txrattlesnake said:
With the growing install base, MH3 and other games probably would have come to the PS3 too. And FF Versus XIII Christmas '09 would have continued the momentum. They probably would have hurried up the release of GT to keep it going as well. I believe the decision to put XIII on the 360 wasn't made until way past the midpoint of FFXIII's development, so, I do think that delayed the game's release at least one year. And it makes since to think so imho as FFXIII should have been out Christmas '08, Versus XIII in '09, and XIV holiday 2010. |
I don't think the GTA IV DLC really mattered to the consumer as the sell rate seemed to be pretty evenly split based on marketshare. You have to remember that GTA was only a timed exclusive on the ps2 so the fanbase was already there on the xbox and then a lot of ps2 owners switched consoles this gen in NA.
FFXIII and Versus XIII would NOT be done 2 years earlier because they went multiplat. They could have made the game on the ps3 and then ported it to the 360 (like they did). That would only increase development time for a studio as large as square enix for 4 or 5 months at best. Also, Versus XIII is still ps3 exclusive so if it was going to come out in holiday 2009 it would be out already.
The reason MGS4 moved units so well is because it reintroduced a backwards compatible 80 gig model that was in high demand and had been cleared off shelves for MONTHS. While MGS4 is a great game and definetly moved systems, that increase was more than just the game, it was the reintroduction of the model as well.
Anyway, outside of japan Final Fantasy and MH3 have almost no influence on hardware sales. The reason that ps3 is so far down this gen is because it lost it's stranglehold on NA and others. It came out at too high a cost and didn't have games to back it up for almost 2 years. Japan is not that big of a territory as far as hardware sales go and that is really the only territory that would have been heavily influences by the exclusivity of final fantasy.
Now, if they had been able to retain timed exclusivity of GTAIV, or Assassins Creed, Resident Evil, or any of the other popular franchises in western society they might be in a slightly better position, but not 20 million units better. At most you are talking maybe 2 to 3 million jump is all. Price is a much bigger factor than games, and Sony just barely got to a competitive price point 4 years after launch.