo since 1983 and compare to just the mobile phone shipments in 2006 we get the following:
In fact, if we combine the numbers for Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo and stack that up against the mobile phone shipments, it's still not much of a contest.
According to NPD, the dedicated videogame market made an estimated $6.5 billion on software last year alone. With over a billion phones shipped in 2006, is it any surprise that analysts regularly predict that the mobile game market will eventually hit $10 billion a year in the near future?
Let's review some numbers. In the last two generations, Sony has sold over 230 million PlayStation-branded game machines. Nintendo has sold nearly 400 million from its home consoles -- NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, and GameCube -- to its long-dominant handheld systems -- Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS. While it has only had a console on shelves since 2001, Microsoft has already racked up combined sales of over 30 million of its two Xbox systems.
Yet these are not the game systems most people own. Their game systems don't say Nintendo or Microsoft or Sony. They say Nokia or Motorola or Samsung. (Ok, some of them actually do say Sony: Sony Erricsson. But they're still relatively small.) Even the cheapest phones can play some form of Tetris nowadays and many are far, far more capable.
According to Strategy Analytics, over one billion mobile phones shipped during all of 2006. In all of 2006, the leading vendor, Nokia, shipped almost 350 million phones. Those numbers are just staggering when compared to the sales of dedicated game systems. For example, if we consider all the systems shipped by Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo since 1983 and compare to just the mobile phone shipments in 2006 we get the following:
In fact, if we combine the numbers for Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo and stack that up against the mobile phone shipments, it's still not much of a contest.According to NPD, the dedicated videogame market made an estimated $6.5 billion on software last year alone. With over a billion phones shipped in 2006, is it any surprise that analysts regularly predict that the mobile game market will eventually hit $10 billion a year in the near future?
--jvm at 14:46
Comment
[ 9 ]
05 January 2007
Sony losing exclusives; what about Microsoft?
Every day for the past month someone in my RSS reader is writing about how Sony's losing the war because its PlayStation 3 exclusives from third parties are just time-limited exclusives and will also appear on the Xbox 360. Discussions branch out from there to whether third party exclusives are becoming extinct, a question I'll leave for another post. (Short answer: See how Splinter Cell was handled on Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2.)
What's troubling is that we've heard precious little about how Microsoft's exclusives are getting a ride on Sony's console. As far as I know, no Dead or Alive (fighting or ogling by Tecmo) games have been announced for the PlayStation 3. And Microsoft still has a lock on Bioshock (by Irrational Games) and Lost Planet (by Capcom) and Dead Rising (also by Capcom) and Gears of War (by Epic) and Eternal Sonta (aka Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dream by Namco Bandai). At least three of those are by Japanese companies, two of which (Capcom and Namco Bandai) have benefited greatly from Sony's systems in the past. Resident Evil and Ridge Racer, anyone? Maybe a little Devil May Cry or Tekken?
If I see any one of those Xbox 360 exclusives flip, then I'll be more inclined to believe that Sony's going to benefit from this death of exclusives. Until then, count me among the skeptics.
What's troubling is that we've heard precious little about how Microsoft's exclusives are getting a ride on Sony's console. As far as I know, no Dead or Alive (fighting or ogling by Tecmo) games have been announced for the PlayStation 3. And Microsoft still has a lock on Bioshock (by Irrational Games) and Lost Planet (by Capcom) and Dead Rising (also by Capcom) and Gears of War (by Epic) and Eternal Sonta (aka Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dream by Namco Bandai). At least three of those are by Japanese companies, two of which (Capcom and Namco Bandai) have benefited greatly from Sony's systems in the past. Resident Evil and Ridge Racer, anyone? Maybe a little Devil May Cry or Tekken?
If I see any one of those Xbox 360 exclusives flip, then I'll be more inclined to believe that Sony's going to benefit from this death of exclusives. Until then, count me among the skeptics.
--jvm at 10:34
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20 December 2006
Videogame gaffes and blunders of the year, director's cut
Next-gen.biz kindly asked me to reprise my curmudgeon role for an end-of-year post, and I obliged. The result has now been posted here.
To all who offered editorial comments on various topics this year -- Ruffin, John H., Michael, Dustin, and Kyle -- thanks for the help! Hopefully I remembered everyone.
Some bits ended up on the cutting room floor and I thought they'd be worth sharing. I should emphasize, perhaps, that everything past this point is mine, not Next-Gen.biz's, so if you want to yell at someone (or sue someone, if that's your thing), I'm your guy. In fact, if you just want to yell at someone, the comments are always open.
To all who offered editorial comments on various topics this year -- Ruffin, John H., Michael, Dustin, and Kyle -- thanks for the help! Hopefully I remembered everyone.
Some bits ended up on the cutting room floor and I thought they'd be worth sharing. I should emphasize, perhaps, that everything past this point is mine, not Next-Gen.biz's, so if you want to yell at someone (or sue someone, if that's your thing), I'm your guy. In fact, if you just want to yell at someone, the comments are always open.
- The name - Originally I called the list "The 2006 Nelsons" after Nelson Muntz and his immortal "ha-ha" laugh. That got nixed (as I half-expected, but I held out hope until the end). My second choice was to award #1 the prestigious 2006 Foo Cup (say it out loud) and the others could be the 9 runners up. Apparently that didn't make it either. Gaffes and blunders it is!
- Linkification - The original version had well over fifty links (all internal to next-gen.biz, incidentally) which were changed to just standard text. I'd rather hoped they'd make it, because they provide the documentation for everything I wrote, and for the sake of business didn't go off-site. Ah well.
- The text went through several revisions. This bit about Nintendo never made it into any final drafts, but is pretty high on my list of flubs this year.
Wii was region-free before it wasn't - What's worse than a region-locked console? Announcing a console is region-free and then correcting yourself to make it to region-locked. That's what Perrin Kaplan and Nintendo did to us with the Wii this year. I'm still angry about that one.
- The following was one of the entries, but got edited out. Along with this, I also considered putting in the big brouhaha over the Neverwinter Nights 2 review on 1UP and this bit by Simon Carless on how Xbox 360 sales were reported (poorly). Anyway, here's what got cut:
Blogger Ethics Panel to Convene Soon - In September the popular videogame blog, Joystiq, posted about "a scoop for some important news with one of the next-generation consoles." Leaving details to the overactive imaginations of an army of commenters and forum fanboys, post author Robert Summa assured everyone that "this announcement is something worth waiting for." Was it a secret, unannounced feature of the Nintendo Wii? Was Microsoft going to announce that Halo 3 would be on shelves this holiday season? Maybe Sony would relent, drop the price, and put the PlayStation 3 within reach of upper middle class Americans with spotless credit ratings. Not to be left out, rival blog Kotaku's Brian Crecente posted about the upcoming announcement, saying "expect to hear some kinda interesting news about a very interesting upcoming console", but similarly gave away no details.
What was that burning scoop? Here it is: "IBM announced that their Broadway chip custom-designed for Nintendo's Wii console has been shipping to Nintendo's since July."
Oh, the humanity!
Predictably, the firestorm sparked by this little stunt was ferocious. Robert Summa was summarily fired (yes, bloggers sometimes get paid) and Joystiq editor Chris Grant posted an apology. Summa shortly appeared on another site, Destructoid, and penned what amounted to a "f--k you" farewell to Joystiq, tastefully incorporating Martin Luther King Jr's famous "Free at last" speech and a picture of Mel Gibson in a battle skirt.
And they wonder why we think the videogame press is less than professional sometimes... - Hurricane Jack - When I wrote about Jack Thompson, I used the term Hurricane Jack to refer to him, since he hit the Gulf states of Louisiana and Florida. That term got nixed in the editing.
- Core Design and the Tomb Raider trailer - I wanted to include the mess surrounding the Tomb Raider PSP trailer that showed up this summer. I wrote a two long posts about: original post and the update. Unfortunately, one of the ground rules for the article was that I had to stick to facts, and unfortunately neither Core nor SCi/Eidos have provided a definitive version of just what did happen. We will probably never know exactly what it was, but you can at least read my take on it.
- Other ideas that didn't make the cut - Capcom's ongoing struggle to use larger fonts (in Dead Rising and Lost Planet), Nintendo DS absolutely destroying the PSP month after month, the coming rush of ridiculous MMOGs (Romero, Cartoon Network, James Cameron, and Dave Perry).
--jvm at 06:00
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15 December 2006
Sony stupid about PSP demos (revisited)
I've written before about my frustration with PSP demos, but the appearance this week of yet another Loco Roco demo just brought home how braindead Sony appears to be. As a North American PSP owner, I have access to five demos* directly from Sony** and three of them are variations on Loco Roco. I realize I've got a bias, because I just don't enjoy the little yellow blobs like some people apparently do, but I don't think most PSP owners are wetting themselves with glee over holiday-themed demos.
Let's compare with the other major system that's designed to grab data, like demos and movies, off the internets, the Xbox 360. You know how many games have demos on Xbox Live? FIFTY FIVE. That's right, 50 and then 5 more. There are even multiple demos for some games, for the demo-downloading completist.
I realize Sony's been a little busy screwing up its PlayStation 3 launch, but surely they can put some dedicated people on the PSP side of things and leave them there with resources to help the system live up to its potential. Right?
I will give Sony this, however: the ability to connect to your PlayStation 3 via your PSP from anywhere you have a network connection is pretty awesome. I haven't seen it in practice yet, but the idea is really quite intriguing. It is precisely the kind of feature Sony needs to one-up Xbox Live. Since Sony has the dedicated handheld platform to built upon, it is playing to a strength that Microsoft doesn't have (yet).
* I should note that I think there are five demos. I can't get my PSP online in my current location to double check. Corrections in the comments, por favor.
** Yes, I can download some unofficially and install them. Most are in Japanese.
Let's compare with the other major system that's designed to grab data, like demos and movies, off the internets, the Xbox 360. You know how many games have demos on Xbox Live? FIFTY FIVE. That's right, 50 and then 5 more. There are even multiple demos for some games, for the demo-downloading completist.
I realize Sony's been a little busy screwing up its PlayStation 3 launch, but surely they can put some dedicated people on the PSP side of things and leave them there with resources to help the system live up to its potential. Right?
I will give Sony this, however: the ability to connect to your PlayStation 3 via your PSP from anywhere you have a network connection is pretty awesome. I haven't seen it in practice yet, but the idea is really quite intriguing. It is precisely the kind of feature Sony needs to one-up Xbox Live. Since Sony has the dedicated handheld platform to built upon, it is playing to a strength that Microsoft doesn't have (yet).
* I should note that I think there are five demos. I can't get my PSP online in my current location to double check. Corrections in the comments, por favor.
** Yes, I can download some unofficially and install them. Most are in Japanese.
--jvm at 10:04
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15 November 2006
Analyst analyzes analysts' analyses
Michael Pachter makes a good guest in this week's Next-gen.biz podcast. He comes across as "a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk" and goes on at length about various aspects of the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. In particular, I was intrigued by this bit:
I've still got 15 minutes of the podcast to listen to, but that won't happen until tomorrow morning on the way to work. Perhaps there are some more interesting bits later on. I certainly enjoyed the first 30 minutes.
One question that hadn't been asked of Pachter that I'd like an answer to: Does he play games? It's pretty apparent he's got a feel for the business of games, but does he actually play them or is he just a detached observer watching numbers and analyzing technology trends in the abstract?
Update: Answer is that Pachter does play games and even plays them at work. In addition to what sounds like playing as part of his job, he mentions a Guitar Hero party they're having at his workplace. I should get Guitar Hero at some point, since I keep hearing such good things about it.
Update 2: Interesting to note that Pachter basically doesn't mention any specific way that the Xbox 360 wins. If Blu-Ray takes off (or HD-DVD doesn't succeed, take your pick) or the Sony PlayStation brand remains strong, then the PlayStation 3 wins. And Guitar Hero is the proof that the Wii's new control mechanism will be a hit with consumers. For Microsoft to win, I'm guessing he thinks that the other two have to fail, which isn't necessarily the same as Microsoft succeeding on its own strengths.
I think that where most analysts are going to be not only proven wrong but are actually going to backtrack and change their opinions to the extreme is that the cost of the Wii at $249 is so dramatically much lower than the cost of the [Xbox] 360 or of a PS3 that many households are going to opt for a Wii first and wait for the others to come down in price before they buy a 360 or a PS3. [...]The part about choosing the Wii first is certainly plausible -- especially because of standard TV and the prices of HDTVs -- and it's a prediction I think we could easily check up on in 10-12 months. Will we be reading about Nintendo winning the war less than a year after their launch? That'd be fun, especially if you read videogame web forums. Then in two years we can see if Sony's made up ground and beating the competition, as he further predicts, making all those other analysts who declared a Nintendo victory for the generation wrong. Good times ahead, either way.
I think what's going to happen is analysts are going to see the Wii selling at a much more rapid pace mid-year next year than anybody expected and they're actually going to call Nintendo the winner of this cycle.
And in fact, what I think is going to happen is, over time, Nintendo's sales are going to slow -- over time as in 2009, 2010 -- and Sony's sales are going to pick up as the PS3 comes down in price.
So I think Sony's going to look like the clear loser this cycle, come summer. I think Nintendo's going to look like the clear winner this cycle this coming summer, and that's going to be wrong. And it will reverse in 2009, 2010 when there are 5000 Blu-Ray movies available to rent at Blockbuster and when all the households who already have a Wii get their HD monitors and PS3 sales will pick up.
I've still got 15 minutes of the podcast to listen to, but that won't happen until tomorrow morning on the way to work. Perhaps there are some more interesting bits later on. I certainly enjoyed the first 30 minutes.
One question that hadn't been asked of Pachter that I'd like an answer to: Does he play games? It's pretty apparent he's got a feel for the business of games, but does he actually play them or is he just a detached observer watching numbers and analyzing technology trends in the abstract?
Update: Answer is that Pachter does play games and even plays them at work. In addition to what sounds like playing as part of his job, he mentions a Guitar Hero party they're having at his workplace. I should get Guitar Hero at some point, since I keep hearing such good things about it.
Update 2: Interesting to note that Pachter basically doesn't mention any specific way that the Xbox 360 wins. If Blu-Ray takes off (or HD-DVD doesn't succeed, take your pick) or the Sony PlayStation brand remains strong, then the PlayStation 3 wins. And Guitar Hero is the proof that the Wii's new control mechanism will be a hit with consumers. For Microsoft to win, I'm guessing he thinks that the other two have to fail, which isn't necessarily the same as Microsoft succeeding on its own strengths.
--jvm at 20:08
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Halo 3 vs. PS3 (almost called it)
I predicted that Microsoft would release a Halo 3 demo on Xbox Live in time for the PlayStation 3 launch. I was wrong on the timing, it appears. This week's announcement of a Halo 3 multiplayer test available in Spring 2007 along with a new trailer is just one more example of how Microsoft is hitting its stride in the console market: they'll suck lots of headline space away from the North American debut of the PlayStation 3 with some well-chosen bits of information. They didn't even have to put the demo itself out -- they just needed to announce the future demo. As I said back then:
Anyway, I continue to be impressed with the swiftness with which Microsoft has learned to play to the crowd. If they do come out with the higher sales this generation (and that may happen in terms of software, even if it's not true of hardware) then they'll have earned it.
See, it's one thing to get the big magazines and websites talking about Halo 3 in previews. It will be another thing altogether when over a million Xbox 360 owners download a Halo 3 demo, invite friends over to play, and set online forums afire with post after post of gushing praise. [...] What's going to be louder? A dozen well-paid articles on the coming of the PlayStation 3 or literally millions of monkeys banging away on their keyboards about the most important demo since shareware Quake?And, while Bill Gates was wrong about some of the specifics -- he had Halo 3 coming out Spring 2006 -- he did promise this would happen, in his own creepy way:
'It's perfect,' Gates says, radiant with bloodlust. 'The day Sony launches [the new PlayStation], and they walk right into Halo 3.'The image of Gates radiant with bloodlust is a bit disturbing, no?
Anyway, I continue to be impressed with the swiftness with which Microsoft has learned to play to the crowd. If they do come out with the higher sales this generation (and that may happen in terms of software, even if it's not true of hardware) then they'll have earned it.
--jvm at 15:29
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09 November 2006
I hate "original IP"
This week's Next-Gen.biz podcast has Jeremy Williams, a guy I normally appreciate hearing from, utter this (my emphasis):
The problem with calling things like this "original IP" is that most new stories and characters are really quite poor. If your story and characters could be made up with a modern version of Mad Libs, then the distinction is meaningless. Assuming the GameSpot review of Gears of War is accurate, the story was an afterthought: "The game's story isn't very deep, and aside from a very brief mention in the front of the manual, it doesn't really bother to fill you in on the details behind the conflict or the main character's incarceration." That's not original -- it's lazy.
So then what does "original IP" mean in this context? A brand newfirst-person shooter? New guns? New "I'm going to make you my b-tch!" voiceovers? That's hardly original. While it might be a very, very polished first-person shooter with awesome weapons and brilliant multiplayer and the snappiest one-liners since the original Die Hard, it's still not horribly original. Moreover, while you can't technically call it a sequel (a point that Jeremy raises), if you threw the name Unreal Championship 2007 on the front I doubt most people would notice. It's not like Epic walked away from everything they knew about first-person shooters and created something brand new from the ground up.
I'm sure I'm stepping on someone's Gears-of-War-loving toes, so as always leave your all original IP (gripes) in the comments below.
[Removed references to "first-person". See comment below. -jvm]
One thing that we're not talking about here is that [Gears of War] is an original IP [intellectual property]. So for a game that is not a sequel to receive so much industry promotion and to have this kind of hype behind it is very, very uncommon.I know that jmro and other Microsoft-lovers are going to say I'm just being hypercritical of an Xbox 360 game (and here an especially well-reviewed Xbox 360 game). That's fine -- I'm used to it now. But is anyone else galled by the ever growing use of "original IP"? I'm told that this means "new story and characters" and, perhaps more appropriately, as a synonym for "not based on an existing license".
The problem with calling things like this "original IP" is that most new stories and characters are really quite poor. If your story and characters could be made up with a modern version of Mad Libs, then the distinction is meaningless. Assuming the GameSpot review of Gears of War is accurate, the story was an afterthought: "The game's story isn't very deep, and aside from a very brief mention in the front of the manual, it doesn't really bother to fill you in on the details behind the conflict or the main character's incarceration." That's not original -- it's lazy.
So then what does "original IP" mean in this context? A brand new
I'm sure I'm stepping on someone's Gears-of-War-loving toes, so as always leave your all original IP (gripes) in the comments below.
[Removed references to "first-person". See comment below. -jvm]
--jvm at 12:39
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[ 18 ]
07 November 2006
Gears of War reloading: this is fun?
Ok, I'm not an Xbox 360 owner (and won't be one for many years yet, if ever) so I can't test for myself, but perhaps a reader somewhere has picked up Gears of War and can give some context. From the GameSpot review of Gears of War:
Another really cool facet of the gameplay is that there's a trick to reloading your weapon. By default, reloads take a set amount of time and aren't anything flashy. But if you look just below the gun indicator on the screen, you'll see a line sweeping across a bar with a couple of different colors on it. That's the trick. A button press stops the meter. If you stop it in the gray area, the weapon reloads faster. If you stop it in the tiny white zone, you'll reload and all the bullets you just fed into your weapon will do more damage. But if you miss and hit it in the black, the gun jams and takes even longer to reload. It's a fascinating risk-versus-reward scenario that isn't difficult to master, but when you're under fire in a tense situation, you're still likely to screw it up now and then.As Mike put it earlier, this is basically God of War-style button mashing applied to reloading weapons. On paper, it sounds terrible. I'd like to hear from someone else playing on whether it's really "a really cool facet of the gameplay".
--jvm at 21:48
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30 October 2006
Ridge Racer series revealed: a sequence of tech demos
Today Gamasutra ran an interview with two Namco Bandai people: Hideo Teramoto (Ridge Racer 7 designer) and Hirofumi Inagaki (chief producer of Gundam). Brandon Sheffield is the interviewer (who has appended a comment to this post you might want to read). On the very first page, we find out that the Ridge Racer series has a very functional role at Namco Bandai:
Already this has been done for the PlayStation 2 (Ridge Racer V, the game I actually bought on launch day), the PSP (Ridge Racer was my third PSP game), and the Xbox 360 (Ridge Racer 6). Now Ridge Racer 7 will be a launchgame tech demo for the PlayStation 3.
Whenever someone starts hacking a new piece of hardware, be it a digital camera or a console, one of the first things that gets ported is DooM. This is sort of the same thing, only it gets sold for $60 at your local store.
Unrelated to the above point: Is it just me or are the questions in this interview kind of lame? This exchange in particular was painful:
GS: And what is the thinking behind having a Ridge Racer at every console launch?Well, there you have it. Namco Bandai essentially recreates the classic 1995 drift racer as an exercise to get used to the hardware. When they're done, they sell the resulting tech demo as a launch title.
HT: Well, my team likes to work on new hardware a lot. We're kind of hardware nerds, I guess. Any time something new comes out, we want to mess with it.
Already this has been done for the PlayStation 2 (Ridge Racer V, the game I actually bought on launch day), the PSP (Ridge Racer was my third PSP game), and the Xbox 360 (Ridge Racer 6). Now Ridge Racer 7 will be a launch
Whenever someone starts hacking a new piece of hardware, be it a digital camera or a console, one of the first things that gets ported is DooM. This is sort of the same thing, only it gets sold for $60 at your local store.
Unrelated to the above point: Is it just me or are the questions in this interview kind of lame? This exchange in particular was painful:
GS: I liked the Wonderswan version of Klonoa a lot.
HT: Well, I didn't work on it!
GS: That's ok, I liked it anyway.
--jvm at 22:08
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27 October 2006
Updated Launch Game Data
As promised in the comments, I'm making an updated post on launch game data.
The game list has been updated, with several games added that were missing. Jason Cross helpfully provided his data for the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and Xbox 360. (Thanks!) After several emails, I think we've converged on a common list. Download this CSV of the full list of games and load it into your favorite spreadsheet if you want to play around with the numbers on your own.
Now, here are updated versions of the graphs that appeared on Next-Gen.biz and here in the past few days.
Average launch game review scores, by platform:
Maximum/average/median/minimum review scores, by platform:
Number of launch games, by platform:
Average number of sources providing reviews for each launch game, by platform:
One key difference is that the number of outlets reviewing the Xbox and GameCube is now about equal. However, this makes the jump between the GameCube/Xbox launches and the Xbox 360 launch even more dramatic: from 40/41 sources to 65 sources, a more than 50% increase in just four years.
The new top 10 launch games:
And the new bottom 10:
As always, I invite corrections and revisions.
The game list has been updated, with several games added that were missing. Jason Cross helpfully provided his data for the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and Xbox 360. (Thanks!) After several emails, I think we've converged on a common list. Download this CSV of the full list of games and load it into your favorite spreadsheet if you want to play around with the numbers on your own.
Now, here are updated versions of the graphs that appeared on Next-Gen.biz and here in the past few days.
Average launch game review scores, by platform:
Maximum/average/median/minimum review scores, by platform:
Number of launch games, by platform:
Average number of sources providing reviews for each launch game, by platform:
One key difference is that the number of outlets reviewing the Xbox and GameCube is now about equal. However, this makes the jump between the GameCube/Xbox launches and the Xbox 360 launch even more dramatic: from 40/41 sources to 65 sources, a more than 50% increase in just four years.The new top 10 launch games:
- Halo: Combat Evolved, Xbox, 96%
- Soul Calibur, Dreamcast, 96%
- Super Mario 64, Nintendo 64, 96%
- Wave Race 64, Nintendo 64, 92%
- SSX, PlayStation 2, 91%
- NFL 2k, Dreamcast, 91%
- Call of Duty 2, Xbox 360, 90%
- Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, GameCube, 90%
- Madden NFL 2001, PlayStation 2, 90%
- Madden NFL 2002, GameCube (!!), 90%
And the new bottom 10:
- Mortal Kombat Gold, Dreamcast, 56%
- Orphen: Scion of Sorcery, PlayStation 2, 54%
- Arctic Thunder, Xbox, 54%
- Cruis'n USA, Nintendo 64, 54%
- Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Nintendo 64, 54%
- Evergrace, PlayStation 2, 52%
- Shrek, Xbox, 51%
- ESPN Extreme Games, PSOne, 50%
- Total Eclipse Turbo, PSOne, 48%
- Surfing H30, PlayStation 2, 42%
As always, I invite corrections and revisions.
--jvm at 21:10
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[ 0 ]
26 October 2006
More Launch Game Stats
Update: Revised data is now available in a newer post.
The piece for Next-Gen.biz is up, called Predicting Those Launch Review Scores. It looks at how launch games have performed in the past and applies the ratios to make a guess at what we'll see for the PlayStation 3 and Wii. I'd like to add a few things here that didn't get into the other piece.
First, here is an expanded version of the graph showing averages. It includes the maximum, average, median, and minimum review averages for each platform.
And here is a comparison of the number of launch games, by platform.
The systems are color coded:
There are a few other bits of data people might find interesting.
Top 11 Launch Games:
The bottom 9 on the list:
I don't have anything else to add, but I suppose others might have opinions. If you want to look at the data for yourself, here is a CSV file you can load into your favorite spreadsheet.
The piece for Next-Gen.biz is up, called Predicting Those Launch Review Scores. It looks at how launch games have performed in the past and applies the ratios to make a guess at what we'll see for the PlayStation 3 and Wii. I'd like to add a few things here that didn't get into the other piece.
First, here is an expanded version of the graph showing averages. It includes the maximum, average, median, and minimum review averages for each platform.
And here is a comparison of the number of launch games, by platform.
The systems are color coded:- Sony: RU E? (One of the slogans for the first PlayStation, as I recall.)
- Nintendo: Yellow, for no good reason.
- Sega: Blue, as in the hedgehog.
- Microsoft: The unmistakable Xbox green.
There are a few other bits of data people might find interesting.
Top 11 Launch Games:
- Halo: Combat Evolved, Xbox, 96%
- Soul Calibur, Dreamcast, 96%
- Super Mario 64, Nintendo 64, 96%
- Wave Race 64, Nintendo 64, 92%
- SSX, PlayStation 2, 91%
- NFL 2k, Dreamcast, 91%
- Call of Duty 2, Xbox 360, 90%
- Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, GameCube, 90%
- Super Smash Bros. Melee, GameCube, 90%
- Madden NFL 2001, PlayStation 2, 90%
- Madden NFL 2002, GameCube (!!), 90%
The bottom 9 on the list:
- Eternal Ring, PlayStation 2, 57%
- Mortal Kombat Gold, Dreamcast, 56%
- Orphen: Scion of Sorcery, PlayStation 2, 54%
- Arctic Thunder, Xbox, 54%
- Cruis'n USA, Nintendo 64, 54%
- Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Nintendo 64, 54%
- Evergrace, PlayStation 2, 52%
- ESPN Extreme Games, PSOne, 50%
- Total Eclipse Turbo, PSOne, 48%
I don't have anything else to add, but I suppose others might have opinions. If you want to look at the data for yourself, here is a CSV file you can load into your favorite spreadsheet.
--jvm at 09:16
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[ 7 ]
25 October 2006
Media consolidation...or not
Update: Revised data is now available in a newer post.
I was doing some number crunching recently on system launches and Next-Gen.biz offered to put some of them up on their site. That post will run over there tomorrow [it is now up, click here], and I'll be posting some auxiliary results that complement that post here. In the meantime, I want to show a related graph that shows how many more voices have joined the videogame media in the past decade. (In case you're coming here from the nod we got in this week's Next-Gen.biz podcast, this is the data that the editor, Colin Campbell, mentioned.)
The basic questions: How many outlets (magazines, websites) does GameRankings list which contributed reviews to each PSOne launch game, on average? How many for each launch game on Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and Xbox 360?
The answers are here (click for full-sized version):
As you can see from this graph, the coverage of these launch games has increased every generation. Since GameRankings probably wasn't around in 1995, that of course limits their data from the early launches. Even if we just look at the PlayStation 2 and newer, there is a clear increase in sites providing reviews of games. When we get to the Xbox 360 an average of almost 65 sites are reviewing each game.
A few points:
I was doing some number crunching recently on system launches and Next-Gen.biz offered to put some of them up on their site. That post will run over there tomorrow [it is now up, click here], and I'll be posting some auxiliary results that complement that post here. In the meantime, I want to show a related graph that shows how many more voices have joined the videogame media in the past decade. (In case you're coming here from the nod we got in this week's Next-Gen.biz podcast, this is the data that the editor, Colin Campbell, mentioned.)
The basic questions: How many outlets (magazines, websites) does GameRankings list which contributed reviews to each PSOne launch game, on average? How many for each launch game on Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and Xbox 360?
The answers are here (click for full-sized version):
As you can see from this graph, the coverage of these launch games has increased every generation. Since GameRankings probably wasn't around in 1995, that of course limits their data from the early launches. Even if we just look at the PlayStation 2 and newer, there is a clear increase in sites providing reviews of games. When we get to the Xbox 360 an average of almost 65 sites are reviewing each game.A few points:
- A little of this growth is probably coming from magazines. Since 1995 and 2001 respectively, the Sony and Microsoft systems have added a few dedicated magazines each. Nintendo has always had their own. GameStop has its own publication. I'm sure there are more.
- Most growth, however, is coming from websites. Look at all the coverage of Halo: Combat Evolved. There are dozens of sites that I bet you've never heard of. Who was Into Liquid Sky and did they really run for seven years before quitting? Good gravy.
- All of this growth means that it is more difficult for a big name site to dominate the conventional wisdom. It's one thing for IGN to have one of only two reviews for Battle Arena Toshinden on the PSOne, but quite another for it to have one of 58 reviews of Tekken Tag Tournament on the PlayStation 2.
- The big sites will probably always have a jump on the little ones because they get advance copies, get to play previews, and so forth. However, after a week or a month you'll see more sites add to the average score.
- Even with all the extra coverage, it's still the case that big sites can dominate a game's reviews, especially smaller games. Look at It's Mr. Pants for the Game Boy Advance. There are 20 reviews, and at least 11 of them are from big-name sites or magazines. The smaller sites have fewer resources and no doubt have to focus on the big name games to stay relevant.
- I was particularly struck by the Xbox and GameCube numbers. Those systems launched at almost the same time, but the Xbox games were clearly more covered than the GameCube games. Perhaps just because the Xbox was the big story, being Microsoft's first console? Or some other factor?
--jvm at 22:58
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[ 0 ]
19 October 2006
Bugs on Xbox 360? Just wait for PS3...
Today I was listening to Next-Gen.biz Podcast #6 and they addressed a listener question about bugs in games, specifically Call of Duty 2, Dead Rising, and Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy on the Xbox 360. Well, just wait for the PlayStation 3. Along with all the other gnashing of teeth over low system supply, good and bad launch titles, and the varied other fanboy/hater ranting, I fully expect this to be the buggiest system launch ever.
We've all heard about the motion-sensitive controller being sprung on developers a few weeks before E3. There have been stories about how the PlayStation 3 and its set of Cell processors are difficult to program for, much as we heard stories about the PlayStation 2 before it. There were the claims (and subsequent denials) of overheating consoles at Tokyo Game Show. And, of course, the online system is still in flux, with some features ready for launch and others simply promised for the future.
With more than 20 games available at launch, I'm betting at least one of them has ashowstopper should-have-been-a-showstopper bug. It's precisely what Sony does not need, but it's going to happen.
We've all heard about the motion-sensitive controller being sprung on developers a few weeks before E3. There have been stories about how the PlayStation 3 and its set of Cell processors are difficult to program for, much as we heard stories about the PlayStation 2 before it. There were the claims (and subsequent denials) of overheating consoles at Tokyo Game Show. And, of course, the online system is still in flux, with some features ready for launch and others simply promised for the future.
With more than 20 games available at launch, I'm betting at least one of them has a
--jvm at 21:51
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[ 5 ]
18 October 2006
What I wanted to hear: TF2 on PS3
From Next-Gen.biz today, in an article about Valve's Source engine being offered as middleware on the Xbox 360:
Hey, does this mean a port of Half-life 2 to a system that is essentially GNU/Linux? Just askin'...
Although both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will be receiving their respective versions of Source-based Half-Life 2 (bundled with Episodes 1 and 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2), Lombardi added that "We're not currently working with Sony on PS3 middleware."Would I like to see more engines running on the PS3? Yes, of course. For now, I'll be content with a (future) version of Team Fortress 2 running on my (future) PlayStation 3. Hope it plays as well as it looks.
Hey, does this mean a port of Half-life 2 to a system that is essentially GNU/Linux? Just askin'...
--jvm at 16:48
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[ 1 ]
28 September 2006
Lego Star Wars II for X-box 360 Tainted By Dark Side
Reported in Aeropause's comparison of the various ports of Lego Star Wars II, it seems that all the console versions of the game are largely identical in content. There is no real reason to choose the Gamecube, PS2, X-box or X-box 360 version over the others -- except for one little issue.
The current-gen versions have a feature where by paying 250,000 "Lego studs", the in-game unlock currency, you can import a save file from the first Lego Star Wars, and play through the various scenes of the Original Trilogy with any characters found from that game. LSW2 is already unreasonably awesome, but being able to fight through areas like the Mos Eisley Cantina or Jabba's Barge as Mace Windu, Darth Maul, or Yoda the Hedgehog is like icing on the cake.
But let's investigate the mechanics behind this feature. The player must collect the 250k studs, which is about three levels' worth of play, and must also have a save from the original game with the characters unlocked. This entails additional play, sure, but it also technically requires that you have played, through whatever means, the original game. This means you have paid actual money, at least to rent it, and if you have the really cool characters you've probably bought it.
Technically this is a means of rewarding players who have paid Lucasarts additional moolah. This is not an unheard-of tactic for game publishers. Many early-generation DS games unlocked extra features if the player had specific games in the GBA cartridge slot. Despite the precedent, this is still at least slightly Evil, since a player's financial outlay purchases progress in an already-bought game, but at least in LSW's case the naked greed is cloaked by gameplay. Even if you have the first game, nothing is unlocked that hasn't been unlocked before, you still have to come up with the 250,000 studs to import a save, and nothing should prevent players from finding a friend who has already gotten everything and getting a copy of his save file.
Unless, that is, you're playing the X-box 360 version. The X-box 360 never had a port of the first Lego Star Wars game. (The original X-box did, and it's one of the few working backwards-compatible games.)
So what did they decide to do with the old characters? Removing them from the game would make the 360 version notably inferior. They COULD just unlock them along with the other characters, especially since there's roughly an equal number between both games, but somehow that doesn't seem EVIL enough....
So what they decided to do was outright sell access to them, for $2.50, on the X-box Live Marketplace. The player is essentially paying real money to set that bit in his save file to allow the use of the old characters. Worse, despite that access to these characters cannot be unlocked by playing the game normally, they are still listed as a selling point on the game's info page, with no mention that extra dosh must be burnt to access them, even though the "Content from Marketplace" entry is still there.
Kotaku, it turns out, reported on the story before the game's launch, and even lauded Lucasarts for the decision, but I'm not so comfortable with it. $2.50 may not be much, but it's still another step down that slippery slope. What do you, the reader at home, think?
(Cue a half-dozen voices saying Geddoverit.)
The current-gen versions have a feature where by paying 250,000 "Lego studs", the in-game unlock currency, you can import a save file from the first Lego Star Wars, and play through the various scenes of the Original Trilogy with any characters found from that game. LSW2 is already unreasonably awesome, but being able to fight through areas like the Mos Eisley Cantina or Jabba's Barge as Mace Windu, Darth Maul, or Yoda the Hedgehog is like icing on the cake.
But let's investigate the mechanics behind this feature. The player must collect the 250k studs, which is about three levels' worth of play, and must also have a save from the original game with the characters unlocked. This entails additional play, sure, but it also technically requires that you have played, through whatever means, the original game. This means you have paid actual money, at least to rent it, and if you have the really cool characters you've probably bought it.
Technically this is a means of rewarding players who have paid Lucasarts additional moolah. This is not an unheard-of tactic for game publishers. Many early-generation DS games unlocked extra features if the player had specific games in the GBA cartridge slot. Despite the precedent, this is still at least slightly Evil, since a player's financial outlay purchases progress in an already-bought game, but at least in LSW's case the naked greed is cloaked by gameplay. Even if you have the first game, nothing is unlocked that hasn't been unlocked before, you still have to come up with the 250,000 studs to import a save, and nothing should prevent players from finding a friend who has already gotten everything and getting a copy of his save file.
Unless, that is, you're playing the X-box 360 version. The X-box 360 never had a port of the first Lego Star Wars game. (The original X-box did, and it's one of the few working backwards-compatible games.)
So what did they decide to do with the old characters? Removing them from the game would make the 360 version notably inferior. They COULD just unlock them along with the other characters, especially since there's roughly an equal number between both games, but somehow that doesn't seem EVIL enough....
So what they decided to do was outright sell access to them, for $2.50, on the X-box Live Marketplace. The player is essentially paying real money to set that bit in his save file to allow the use of the old characters. Worse, despite that access to these characters cannot be unlocked by playing the game normally, they are still listed as a selling point on the game's info page, with no mention that extra dosh must be burnt to access them, even though the "Content from Marketplace" entry is still there.
Kotaku, it turns out, reported on the story before the game's launch, and even lauded Lucasarts for the decision, but I'm not so comfortable with it. $2.50 may not be much, but it's still another step down that slippery slope. What do you, the reader at home, think?
(Cue a half-dozen voices saying Geddoverit.)
--JohnH at 11:09
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[ 5 ]
27 September 2006
Exclusive, not exclusive
Apparently Bioshock has an exclusivity to the Xbox 360 and Windows, at least for now. On the other hand, some version of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is coming to the PlayStation 3 and the PSP.
So this is what it felt like to be a Sega Saturn owner back in 1997.
So this is what it felt like to be a Sega Saturn owner back in 1997.
--jvm at 22:31
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[ 0 ]
24 September 2006
Post-TGS, revisiting Sony's troubles
With the Tokyo Game Show 2006 finally over, has Sony improved its standing? In my mind, only a very tiny bit. A couple months ago, I suggested a few things I felt Sony needed to do. Here's where we stand with those:
What Xbox 360 games am I longing for? In particular, I'll offer that BioShock has some interesting features, and certainly isn't hurting for good graphics. (Rather interesting 15 minute demonstration here on Eurogamer. Found via Cathode Tan.) And certainly Dead Rising has gotten a lot of praise from the press and general gaming public alike. Will the PlayStation 3 also get Half-life 2: Episode Two, which is currently slated for the Xbox 360? I hope so, since Valve has hinted at a complete Half-life 2 package for Sony's machine, but just when and how that will happen is far from clear.
I'd been waiting until after the TGS to comment more on this subject. As I said earlier, there are some bright spots for Sony.
However, they should have used the time in the TGS spotlight to explain why they have things under control. Perhaps the reason they didn't explain is that they couldn't -- they don't have a network strategy, they don't have backward compatibility under control, they have lost key exclusives that 5 years ago would have been unquestionably on the PlayStation, and worst of all they bet the farm on Blu-Ray and that appears now to have been a horrible choice.
- Explain the network strategy - This is still unclear. My working assumption from here on out is that they really don't have a strategy.
- Explain backward compatibility - No news on this front, from what I've read. I fear that this will end up being a feature added on to the system sometime in 2007.
- Explain game pricing - We know Activision is looking at $60 games, and I'm guessing others will follow.
- Publicize exclusives - Ok, the ones I know I'll want are Metal Gear Solid 4 and Resistance: Fall of Man. That's pretty slim, although the Xbox certainly got by on and Halo and Halo 2 plus a few others.
- Without Blu-Ray, what does PS3 do that others can't? - No news here either.
What Xbox 360 games am I longing for? In particular, I'll offer that BioShock has some interesting features, and certainly isn't hurting for good graphics. (Rather interesting 15 minute demonstration here on Eurogamer. Found via Cathode Tan.) And certainly Dead Rising has gotten a lot of praise from the press and general gaming public alike. Will the PlayStation 3 also get Half-life 2: Episode Two, which is currently slated for the Xbox 360? I hope so, since Valve has hinted at a complete Half-life 2 package for Sony's machine, but just when and how that will happen is far from clear.
I'd been waiting until after the TGS to comment more on this subject. As I said earlier, there are some bright spots for Sony.
However, they should have used the time in the TGS spotlight to explain why they have things under control. Perhaps the reason they didn't explain is that they couldn't -- they don't have a network strategy, they don't have backward compatibility under control, they have lost key exclusives that 5 years ago would have been unquestionably on the PlayStation, and worst of all they bet the farm on Blu-Ray and that appears now to have been a horrible choice.
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