God of War 3 has been out for almost a month now....and metacritic state that its a Universal Acclaim at 93/100, but the sales have been shy of 2m units worldwide. To be honest I thought it would have sold insane amount of copies considering the magnitude of what its achieved? Whats happened to the Sony install base? Everyone just in it for the Blu-ray player? or what is it? It's certain that it it's not piracy.....?
I am worried for Sony thats all, if they are doing enough to encourage more gameplay rather than Blu-ray. It seems all their MAJOR AAA BLOCKBUSTERS are not really breaking any sales records. I was so sure God Of War 3 had a far greater install base than that. The first month figures is pretty much the crucial figures. Sony must invest alot of time and money into these franchises, and I really don't think they are getting anything special back from it. I mean take a look at the Wii, a simple game like Mario has sale figures that sky rocket through the roof even with major piracy issues aswell, and set records that are rarely beaten. Then theres the Xbox 360 with insane sale figure with all their AAA BLOCKBUSTER games, especially considering that their install base is no where near the Wii's, and along with the ever going piracy problems they are facing too. I mean God Of War 3 is an iconic franchise, which goes way back in to the previous generations
I mean looking at the their hardware sales and their previous software sales, its clear that a large number of the PS3 install base must be for their high value Blu-ray player. Either that or softcore gamers share a much larger percentage of their current install base. I think with the great competition they already have along with the almost identical motion sensing control as the Wii, which does not really bring a great new experience, if Sony does not change their strategy and aim very very high, they will be in serious trouble. Using the PS3 as an example, it's clear that its not always about hardware sales, its more to do with the kind of install base you have and the way you promote your product. Games sales is what separates the competition and allows the companies to progress and expand their franchises.
What I have noticed, is that with the Xbox 360 and the Wii, they sell exclusives like VERY HOT CAKES, whereas the PS3 does not in comparison (we can even include third party sales aswell if you like, most third party games are almost 2:1 to the xbox 360). The major difference here is that the PS3 has the Blu-ray drive which plays the current High Definition format and the fact that its built by Sony and is also a new Slim version, so one can imagine that when you are shopping for a Blu-ray player, and you are a Sony tech, then your naturally going to see the PS3 and think "Oooh, and ALL-In-One, aesthetically pleasing- ill grab that," and it sits at home pretty much playing the new Blu-ray movies, and maybe occasionally the kids play a game or two. Whereas on the other hand when you buy an Xbox 360 and a Wii (with just a regular old DVD player, where the Wii actually does not support DVD playback, but is renowned for its motion sensing gaming, and the Xbox 360 is renowned for Xbox Live), so you know most people aren't going to buy a Wii or Xbox 360 for watching movies, and so you know that when most people purchase these consoles, its mostly definately going to be for gaming. Make sense anybody? well all I'm trying to do here is make sense of a strange situation here.
Tell me what you think? Be nice and try and stick to the topic at hand.
