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Eidos May Have Set Bad PS3 Precedent
Ars Technica opines on Eidos' decision to hold off on PS3 games until 2008. Though they make a point of mentioning all of the great steps forward Sony and the PS3 have taken in the last month or so (LittleBigPlanet, Home, the EU launch), they feel this decision may have ramifications for the console. "Though Eidos isn't the most prominent European developer--noteworthy releases for 2006 included the surprisingly decent Just Cause, Tomb Raider: Legend and Hitman: Blood Money--this may set a dangerous precedent for other developers. If Sony doesn't step up to become more proactive at keeping the flow of good games steady, the installed base may not continue to grow quickly enough and developers may begin to pull support, creating a lack of games. This vicious cycle is hard to escape, as Sony has previously learned with the PSP's port problem."
The actual article says "dangerous" precident, not "bad". In this particular case, there's a world of difference. This news may be "bad" for Sony et al, but it's actually quite "good" for the shareholders of these companies.
It's well known that the opening weeks of a game's release are the most important, as the period that follows causes the game to be overshadowed by competitors. If I were a shareholder in Eidos, I wouldn't want them releasing hot properties (e.g. Tomb Raider) to a system that can't sustain record or near-record sales in its opening week. Better to delay the games by a few months, then announce them to a much larger fan base.
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This is very much what we have been speculating about for weeks now. If Sony can't keep developers interested, then they can end up in serious trouble. One mid-rank games developer (as an aside, I remember when I would see Eidos' name in the intros and actually get excited) holding off for a year does not mean a whole lot - yet. But it may indeed be a sign of greater things to come.
The PS3 is an exciting system but it's looking more and more like Sony has reached too far in a variety of ways, not least the many indignities they've inflicted upon their customers over the last several months.
I'd have to say that the continued failings of HD-DVD and the success of Blu-Ray, inflated as it is by the media and certain individuals with an agenda to push, is looking like the only saving grace for the PS3. It remains to be seen if Blu-Ray is indeed going to win the HD video race; even if it does, can it save the PS3?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Remember, porting to the PS3 is a huge pain, because of the weird Cell architecture, with very limited memory per CPU. As the tools get better, the costs of porting decline. From a developer perspective, it makes sense to wait.
Lots of games have been held back for a year. Usually because of development deadlines having to get pushed back for a year. It's a different reason here, but the same effect. If the PS3 does badly over the course of its lifespan I don't think people will look back at Eidos's announcement as a key event. It already comes after a succession of games going multi-platform, which may be bad for the console, but good for the gamers.
The problem between development and install base has been discussed pretty thoroughly.
The Wii has some pretty nice games out, but it has a similar gap in games coming up. Though there was much speculation on how good the Wii would be, it doesn't seem like anyone had bet on it being the success that it is. Nintendo included, in light of the tight supply. So while it seems that there are a lot of developers interested in making Wii games, they would have had to begin developing a year or more ago to have a chance at filling the upcoming gap. But at least the games will come someday.
I'm imagining a 33%-ish share for each console after 4 years.
Sony delays the consoles release 6+ months in Europe (we'll ignore hardware differences)
so developers there delay games 6+ months more... sounds fair to me.
Sony really needs to get in gear. Playstation HOME and LittleBigPlanet were a *Start*. They need more announcements of top tier exclusives, not defection and waffling on the part of developers.
Mass market HD video is a very dangerous thing to bet on. Most people are not videophiles. DVD is "good 'nuff" for the majority of people. Communicating the benefit of ever escalating resolutions when most consumers are still squinting at a 25" to 30" screen from 8' to 10' is really, really hard. Big Screens just don't have the market penetration to make HD an easy sell, and if the people backing the HD formats don't watch it, DVD and digital distribution may eat their lunch before breakfast time.
I don't understand all the doomsday talk of the PS3. The Xbox 360 had extremely mediocre games at first, and not too many to choose from. The PS3 is selling better then the Xbox 360 did at the same time since release.
So I don't get it. They've sold an assload of PS3's and they're still selling an assload of them. Just because one game developer, that only has a couple titles anyways, is going to wait doesn't mean Sony "needs to get in gear."
The PS3 is a captive market and any company that doesn't release titles for it is simply paid off by the other guy, or doesn't have the ability to do it. It's not about the system itself.
I'll agree that there's some shortcomings to the PS3's interface and such, but overall I've been having fun with my PS3 and I don't really like game consoles very much.
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You do realize that the Wii is basically an overclocked GameCube?
Final Fantasy has always been about the graphics, as well as progress-quest style gameplay. If you put it on GameCube, I mean Wii, it will only look marginally better then older GameCube titles.
It just won't happen, unless they say "screw the graphics" and go for the easy cash that might blemish the entire franchise.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
>Most people are not videophiles. DVD is "good 'nuff" for the majority of people.
People looked realistic back on broadcast tv at 440 x 480.
Jumping the resolution up doesnt make games more realistic, good texturing does.
The biggest problem is that even without Sony's hype, everyone expected the PS3 to surpass the PS2 and once again dominate the market.
That hasn't happend.
Worse still, it probably won't happen.
The PS3 isn't a bad machine per se, but again, it's the games that sell the hardware. Sony has forgotten this by mainly emphasizing the PS3 as a Blu-Ray player to a market that doesn't quite care about that. Meanwhile, the PS3 suffers from a lack of good exclusive titles. Most of the good games for the PS3 are also playable on the 360 - with identical graphics/gameplay, on a platform that costs less money, and arguably has a better online service. That's a tough position to be in if you're Sony.
With no single console poised to totally dominate the market this time around we're probably going to see much fewer exclusive titles this time around. If exclusives made the PS2 a success, their lack can mean failure for the PS3. Fewer exclusives will mean fewer consoles sold. Fewer consoles will make more developers hesitate (at best), make an exclusive title a multi-platform release, or even move an exclusive title to another console. We've seen all 3 happen for the PS3 so far. Many developers, including EA, announced they were going to take a 'wait and see' policy with some games. Meanwhile, other titles - most notably GTA4 - have announced they'll be doing a simultaneous release across the PS3 and 360. Another Playstation exclusive, Ace Combat(?), has moved to the 360 and won't release on the PS3 at all.
While none of these individually will doom the PS3, it's a culmulative effect. The more developers hold back for the PS3, the greater the chance that other developers will also hold back, leading to there being fewer PS3 titles which will result in fewer sales, and even MORE hesitant developers.
Actually, seeing as though the GameCube is about twice as powerful as the PS2, not to mention that the hardware anti-aliasing made it look even more than that, an FF game on just the GameCube would be a huge step up. All people really care about is progress in graphics, and having the next FF game on the Wii would be exactly that, and by quite a bit. Actually, the differences between 8-12 have all been fairly minor, even the graphics of FF9 are not too far behind that of FFX. FF12 looked extremely glitchy, because the PS2 was fairly inferior, graphically, that an "overclocked GameCube" (of which the Wii is actually quite a bit more than just that), would be a huge sigh of relief. FF12 sold JUST FINE, just 6 months ago, on a system that was able to produce graphics that were about the quality of the GameCube's launch titles.
I think you underestimate the jRPG playing community, graphics are really not as important as you might think. This is a genre that began with text-based gameplay and progressed to sub-standard NES and SNES graphics, and on to extremely block and subpar 3D graphics (FF7 was a hit, but no one claimed that it was a graphical wonder). The important thing is immersion, and that comes from a host of things, but mostly: story, characters, writing, design, music... and yes, graphics. But the graphics of an overclocked gamecube would be more than suitable for the next release. You can bet that if it went to the Wii, people would snatch it up like you wouldn't believe, I don't think you'd hear much complaining. Remember that this is largely the same audience that snatched up Twilight Princess and, for the most part, absolutely loved it.
People remember the graphics of a game, mostly, for its most dazzling graphical moments... all of which are done with pre-rendered CG that will look identical on all consoles (under ED resolution). Snazzy real-time graphics are far more the baby of the FPS community than of the RPG playing community. After all, a lot of the time we're content being burried beneath menus, or reading text boxes, anyway. You're just putting way too much stock in it. Yes, an OverClocked GameCube will more than suffice.
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Ummm..so on the news that the PS3 has actually now sold 3 million consoles worldwide, this really looks like a dumb decision by Eidos, especially when considering that in March 2006, the 360 had sold less than half that. This idiotic "PS3 is dead" banter from the Nintendo and 360 fanboys is kind of old. To say that a console isn't selling well and stop releasing titles at this point is a dumb business move, especially when the growth rate of hardware sales is trending upwards and the big selling points are still coming. So, they can delay but at their own peril. This is especially highlighted by the fact that they really don't have any new properties. I didn't know Tomb Raider was still "hot" - only the first two games even appear on the top 200 titles of all time in sales on vgcharts.org.
So:
- Sony don't like this - they want exclusives.
- If they can't get exclusives they want the best version which is difficult as the PS3 graphic capability is currently on par with the Xbox360
So basically Sony have shot themselves in the foot with their ridiculous pricing and then they proceed to blow their (few remaining) brains out of their arse.Riight, leaving aside your relentless anti PS3 flamebait rants on slashdot for the last X weeks now for the time being (what is your mission anyway, crusader?), how stupid do you suppose game developers are? Do you honestly think any company would base their development plans on a momentary snapshot of installed base numbers alone? Development plans stretching one or two years in the future are something that our wise drinkypoo would solidly anchor on TODAY'S cosole sales numbers. Which is (concerning PS3 vs. x360) something like 3 million vs. 9.5 million.
Drinkypoo, time to read up upon and learn about a concept seemingly completely unbeknownst to you: m-o-m-e-n-t-u-m. Just to take an extreme example: if PS3's sales numbers were rising constantly and gaining momentum all the time (which one could argue they are, depending on where you look), and x360's being stuck at just below 10 million (which also is not all that far from reality) and not selling ANY MORE consoles from now on (this is not the case, obviously, but let's just suppose it were), where would that leave your business plan based on aforementioned snapshot? If drinkypoo were a product manager at a game development company and said, 'Hey, let's put all our efforts on the 360 for the next two years because the numbers are looking good just now!!', while next year it might just as well be 12 mio (x360) vs. 20 mio (PS3), that might still be funny in a Dilbert strip, but out here in the wild, I don't know.
With that kind of business sense, you better stay away from the stockmarket (and a couple of other things). On a related note: the 'not-selling-at-all' PS3 venture and the fact that there are hardly any titles out (= low competition) hasn't been all so bad for a small company like SEGA, don't you think? It's all about timing, and SEGA definitely had it right this time, before EA has figured out how to code for the CELL and floods the market with some rehashed crap and some pearls in between.
I agree to the other poster, though, if Square/Enix were to sell out to Microsoft, that might mean peril, but not only to SONY, ultimately. It doesn't work that way, luckily, because S/E know that intellectual and moral bankruptcy would loom just around the corner. And maybe they'd misinterpret PS3's momentum just the same. In which case they'd follow the x360 down the drain, which would be a pity, because I really want some more Frontmission games to see the light. On PS3, preferably.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
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The original poster alluded to a "port problem" - hardware sales and software ports are two completely different things.
Launch sales can also be deceiving. Fast forward two months and PSP sales sagged below both the DS and the Gameboy Advance SP.