LBP is Sony's last chance to pull ahead

[Grey Acumen]

Gnizmo said:

Grey Acumen said:

Oh no, I'm not going so far as to say it's going to be THE defining factor. I'm just claiming that it will essentially be the litmus test for the survivability of creativity on the PS3 console. If it succeeds, it will set the precedent that other "creative" games can also succeed, but if it flops, then following "creative" games will also likely flop for the same reasons, such as price point too high, PS3 has been glutted with "hardcore" gamers, thus casual games won't do well, development costs too high to take the risks, etc.

If creative games can succeed on the PS3 console, then it will be able to break away from being viewed as simply the same thing as the 360, who has already stated that they are trying to break away from their hardcore image, which I frankly have not seen them do successfully. If the PS3 can break away from that, I think it will be able to surpass 360 in sales, but if it can't, then it will remain trailing.

That's just simply the way I see it. It's not that LBP will be THE deciding factor in this, but that you will be able to predict future trends based on how well this survives.

 Again you areblowing the games importance way out of proportion. This isn't going to be a litmus test for "creative" games. It will be a litmus test for "games like Little Big Planet." Future ambitious projects are not going to looks diretly at Little Big Planet for possible success for varying really good reasons. A FPS is not a good litmus test for a RPG. Little Big Planet will not be a good litmus test for games that are not similar to it. The creativity of future products will depend on the instal base of the console and the likely hood of the game selling enough copies to actually see a decent return on investment.

I'm afraid you've misunderstood me. When I say litmus test, I'm not talking about developers sticking their fingers in the wind to see what games they should develop. They'll continue to develop what they're already developing and start developing whatever they're going to develop. This litmus test is for US, the people on this site who are tracking sales and are actually putting any weight on whether a console sells the most or not.

Seriously, LBP is the best example I've seen of a highly anticipated PS3 game that isn't 3, 2, 4, 5 or 13, and out of all of these, it's the only one that isn't hyper realistic and is whimsical in nature. This may not tell us excatly how well every single future "creative" game will fair, but it will be a reference point to work from.

The other point I hold, is that no single game or pricecut or anything of that nature is going to push PS3 up ahead of 360. The only way I see for PS3 to pass 360 is be seperating itself as being distinctly different in nature from the 360. The best chance I see for the PS3 to do this is in showing itself off as being capable of both hardcore AND whimsical, which will require whimsical and creative games to do well.

And as I said, Little Big Planet will not do this on its own or inspire other developers to be creative and whimsical, BUT by seeing how well this game performs, we will have a fairly reasonable point to work from when trying to calculate how any other creative and whimsical games will do, nd from that, how good a chance PS3 has from distinguishing itself from 360 in this manner.