PS3, The Loser That The Fans Think Is Winning.

[MaxwellGT2000]

Doobie_wop said:

MaxwellGT2000 said:

*shrug* I dunno mike, I'm just your average joe I couldn't tell you which of those games out of the ones you've listed is really "big". 

*shakes head* What you've just said and listed off just proves my point, Assassins Creed being a big one, since it was a new IP this gen, had no fanbase prior, and when the publisher invested so much money into the game they decided that marketing it as an awesome new super cool game (AKA one of your "BIG titles") when really it was like theres this so-so game that we put a lot of money into, we need to market it to people to protect the investment, then we green lit a trilogy because guess what?  That helps just break even and then make more money with reducing investments.  It's all really a business tactic that has been in use since forever.

Now if your definition of "big games" was done by popular opinion, which is tangible, cause sales are a pretty direct correlation to popular opinion and what they want, AKA demand.  But I'm guessing that would only work for some of those games you've listed, and in all likelyhood make some games you wouldn't want to be seen as "big games" into "big games" simply defeating your own argument.

So right now psrock you've got two ways to go with this man, "my definition of big games is this, cause this is what I believe popular opinion is, though I'm simply representing the "hardcore" definition of big games" (which is all opinion) or you can go by something tangible and backed up by numbers, which would contradict the statements you've made :-

I think psrock's point wasn't that the Wii doesn't have any huge franchises, but that it has much less in comparison to the other consoles. If we were going by your argument (sales = popular opinion) then that mean's that the Wii only really has about 7 huge franchises on the system (Super Smash Bros., Wii series, Mario Kart, Carnival Games, Mario & Sonic, Mario Galaxy and NSBW). The Xbox 360 and PS3 have many more 'big' games to choose from and they also vary in comparison to the Wii titles. 

I also never liked the whole Wii argument that sales = quality and that it's the best way to see how good a game is. There are so many factor's that go into what make's a game popular that it isn't as black & white as you make it. Marketing, price of the software, price of the system, brand recognition, positive reviews, accesibility and replayability. Nintendo are lucky that they've been able to nail all these objectives with their large games, but is Game X any worse because it offer's all those features except for marketing?. Why should the amount of money a company throw's behind a product's Ad campaign determine the quality of the product itself?.

I've studied Marketing + International Trade for two year's and I can tell your right now that just because a company tell's you, you want our product, it doesn't mean you really want it, it's just that to the average Joe it's the only thing he know's is available. Apple, Microsoft and Sony have used this system of marketing (Ipod, Windows and PS1 + PS2). Not many people would know what Linux is, or what an M:Robe  is and I doubt anyone even knew that the Dreamcast and Gamecube existed, but it doesn't make them inferior product's, it just mean's that the their creator's did not have the mean's of pushing a huge marketing campaign to inform the public on what they should buy and who to buy it from. This is what Nintendo has done, it's not bad, but it kinda takes away from your whole 'Sales = quality' argument.

Determining the quality of a product is better suited to the online gaming community (this site for example) than just looking at sales and falling into the marketing hype. I know that if I had a choice of choosing between listening to people on VG Chartz for game recommendations or asking the average Joe who picked up Mario Kart Wii for his 12 year old son because he saw it on TV, I'd definitely choose to listen to people on the VG Chartz forum.

Sorry..... that was a long rant..

Actually I agree with you completely, I was throwing out the sales thing as something tangible to rate on (I offered a different way to make a "big game" tangible in my last reply)

My problem isn't that sales is the indicator of quality, far from it, I even mentioned that in one reply that marketing is protecting investments.  It's that there really isn't a definition of a "big game", there is no way to obtain a non opinionated definition, and really people are looking at old IPs as the definition of "Big game" when they come and go each gen, and at one point in time a lot of them began their life on the "losing console". 

If you want to define it time and money invested... well there has never been a time in gaming it took this long or this much money to make a single game, which that doesn't answer if it's quality, it doesn't answer if it can get sales, it doesn't answer if its even known.  I could invest millions into a game with 10 years of development, oh man "big game" right? Nope that'd be Too Human, hyped, marketed, from really awesome developers, big budget, people wanted it, etc.  Then it was dead in the water and almost took the developers with it.

In the end, much like the title of AAA to a game, it simply being "big" is a matter of opinion usually defined by what someone wants like psrock flat out admitted to, its what HE wants and those games are on PS3 and 360, does that mean they're big cause he wants them?  No it doesn't.  To be honest I just believe it's furthering this whole "mine is better than yours" mentality, some people are doing it because they're coming to grips that things change and they feel threatened, some people do it cause they have to stroke their ego cause they must affirm they made the right purchases, but the common factor is they seem to want to put down what others like as not up to their standard, it isn't AAA to them, it isn't big, it isn't (insert here), and that's simply because it's not what THEY want, but when you look at many other factors you see the people claiming that isn't nearly the whole vote.