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Industry Vets Talking Crazy

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the out-of-the-mouths-of-people-who-should-know-better dept.

IGN has a piece today looking at ten completely outrageous claims made by games industry veterans. My personal favorite: "Former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi may be retired (and frozen in a cryogenic coffin), but he would be proud of new company head Satoru Iwata for his May, 2004 assertion that, 'Customers do not want online games.' The Big N has long made bold claims about the marketplace based solely about what is - or, as it happens, isn't - happening in Japan, but this one definitely earns Iwata a spot on our list. Two years later, we're quite confident that two million Xbox Live subscribers, more than five million World of Warcraft subscribers and, ironically, more than a million DS Wi-Fi Connection users would disagree with Iwata's statement."

2 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. These aren't the online players you're looking for by sqlrob · · Score: 3, Interesting

    >10 Million DS sold = < 10% online
    >16 Million XBox sold = < 13% online

  2. The mighty four percent! by nick_davison · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Two years later, we're quite confident that two million Xbox Live subscribers, more than five million World of Warcraft subscribers and, ironically, more than a million DS Wi-Fi Connection users would disagree with Iwata's statement.

    100 million+ PS2 sales.
    30m? XBox1 sales.
    Several million XBox360 sales.
    Who knows how many tens of millions of PCs that games are played on.

    Quoting eight million users against roughly 200 million gives maybe 4%.

    That's the kind of figure people call statistical error when figuring out say how many people like or dislike a president.

    Sure, there are plenty of other games with online components. But to quote 2m plus 5m plus an additional million and claim that makes a mockery of a quote regarding ~200m systems is kind of stretching things.

    Even on the XBox - 2m Live subscribers across 30m? sales implies the statement is true: the majority of users do not want an online experience under the terms it's currently offered? 1 in 15? 6.7%? Curiously, 6.7% of the population is also the same percentage that has a sub 80 IQ which puts them in the Borderline Deficiency to Definite Feeble-Mindedness range.

    Now I'm all for online gaming. I met my wife on a mud. But "the percentage of the population that are significantly mentally subnormal is also the same percentage as XBox owners who subscribe to XBox Live" is not really a compelling argument that "clearly customers want online gaming."