No Blue his post was not useless he is absolutely on the money. The Famitsu top ten list doesn't not indicate that game will sell well. The Famitsu top ten list is essentially what the hardcore Japanese gamer is looking forward too. Japanese market sales are determined in the most part by the casual gamer.

Final Fantasy XIII will certainly spike PS3 sales. Unfortunately for Sony the most popular RPG series in Japan is Dragon's Quest and that is on DS. That said both DQ and FF games share the same sales trait. The game sells millions the first week and then proceeds to drop like a rock. Do your realize how far the Wii will be ahead of the PS3 in Japan by the time April of 2008 gets here. Assuming that there aren't any Final Fantasy fans that own PS3s in Japan right now and all of them ran out and bought PS3s when FFXIII releases, the PS3 would still be behind the Wii.

Going by current sales trends and assuming there is not holiday sales spike the Wii will be at bare minimum 4 million units ahead of the PS3 in Japan. So lets recap, if there is no holiday sales spike for Wii, if no Final Fantasy fans own a PS3 now, and if they all buy a PS3 for FFXIII at release, we are looking at 2.5 to 3 million PS3s being sold that week which would put the PS3 1 to 1.5 million behind the Wii. And that is using a favorable scenario for the PS3, because the sales gap between PS3 and Wii isn't holding steady its growing, there will be a holiday sales spike, and there are Final Fantasy fans that own PS3s in Japan right now.

You are kidding right? You did not just post that did you? Do I really have pull up the PS2s sales numbers in comparison the PS3s and show you why your logic is severely flawed?

Well I think FF XIII will likely be the lowest selling Final Fantasy game in years (that is if it even gets released on PS3 and isn't canned / transferred to another console in the meantime).

Don't forget that hardware sales affect software sales - why do you think the same game sold 5 times better on PS2 than Gamecube? Because it had a userbase 5 times as big. Games on Dreamcast that would have been massive on PS and even N64 sold pretty poorly due to the hardware userbase.

It's a complex effect. The games to an extent will sell hardware but the hardware also sells games. If hardware sales stay at sub 10k all year than many projects will be canned. Publishers / developers are, after all, businesses and exist to make money. If they need to get out and cut losses they will.

If, for example, PS3 sales were to hit 2 million by the end of the year (actually quite optimistic) and say there is a price drop in the new year so weekly sales go up to 15k per week and FF XIII comes out in March, do you seriously expect it to sell 2m at launch like past installments? That would either mean every single PS3 owner would buy it or it would sell a 100,000-200,000 per week for a while after launch. It's not going to happen. Sure a game like FFXIII will boost sales but not by that kind of an amount - you have to be realistic here. At the same point Wii sales are likely to be 5-6 million so wouldn't it make more sense for future SE projects (KH III, DQ X etc) to then come to Wii where they will cost less to make and sell more?

whatever

Ok apperantly FF will have little affect on Japan, you know best.

the problem with sony is that it caters to the "richer" people.
that and the lack of games (compared to other 2).
why do people buy a gaming system? to play games.
how many people would be willing to spend $600 and wait a year to buy a game?
may as well wait until the games are available, right?

but that's another problem. lacking in console sales also means less devs, which means less games. It's a vicious cycle. (chicken came first, dang it.)

Sony did have the most support before it was released, but the sales numbers aren't on their side and the support are following suit.

I, as a gamer, want all 3 consoles to success. More choices for me. Unfortunately, we won't be seeing them all equally success. DS FTW :)

No I'm just using common sense. The Wii will be at minimum 4 million units a head of the PS3 when FFXIII releases. Even if the game has above average sales for an FF game the PS3 will still be behind. The PS3's price and smaller userbase are going to have a negative effect on FFXIII's sales.

Exactly, maybe in 18 months the PS3 would be an attractive purchase. There will be many more games out, the price will have dropped and the technology will be the sort of thing people are after.

This is a business-focused site and looking at it from a business point of view you have to say Sony have tried to do far too much with PS3. In three years time it is likely that the new Xbox will be well underway and it will be significantly more powerful than PS3. You can't release a console now to be successful in two years time, it is terrible business sense. In the next 18 months people will buy their Xbox360s and Wiis, games will sell better on them so more people will buy them and make games for them and so on. Success breeds success. In the meantime, PS3 sales will keep dropping, gamers and developers will become more and more disillusioned and by the time the big games come and the price is right nobody will care. Wii sales will be 50m+ Xbox360 sales will be 30m+ and PS3 will be a distant third. It may have a year or two as the best seller and make up a little ground but before long X720 will be out and will do everything bigger and better again.

Assuming Sony can financially recover from PS3 they may be more sensible and release a PS4 sooner or better still stop trying to make an all-encompassing media machine and get back to making a games console at an affordable price and supported with great games...

To give a short answer...

Blue: Final Fantasy 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,... 12 boosted hardware sales for exactly one (1) week. So the PS3 will probably sell 50k in the week Final Fantasy launches.

But that´s all. Look at the sales charts, 4 weeks after a Final Fantasy launched it doesn´t sell anymore. It´s for the hardcore crowd, the crowd which already owns a PS3. They won´t buy a second PS3 just for this game.

After more than one year of bad sales Final Fantasy will help the PS3 to stay alive. Stay alive, nothing more.

Look at the West: Halo is as big in the US as Final Fantasy is in Japan. Still, it never boosted XBox sales for more than a couple of weeks. Do you really think Final Fantasy and Metal Gear alone will help the PS3 to win this gen?

@ HS

Gundam Masou is still by far the best sold PS3 game for Japan, likewise XBox 360 sales jumped from nonthingness 1500 sales per week toward 40K units per week and still performs better than it did before.

The PS3 is a relatively pricey console, so more quality content is needed for many potential consumers to justify the purchase.

lol you clearly don't even read posts anymore. The first two posters were clearly saying the PS3 was NOT doomed, yet you had to come in here with your incredible sarcastic wit.

I don't know how you manage to post 448 times yet still contribute nothing to these forums.