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."

Comments

Chicken and egg

[PSXer]

If lots of third party developers make exclusive games for PS3 that people want to play, people will buy a PS3. If a lot of people buy the PS3, Third parties will make lots of games that people want to play.

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.

Getting exclusives is not going to be as easy ...

[The Optimizer]

... 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.

Redemption won't be an issue for Sony

[Trogre]

but I'm beginning to have my doubts about Zonk.