Microsoft: "It's ganna be a tough holiday for Sony"

[Scoobes]

RAZurrection said:

Scoobes said:

@ underlined

That's not entirely accurate. You mentioned Uncharted 2 for instance, which by all rights shouldn't have moved consoles, yet on the week of release we saw a moderate boost in PS3 sales, even with good but not brilliant lifetime sales.

1. Have these amounted to anything more than tempory spikes? I'm talking significant long term leaps in sales in multiple millions? Not 30k extra for the launch week. 

Scoobes said:

You can't just shove a threshold on these things.

2. Of course you can. Name a game that sold 10 - 15 million copies and wasn't considered a system seller? There aren't any really, so we know it's at least 10-15 million and to lesser extents that could drop as low as 7 million, but in the 4-5m area it becomes a whole lot murkier.

Scoobes said:

The core fanbase is important to certain franchises.

3. True, but the question still remains the same. Why should we expect more from 11 million GT fans from 6 years ago, then 11 million Halo fans from only 3 years ago?

Scoobes said:

 A survey recently suggested that  >50% of people that planned to buy GT5, had yet to purchase a PS3. I don't put much stock into thse surveys, but it does suggest a positive trend for GT5.

4. Or a negative situation for the PS3. 140 million PS2's and 35million PS3's. Over 75% of them have yet to purchase a PS3 too, it doesn't mean they for certain will.

1. In that case Halo 3 barely pushed that many 360s and nor did Gears 2. I don't think either the 360 or PS3 has had a major and sustained boost in sales from software if that's your benchmark. Price cuts around the holiday season and redesigns have been far more successful. In fact, I could argue that MGS4 has sold consoles since launch due to the promise of an exclusive MGS game.

2. Mario Kart Wii? I doubt many Wii owners would have bought a Wii solely because of that game. It was a combination of Nintendo software that helped sell the Wii. Even Super Mario Galaxy to a lesser extent due to the new casual gamer market.

3. Where do you think they've gone. Some may have gone to Forza but a significant number have stayed on PS3 with prologue, yet the features for that title were very few and far between. There are 2 issues that suggest to me GT5 will sell well. First, as I mentioned before, there is a gap in the software market. Secondly, being deprived of something you enjoy leaves you hungry. The fans haven't had a full driving simulation on PS3 and Forza hasn't sold well enough to convince me that fans have shifted to 360.

And I didn't bring up Halo Reach, which I think will sell quite nicely. It wouldn't suprise me if it sold worse than Halo 3 (I'm fairly sure it'd do better than ODST) as the FPS market is getting a lil' oversaturated, but if it sells more, I wouldn't be that suprised either, as its a Halo game.

4. The other thing to remember is that when GT3 was released, PS3 was at approx. 20 million. This may not show current trends, but it shows userbase can mean squat for larger franchises, especially ones that that aren't heavily front-loaded.