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sc94597 on 16 September 2009
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scottie said:
sc94597 said:
scottie said:
sc94597 said:
This is bad news. Why would anybody want direct ports of a game with no extra content? Seriously what is with this habit of getting late ports for PS3 from 360 and now Wii, Wii getting ports from last generation consoles, and 360 getting ports from PC. Developers, especially this generation are porting WAY too much and imo not making original, unique games. The only places you don't see this are PC and Handhelds. This is because ports on these platforms rarely sell.

DS

Super mario 64: DS 7.73 million

FFIII - 2.3 million

The Sims 2 - 1.47 million

DQIV 1.32 mill

DQV 1.3 mill

FFIV - 1 mill

 

PSP - the best and 3rd best selling games are both ports

Four of those are remakes of games 15-20yrs old. Even then they are big franchises. They sold much less than the originals  The other two are pretty much the exceptions because they are big series.

 

Edit The PSP games are NOT direct ports despite what some may say. They are pretty much entirely different games if you look at the value aspect(playing locally with friends versus subscriptioned online), and they have extra content.

They're still ports, and you said that ports on portables don't sell. If you were only talking about ports of current of 6th gen games then yes, you're right

 

@ edit - Most ports have extra features

 

@ soriku - I'm not sure what you mean? I don't mind at all if companies bring out ports - in the end its the consumer that decides whether porting games is profitable or not, and the role of game companies is to keep the consumers happy.

A remake isn't a port. Why would I think that? Because you are remaking the game. A port is taking essentially the same game and putting it on another console. People who already own the original buy remakes much more often than ports. So they aren't the same thing. Also I was making a generalization, a few exceptions from the largest gaming franchise of all time, and another large franchise doesn't prove any point other than that large franchises sell no matter what. Even then they sold much less than newly made titles fromt he series on the DS. Monster Hunter is an example of the values of a game being changed to sell more, and Grand Theft Auto another example of a large franchise. I tell you this. Look at the sales of Tales of Eternia(Psp), and Star Ocean 2 compared to the originals. How about Chrono Trigger DS? On a handheld where porting a game is probably just as expensive as half of making one, you don't see much reason to port anymore. That is why they "remake" them. This is even more true if you talk about current generation games.Like always there are exceptions though, such as Disgaea.

Console ports seem to sell much more though. Look at Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition. It is on track to outsell the Gamecube version. How about Okami? It at least matched the sales of the PS2 game.  A great example of a game that shows that porting doesn't work to well on handhelds is Manhunt 2(Wii Version) compared to the orignal PS2 Version, and the PSP Version. It sold 240k on Wii, 270k on PS2, and a measly 30k+(no Japanese Data, Wasn't released in Others) on PSP. I think that it is because some games work better on consoles. When you port it to a handheld it may be the same in content, but it isn't the same experience. This also goes the other way around too. So the ports that do work, have to translate to handhelds. Which gets back to my point, they are entirely different experiences so you need to compensate for the experience. When you compensate for the experience it isn't a port anymore because the original content would have to be changed to a large degree.