Why does Sony fail at making another mega franchise?

[Slimebeast]

Scoobes said:

Crazymann said:

Well,

I am glad that you have your opinion, and no issues with sharing it, but many of us DO like how Blizzard does things.  Blizzard has a committment to polish, and furthermore, it seems rather hypocritical to laude the virtues of Sony and then trash Blizzard in the same post.  Both companies are very good at taking pre-existing ideas to new levels of refinement.  Blizzard's style is fine, Sony's style is fine.

I don't like WoW either, but I don't like MMO's in general.  Still, the fact is that (while long in the tooth) WoW is still the most recognizible MMO and it was the best of its kind at release (unless you seriously believe that EQ and its ilk were good).  All pre-WoW MMO's sucked, and neither WoW or any MMO since has changed the formula enough for me to give it a second thought.  Note, I don't lump Guild Wars into that mess because of its use of instancing.

Finally, I own Age 1, Age 2 Conquerers and Age 3

Age 3 sucks, Age 2 was the pinnacle of the series.  Starcraft, while lagging behind Age 2 in some respects was the MOST fun I had in a single player campain EVER.  So, how exactly does Age "slay" starcraft???

Reviews:  NOPE

Popularity:  NOPE

Sales:  NOPE

Cultural Impact:  NOPE

Single Player:  NOPE

Graphics:  NOPE

Production Values:  NOPE

AI/Pathing:  YEP

Multiplayer:  PERHAPS*

*  And that is only if you are still burned about LAN and other features removed from BNet2 (which I don't like, but still.)

 

Taking your list:

Reviews:  About equal. Some Age games are rated higher than Starcraft 1.

Popularity:  NOPE

Sales:  Techinically, the Age of series has sold over 20 million copies. Starcraft has 'only' sold 13 million. Having 4 games in that time-frame will do that ;)

Cultural Impact: I dunno, AoE taught me more history than school ever did :P

Single Player:  NOPE

Graphics:  Which games are you comparing? All the Age games (orginal included) are graphically superior to Starcraft 1 and Starcraft 2 has released 5 years after Age 3 which isn't really fair.

Production Values:  Arguable with the originals of each series.

AI/Pathing:  YEP (actually if you compare Age 1 with Starcraft 1 they were both pretty bad)

Multiplayer:  PERHAPS- Oddly I disagree with you in favor of Starcraft with this one. There's a reason the original is still played so heavily 10 yrs after release.

When did you start playing Age of Empires II?

(same question to you Crazzyman)