David Reeves: This Christmas Not That Critical

[shams]

HappySqurriel said:

This is actually quite odd because I hadn't seen this thread before and was considering starting a thread as to why this Christmas was going to be the most critical for the success of the PS3 ...

At the moment there are quite a few major third party publishers who are not particularly happy with the sales performance of the PS3 and of their software on the PS3; many of these publishers previously favoured the Playstation and PS2 and were critical in the establishment of these platforms. At the moment, few of these developers are canceling projects or shifting a lot of resources away from PS3 projects because they feel that they have invested too much and the PS3 still has the opportunity to do better.

This holiday season the PS3 and most of the software on it has to sell really well in order to avoid consequences ...

Hypothetically speaking, if the PS3 underperforms this holiday season some (many) of the big games that are going to be released in 2008 could be delayed and ported to the XBox 360 and games with release dates beyond that could simply be canceled. I don't know what the necessary numbers are for Konami or Square to port their games away from the PS3, but I know it is a possibility if the PS3 does not meet their expectations.

I agree with this completely.

If nothing else, this Xmas sets up what happens early next year - and leads into next Xmas.

We all know MS have pushed back LOTS of titles for next year. Plenty to keep the hard-core happy anyway. Not so sure about Nintendo, but its sort of irrelevant at this point (may be selling hardware until July '08, just to catch up with Xmas demand).

The only reason I think Sony would be saying "this Xmas isn't important" - is if they know they will come last (at least in NA - and probably Europe), and just want to dampen the criticism when it hits.