This is my first post/thread on Vgchartz so please don't be too hard on me. :)
Something I was thinking about a lot recently was that whilst I play a lot of first party PS3 games and exclusives on my PS3 I keep very few of them and looking at the sales data itself it makes me wonder if what my friends do is pretty similar to what happens in the wider world as well.
I've been a lot more savvy with my purchases and I have taken advantage of the used game market, renting and gamefly a lot more than I did in the previous generation. Its been great and I got to play a lot of content but at the same time I noticed that im effectively renting most of the Sony produced games and whilst they are great to play they don't justify much more than a 2nd look. It feels that the content is great once but not so great for a 2nd or a third look.
The thing im noticing with the top sales list is that in general the games which sell the most have a hell of a lot of content and the games which seem to maybe disapoint are lacking in the content in comparison. By content I mean the games that can be replayed a lot by having a multiplayer element, have a lot of single player content. By comparison I feel they put out a lot of flashy games which have a lot of impact on the player with a visual and environmental aspect but don't compell the players to keep hold of and they pass through many hands. This means a lot of people play their games but I feel maybe they have fewer actual sales than they could have.
Top 20 PS3 games by sales.
- GTAIV
- COD IV
- COD VI
- MGS IV
- COD V
- RFOM
- AssC
- MotoS
- GT5 P
- Unch
- LBP
- RE V
- Fifa IX
- Fifa X
- KZ2
- PES 2k9
- Unch II
- GH III
- FallO III
- PES 2k8
Now hopefully we can ignore the fact that many are sequels here but I want to point out some interesting stats for the games.
Only 3 are without pretty much any online component Aside from extra content downloads. I will include RE V here as it doesn't come with it out of the box.
Only 6 are without local multiplayer.
12 have both online and offline multiplayer at the same time. However arguably the 3 in the top 10 which are GTA IV, MGS IV and AssC have a hell of a lot of content.
Also one thing to note is that 5 of the top 10 games aren't even rendered at an HD resolution.
Now their top 20 games they released are:
- RFOM
- MotoS
- GT5 P
- Unch
- LBP
- KZ2
- Unch II
- RFOM II
- R&C TOD
- HS
- InFa
- Socom
- Sstar
- MS: PR
- HSG
- Buzz!
- SS: Abba
- MLB 08
- MLB 09
- Warhawk
Now around 8 of these lack a local multiplayer element whilst around 8 don't seem to have much in the way of an online mode. Please bear with me here as my internet is slow so I cannot check up on all the different titles.
Also only 5 of these titles have both a significant online and offline component. All four of these games appear in the top 5 for sales.
So overall the problem with these titles seems to be that whilst they are pretty great titles released they don't give as much incentive for people to hold onto them for as long. My PS3 is the main centrepiece of my home entertainment centre and it makes it very difficult to get as much extended play time on games which don't come with a local multiplayer component so whilst many games which I sell back may have great replayability I simply cannot play them as often as I would like because of that fact.
To sum up: Essentially the PS3 is a great system, but it seems the choices Sony makes with their games are problematic with how the system is used as the centre of an entertainment system. Games which can be shared seem to better fit this model than games which have to be played when other people don't want to use the TV as well. I think it shows in the sales that people don't retain the games which they cannot play as often as they don't offer nearly the same value as a game which can give you a lot of useage.
Please don't nitpick as I've obviously made some mistakes with this post but ask yourself if there may be any truth in the overall message?
