Sony: We want Xbox 360 to succeed in Japan

[Reasonable]

crumas2 said:

famousringo said:
This man understands that without the combined install base of 360 and PS3, HD development would choke to death.

With the Japan current-gen console market being ~70% Wii, the danger is that all third-party games designed for Japanese release will opt for Wii exclusivity. Developers need to see it as an 'HD install base' rather than a 'PS3 or 360 install base' in order to justify new projects.

Do developers really think of the current console market that way, i.e. - HD vs SD gaming?  I thought the developers/publishers looked primarily at installed base and installed demographics, i.e. - casual gamer vs hardcore gamer.

 

I'm sure they do - at least right now anyway.  Last gen and before each playstation was so dominant a developer could confidently produce a game for it and not worry about other consoles.  Now though the Wii is dominant but has very different tech from PS3/360, while PS3/360 sell the big third party titles better but apart from a few core franchises its clear most HD games need to be on both or essentially half their sales.

So you can go Wii and its low cost but there's a lot of competition to succed, much of it from Nintendo themselves.  Or you can go HD and spread your risk over two consoles unless you want to go exclusive and get whatever perks you can for the privilage.  Or you can go HD then downscale for Wii (possible but I suspect not a good idea).  Or you can go SD then invest a lot more into new HD content to take the game to PS3/360 (which is also possible but adds a lot of expense).

Demographics would be more about the type of game - for example would you release a Gears of War type game on Wii alone?  I wouldn't as the market demographics and current systems indicate the 360/PS3 each have far better demographics for that type of game.

It's no accident PS3/360 top titles are very similar (exclusives aside) while Wii's are totally different exclusives you don't see on the HD consoles.

There may be more examples but only Lego games (Star Wars, Indy, etc) seem to lend themselves well to full multi-platform support from what I can see.