Sony must fix their 1st party ratio or it will choke them financially.

[KBG29]

This is a major problem for Sony. They are the absolute worst at marketing their first party games. Games like Motorstorm, Little Big PLanet, Rathchet and Clanck, Uncharted, Resistance, and Heavanly Sword would have been massive sellers if they were published by either Nintendo or Microsoft.

Sony has been sending their games out to die for years now. Here are some examples from the PS2:

Franchise Game 1 Game 2 Game 3
Socom 3.44M 2.65M 1.55M
Jak and Daxter 3.21M 2.30M 1.75M
God of War 3.21M 2.31M
Ratchet and Clanck 2.93M 2.42M 2.17M

When Sony first started the Playstation brand they were very much like Microsoft is today. They wanted to get an identety in the gameing public, and they busted their ass to get their exclsusives know to everyone whether they were hardcore or not. At the beggining if the PS2's run they were still going strong, but as the years went by and the PS2 kept racking up sales they just stopped trying to sell games, and said they would do it buy themselves with word of mouth.

As you can see in the chart above using numbers from this site, Sony is killing their franchises. Every single game has seen a drop by 1/3 in sales with Jak 3 and Socom 3 selling less than half what the original sold. To me this is a major problem. When your biggest competitors have had their biggest franchises continue to sell more with each new game, while your franchises slowly fade away. Sony has to get their act together and they have to do it soon.

So far this year they have already sent Little Big Planet, Resistance 2, Motorstorm Pacific Rift, and Metal Gear Solid out to die. Metal Gear faired well because the franchise has a vey Solid hardcore base at around 3.5 million. The other 3 games have a less hardcore audiance, and they absolutly need that big Mario Kart, like ad campain. The marketing Sony had for each game was the same old WTF is this style they have had for the last 5 years. It does not sell games. They have to show people having fun playing the game. Just watch Diseny, or Nicolodean. They alsways have the commercials for these crap shovelware games with kids having a good time, and adults lusting over the games. Then we wonder why they sell better than awsome games that people don't even understand what the commercial is about, let alone knowing it is a game.

Sony has a beautiful Line-up next year of Fisrt party games. They are all well spread out, and each game has the opertunity to be a major seller. Starting with Killzone they have got to get back to their old ways. It is Sony that has been saying "Exclusives are a thing of the past, it is all about what you can do in house now, and that is were the ture exclusives are.". Well if they are so sure of that then they have got to make people besides the fanboys know about these games.

I love SCE, and to me they are miles ahead of anyone when it comes to first party releases. The problem is that the quality to sales ratio is absolutly horrible on Playstation and that is Sony's own fault. Look at MS and Nintendo, look at your past. Market winners, because Sony you have the best, but people have to know.