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The November Videogame Market By the Numbers
Along with the news that more than half of the US is playing games, the November NPD numbers offer an interesting insight into the games industry. The ongoing console war was white hot, with record hardware sales. The Wii outsold the PS3 by half a million systems last month, and is quickly gaining on the Xbox 360's total sales figures. The big winners last month were software publishers, though, with a record $1.3 billion in sales. "Obviously Call of Duty 4 performed well on both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. It is now second only to Halo 3 for first-month sales numbers on the Xbox 360. On the PlayStation 3 no other game has launched as well as Call of Duty 4 in November. Super Mario Galaxy performed extremely well for its first month. Two new properties - Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect - sold well enough to make the top 10. Across both platforms, Assassin's Creed was actually the second best selling game of the month. It is amusing to note that despite the unprecedented Nintendo DS and PSP sales, no game for either system sold well enough to make the top 10 software list for November."
The so called xbox/ps/nintendo "console war" has been going on hot and heavy for what, 7+ years now? Can we stop calling it "white hot" and finally conceed that the each console of this generation is filling a different need, as shown by last month's NPD data? Galaxy sold well, COD4 sold well, Assasin's creed sold well, Mass effect sold well, Halo 3 sold well, the DS and PSP hardware sold well, even if they didn't have any standout games. To me, that sounds like everybody's pretty damned happy about this holiday season, and even though the ps3 isn't doing as well as the rest, they will catch up eventually. Everyone has nailed what they were trying to accomplish this gen. Congrats to all the consoles and software developers.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
They are useless for comparing pretty much anything as they are "per console". When consoles have been out for different lengths of time it's meaningless to compare attach rates. If xbox owners have had an extra year (or whatever) to buy games then you'd expect it's attach rate to be higher (a more impressive back catalogue that extra time generates will also help). Perhaps there might be some value in comparing the Wii and 360 attach rates x months after launch.
In short the "attach rate" has too much of an historic component to tell you clearly what is going on "now" which is the interesting thing.
Attach rates are only a useful measurement for console manufacturers selling consoles at a loss. In that situation the manufacturer knows that it has to reach a certain attach rate to claw back that loss before it can even think about a profit (though that is changing now they have additional profit streams such as subscriptions, virtual consoles, blu ray etc).
For everyone else you may as well just talk about total games sold. Dividing it by the number of consoles doesn't tell you anything useful.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Attach rates are not actually relevant to 3rd party developers in the abstract. Only the number of games sold compared to the cost of development is. The PS3 has a higher attach rate than the Wii, but it is much more expensive to develop for, and there is a much smaller market. The PS2 did not have a great attach rate, but it was much more popular to develop for. The reason you are not seeing as much 3rd party support is because the Wii's success was unexpected and design cycles take a while. Expect to see a boom in the not too distant future.
*sigh* I should learn that you can't attempt reasonable and moderate posts in a console thread without getting flamed.
" The graphics are pretty much comparable,"
Honestly guy, give it a rest. To still be trying to claim that in late 2007 is borderline delusional.
But they are. The PS3 is better in some games, the 360 is better in others. I expect that in the long-term, the PS3 will turn out to be more powerful, but they are clearly similar. Just like the original X-Box was in the same league, but slightly superior, to the Gamecube. They are both graphically superior to the Wii, which is closer to last gen graphics. The 360 & PS3 are close enough in power to negate it as a serious advantage for one consoleor the other.
"is less expensive"
When has console price EVER been a factor in which system gamers buy? Saving 50,100,150 dollars to give up on all the games for an entire generation? PS2 owners are still working through their insanely large library of games and are upgrading to PS3s when the price drops to their own personal price point.
I think that your last sentence contradicts your first. Price is always a factor, in everything anybody buys.
The 360 library is garbage. Halo 3 is a basketcase, Mass Effect is a massive step backwards in rpgs with last gen looking graphics, Lost Planet and Dead Rising were mediocre titles, Forza and PGR are jokes compared to GT.
I think this statement is probably most indicative of your skewed perspective. Saying the graphics on a PS3 are better than the 360 is completely reasonable. Saying the PS3 has a better library of games is silly. By the time that you make this claim, the vast majority of readers have dismissed you as a partisan troll. The selection of games and the price are the two major liabilities the PS3 has.
The PS3 will play every single big name franchise so many Europeans bought PS2s for. Anyone suggesting that all those PS2 gamers are going to give up all those big name titles for a graphically weaker, absurdly unreliable console just to save 50 to 100 bucks?
Well, the 360 is more successful than the PS3 in the US. Lots of people here have given up all those big name titles for a "graphically weaker, absurdly unreliable console". Are they all wrong? Besides, most of those titles will eventually migrate to whatever console is most successful. There are no loyalties among companies, just temporary alliances.
I really wish there was a "-1, Dumbass" mod.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game