S.T.A.G.E. said:
Yeah, but thats just the thing. Sony purchased a four year exclusivity deal with Rockstar games and made the bulk of the money on the PS2 whilst Microsoft and the Xbox ended up looking like shit. It was sad to see GTA sales on the Xbox (I barely played my Xbox when I had it anyway, but still). Microsoft does a similar thing in making sure there was exclusive DLC on their system and they get looked at by PS3 fanboys like they did some massive wrong to the industry, where Sony never even allowed original Xbox owners to even touch a GTA title for four years. At least Microsoft didn't pull that same greedy shit and paid to have a superior version of the game made. The DLC came out too little too late for my taste, but over two million people got to enjoy 'Lost and Damned' and will now enjoy 'The Ballad of Gay Tony'. |
The Sony-Rockstar deal wasn't four year exclusivity. Unless by four year exclusivity you mean "PS2 owners get first taste on all GTA games released within the next four years." GTA III arrived on Xbox two years after the PS2 version, Vice City arrived one year after (GTAIII and Vice City were bundled in one package for Xbox) and San Andreas arrived one year after. And yet how many PS2 owners complained that they were getting "betas"? The Xbox versions not only had extras but they also had better graphics since the Xbox has a much greater graphical advantage over the PS2 (whereas the PS3 and 360 are pretty close in that regard. With PS3 having the superior processor and 360 having the superior GPU). Yeah it sucks to miss out on exclusive content but I think 360 owners are overreacting and PS3 fanboys are being silly for throwing around the "beta" label when the exact same thing was happening last generation to the PS2 when their stuff got ported to the Xbox. It's the nature of the beast.
Just like how the Rockstar timed exclusivity deals worked out for Sony, I think the Tales and SO deals worked out for MS. The 360 install base in Japan is like what? 30% that of the PS3 in Japan. But Tales on the 360 sold like 60-65% of what the PS3 version sold. So I'd say that the deal was mission accomplished for Microsoft. The Tales fanboys who feel sore that they ended up buying the console for 1 game are clearly in the minority among Japanese 360 owners. Japanese 360 owners have the highest tie ratio in Japan. So it's clear that the majority don't just buy the 360 for 1 game. But multiple games, including the REAL exclusives. I was looking at a Japanese consumer survey article yesterday and apparently they found that the Japanese 360 owners tended to play a lot more per week than other Japanese console owners and 90% of them kept the console in their room (whereas 70% of Wii owners had their console in the living room). So it's clear that the average Japanese 360 owner is a hardcore otaku (otaku as in geek, not necessarily someone that plays Japanese things) as opposed to a casual player who only plays Tales or Star Ocean on their 360.
Considering the number of visual novels, shoot em ups, exclusive jrpgs (Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery, TLR might even remain 360/PC exclusive), sim games (Idolmaster) and other Japanese exclusives (Ace Combat 6, Beautiful Katamari), it doesn't surprise me that the 360 has a core gamer following in Japan. It's not good for just western games. Now if only some of those Japan-exclusive 360 games get translated and make their way to North America and PAL, particularly the visual novels. Unfortunately visual novels have a very tiny audience outside of Japan.
