Erik Aston said:
I don't own a PS3, and I won't buy one for LBP, but I've been following the game because it's clearly the most original and altogether different offering either of the HD consoles have seen.
But there's a lot of negativity about the game. Even when people are just discussing the game, gameplay, and their personal excitement for it, it is inevitable that someone pops in and says something about how the game has too much hype, and won't sell well, often referencing "PS3's audience."
Though all hyped games receive anti-hype, there's a few games where the anti-hype actually becomes louder, and to me, it seems LBP is one of those games.
Why LBP? Probably because it's getting tag-teamed. In short, Microsoft is scared and Nintendo is jealous. Any major game that MS can't snag they're going to unleash the FUD on. They are propoganda kings, perpetuating the idea that XBox1 significantly outperformed Gamecube, and puffing up Halo's feathers with unholy marketing campaigns. They minimize Wii software sales by trying to move the entire discussion towards third parties. And they seem dead-set on matching, game for game, the entire PS2 and PS3 lineup, whether by capturing former exclusives or making copycat games from Forza to Lips. So of course they're scared of something outside of their gameplan.
Most people take MS and their fanboy surrogates in stride at this point, even if they don't realize how much MS controls the rhetoric of the console war. But LBP is unique in that it is also getting the Nintendo hate. With both HD consoles so over-focused on a few key genres, Wii and DS have been the home of practically all the major breakthrough games of this generation. I think it's this side that's come up with this idea that PS3 has the "wrong audience," even saying that LBP would be better off on Wii. I'm primarily a Nintendo guy and I can say I'm jealous of LBP without hating on it.
The question isn't about "audience" but about job. What job does LBP perform? It allows people to be creative and share their creativity. What is this audience who buys PS3s but doesn't like to be creative or share their creative works? I'm pretty sure that's a universal want.
If PS3 is bought mostly by young males who want to "kick ass" or be "edgy," that doesn't mean they don't like to be creative or have outlets to share their creativity. If they must be "kick ass" and "edgy" even in their creativity, they'll make dark, bizarre, ridiculously hard levels, full of "inappropriate" in-jokes and menacing boss enemies, deck their sackboys out in armor, and slap their friends around as they play the level.
They aren't going to decide that a half-assed create-a-character mode or level creation tool in a game that's artificially decked out with a "kick ass" and "edgy" presentation is better at the job of allowing people to create and share content. The primary competition for LBP are other, non game-related ways to make and share things, and if anything, LBP is more "kick ass" and "edgy" than most of those things.
So what about a prediction? 4 million. LittleBigPlanet will sell at least 4 million units over it's life.
That isn't an earth-shattering number, I suppose, but it's pretty significant for PS3, just like Fable was for XBox, or Animal Crossing was for Gamecube. I expect LBP to perform like an almost-top-tier hit on a losing console. In this case, a particularly well implemented hit on a particularly good selling losing console.
The interesting thing is going to be how the actual sales performance of the game kills the anti-hype. Internet hype doesn't affect sales; sales affect internet hype. When the hype is way louder than the anti-hype, like with Halo 3, GTAIV and Smash Brawl, people are dejected when the game doesn't sell 20M and alter the "console war." When there isn't an exaggertion of hype either way, like with MGS4 or Wii Fit, we can merely watch how the game performs versus realistic expectations. But when the negativity rules, like after reviews came out for Assassin's Creed or Mario Kart Wii, everyone ends up blown away by the sales performance.
I think a lot of people, even the game's day 1 purchasers, have bought the line that LBP won't sell to PS3's audience, and will be surprised by how well the game performs.
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