Buying Games in Bulk?

[Bodhesatva]

mrstickball said:
But again, in terms of software revenue, which one is better, which shows what the consumer is buying:

1 million games a month at $60 USD or
750,000 games a month at $50 USD + 500,000 a month at an average of $20 USD.


Again, look at Japan, where Sports isn't bundled: The attach ratios are about half of that as they are in the US. This obviously shows people aren't adopting 3rd party, or other 1st party software. It's fine if you know people that have a Wii just for 1 or 2 games, but that really doesn't help the Wii out, outside of the hardware sale, does it? Videogame creators don't care about people that buy a Wii for a free, or near free game, because the games THEY have to make cost money, and if the consumer isn't willing to PAY for that game, they won't put the software out, will they?

It's not that these friends of mine only have 1 or 2 games (they've only owned the system for a few weeks, after all), it's that those specific games are Wii Sports and Wii Play. According to your method, their attach rate is literally 0, which is silly, especially when I can go over to their houses and play on their Wii with them, which would be impossible if they hadn't bought any games. It completely warps the attach ratio to simply ignore  Sports/Play.

Also, your evaluation of software revenue is jilted. For both the 360 and PS3, development costs are much higher, and those aren't factored in to your equation: for the PS3 in particular, Blue Ray discs actually do cost considerably more than a DVD9, so that needs to be factored in too. Generally though, I think we should simply leave this portion of the calculations out of it -- not because it isn't relevant, but because there is so much to calculate already that including this is simply too complex, especially given that we can't even agree on the attach rates of the consoles in the first place. 

And I still would be curious to know how you reached the conclusion that the Wii's attach rate in Japan is just "okay." At this point in its lifespan, it's well ahead of the PS3 (35 percent higher) and at approximately the same place as the 360 (the 360 is 8 percent higher, but systems that sell more slowly tend to have higher attach rates per system, and the 360 is selling much more slowly there).  If the Wii's attach rate is okay... what's the PS3's attach rate like? Terrible? Abyssmal?