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Redemption Still Possible For Sony?
Gamasutra reports on the slim chance that Sony may still be able to redeem itself from its poor showing at E3. In a new 'Analyze This' column, they ask a group of analysts how things are for Sony today. From the article: "In spite of the higher than expected price points, we still expect the PS3 to be in high demand from early adopters at launch. But Sony must put more effort into differentiating its games from those of rival platforms, both in terms of original compelling titles as well as overall quality. Otherwise, later adopters will not be persuaded that the PS3 has anything more to offer. Sony must clearly also address its relative weakness in online, where Microsoft has a substantial lead."
Which has to come first though? I say it's the people buying the system. Would PS2 have so many games today if there wasn't that initial craze for it? Will PS3 be anywhere near as popular initially as the PS2? From what I'm hearing there aren't a huge number of people who are interested in it at that price, but I could be wrong.
I'm not going to bash the PS3 directly. I have not seen it in action, held the new controller, or had any other exposure that mainly occurred through E3.
However, no one can deny that there has been a lot of backlash. First and foremost, the pricepoint. Second, the heated argument that Sony may or may not have received inspiration for their new controller from Nintendo's remote.
The second argument is almost irrelevant. As a Nintendo fan myself, I will gladly say it. Whether the controller was "stolen" or not is a non-issue. Sony either had plans to use this controller beforehand, or they did not. If they did not, it will show in the game play -- extended game play that will most likely occurr after the purchase of a PS3.
Regarding the price, that alone has alienated a number of casual fans, such as myself. I own a PS2, but I never bought one outright. I bought mine used, around 2001, when the price tag was far lower. Price is a major factor for many consumers. Many times, it does not come down to "do I want the system with the hard drive, or the one without...", but rather "do I want the system, or do I want to make my car payment".
Additionally, the PS2 was a good investment in the long run as it had an established game library. When the XBox debuted, most of the games I had an interest in were already released, or being simultaneously released, for the PS2. I did not have to spend the additional $300+ on an Xbox, new controllers, memory cards, etc. Everything I wanted was already available on the PS2, therefore negating my desire (and in fact, need) for an Xbox.
Today, the roles are reversed. The Xbox 360 is available, stock is being supplied to retailers, and the game library is slowly but surely increasing.
I believe, in order to gain sure-footing in the market, the PS3 will need not only quality games, but exclusive ones. If the game is available on a system for $200 less, how is that going to encourage someone to spend that extra $200 to begin with? The XBox 360 may very well showcase the same titles as the PS3, but the 360 has already appeared in today's market, giving it some leverage, whereas many of Nintendo's titles will be exclusive their own console, presumably.
I do not believe that the PS3 will be a "failure". It will sell units. I already know of someone who said, with a shrug, "It's almost like a computer" and seemingly resigned himself to purchasing it. I do not believe that it will be a rampant success by any means.
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... as it was with the PS2. Simple fundamentals ate getting in the way of any developer not in Sony's (or MS's) back pocket.
As a 3rd party developer, I can say that our high-end titles are being developed for all three platforms: PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. We're doing that out of necessity; "Next Gen" games are costing 8 figures+ ($10+ million) these days, much due to content.
Now, how many Xbox 360's are there out there? How many will there be when we ship? What about the PS3 installed base? A "Hit" game can sell to well under 5% (say 2-3%) of a given console's owners. 20 Million Xbox's? Sell 500k units (2.5% penetration) and that's a hit. Unless you're a Halo or Grand Theft auto, that's realisitc.
Now, the cost of developing for both next-gen consoles (360, PS3) is not that much more than developing for just one console (maybe low as 1.1~1.2x) , but you stand to sell a lot more in total. Using an engine such as Unreal 3? Not much more effort and you have a PC version too.
Now, about that $10 to $20 million we just spent? We better sell a lot of copies, or it was a mistake to make the game in the first place. Right now, it'll be a good while before there is an installed base of 10 million on either console, but yet our games are much more expensive to make than the previous generation. To recoup advances and hopefully turn a profit means getting it out to the largest audience possible.
Oh, and there's the little matter of Xbox 360 being out first, and having signifiantly better developer tools than Sony that has developers developing on Xbox 360 as first/primary, and then porting their games to PS3. Last generation it was different, but this time Xbox was available first, and Sony's efforts to catchup to Xbox's tool and documentation quality is more than lacking.
but I'm beginning to have my doubts about Zonk.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Sony must clearly also address its relative weakness in online, where Microsoft has a substantial lead.
The future of gaming is online multiplayer (not better graphics) because online multiplayer affects the core of gaming, which is gameplay. This is a big reason PC gaming isn't dead and the reason why any of the major consoles who don't make this leap will be left behind. Of course, this means way more than having an internet ready gaming console. The GameCube and PS2 are internet ready (though adapters are required). Microsoft has XBox live, which is more than internet connectivity, it is a online multiplayer/gaming community platform. What XBox live provides is an easy, well managed solution for developers who are looking for a console to make their online multiplayer games for. Even if Sony were to bring SOE to the PS3, it still falls short of providing any kind of method for third party developers to build online multiplayer games for the PS3. IMHO, for Sony to redeem the PS3, they need to not only bring SOE to the console (and fix the problems with SOE), but also allow third party developers access to its capabilities.
I think the point is not that the Wii is not a viable platform, but it's not going to be the same as developing for the other 3 platforms. The other 3 will most likely share quite a bit more code, as well as art assets. The Wii will not, simply because it won't be as powerful as the others. Porting to the Wii will be more like porting to last gen systems, in that you're probably removing a lot of features or in some case creating an almost entirely different game.
Again, that's not necessarily a problem for the Wii, because it's intended to be a completely different kind of game machine. Games will be simpler in some cases, in other cases they'll be using the Wii custom controls (which no other system will be able to use, including PS3), and most likely the games that use a huge budget and really stretch the limit of the system will be exclusives.
Point being, if you're writing to multiple platforms at once, the Ps3, 360, and PC can be dealt with at once with the same kind of cost the parent poster hinted at. If you add Wii to the mix, you're porting, and the only reason it's worth doing (because of the extra effort to downgrade) is to most likely take advantage of the Wii's unique features. If wii gets a lot of marketshare, that's exactly what will happen, but it's an additional cost and throws the 1.2x cost factor off kilter.
1. Sony did not "stumble out of the gate" for the Playstation launch at E3. What happened with the Playstation one at E3 is the stuff of legend.
2. Microsoft had poor initial showings for the Xbox and the Xbox ended up losing Microsoft $7 billion dollars and remains a distant second to the PS2.
3. As far as I've been able to tell, E3 is the thing among the gamer market to decide what's hip as what's not. Even if he was right about the Xbox and Playstation, the facts wouldn't support this statement.
4. Even if gamers don't pay attention to E3, the muckity-mucks at places like EA, Activision and Ubisoft do, and Sony's stumble is going to have repercussions regarding the decisions they make regarding what titles they'll produce, what consoles they'll produce them for, and how much effort they'll put into a port. The PS3 went in one week from being the likely market leader to a likely failure, and past crimes of Sony against development houses (i.e., making the Playstation 2 & 3 difficult to develop for, thus cutting into developer's margins) are going to have a substantial effect on what games are available for it. And the gamers will pay attention to what's available for their systems.
I agree with PJ of Groklaw's comment... I gotta get into this "Analyst" business. You can know absolutely nothing, spew off about things, and people will pay you to do it. How lovely!