The 3rd Party Balance Sheet of Terror

[amirnetz]

crumas2 said:

amirnetz said:

The question is not really which platform has more exclusives, but which platform is denied titles. Another way to rephrase it is: "Our goal is not to determine a winner, but to identify a loser".

An exclusivity for one of the HD consoles means that the other one does not get the title. If this denial happens often enough to the same platform it will start to become apparent in the marketplace that "that platform doesn't get many of the titles that are out there".

When such a perception is propagated in the market, then "that platform with the fewer titles" becomes a risky purchase to new buyers because the buyers will lack the confidence that all of the future titles will be available on the console. This lack of confidence will cause changes in buying decisions and the platform with the fewer titles will lose share. This lose of share in turn will accelerate the 3rd parties decision to drop support for the platform. And this vicious cycle is called "the death spiral". 

Interesting.  So, are you trying to determine where the non-availability/non-viability crossover point on the graph would be, or do you already have a "ratio" in mind (total body of 3rd party games vs exclusive 3rd party games) and you are trying to see how close the current platforms are to that target ratio?

 ...

Wow, I love your questions. Do I have a cross-over in mind? Not yet, but I do have some ranges in mind though. Let's think through it together (it is a bit subjective and I know others may have other cross over points in mind):

If one platform has on an average week 100% more titles overall (including 1st and 2nd) than the other platform (i.e. twice more), then this is clear and utter domination in market place. By now the winner/losers are well known.

If the one platform has 50% more titles on an average week then I think it is also domination, though in early stages.

If the one platform has 10% more titles on an average week then it will probably fly under the public perception radar. No harm done.

If the one platform has 20% more titles on an average week then I think it is reaching the point of visibility. People may start noticing that one platform has always more titles than the others.  This is the "red zone" for the lagging platform. It may still recover or get lucky and survive it, but it is certainly in danger.

With 30% regular advantage to one platform than I think we have passed the cross over point and the death spiral will start.

So I think we'll need to track which system is starting to trend towards the 20% and later the 30% advantage point. I don't think we are there today, but we need to track it over time to see what the trends are showing.

Do you think this makes sense?