Why does Sony fail at making another mega franchise?

[Michael-5]

Squilliam said:

Michael-5 said:

Squilliam said:

Sony came into this generation well prepared for the 3rd coming of the PS1, I.E. total market domination and weak oposition.

I don't believe big franchises need to establish themselves early in a generation, there are just a lot of new franchises released near the start of any new console cycle and its just a game of numbers as to how many new huge franchises emerge. However after the first title is out, most titles don't break out of that initial mould which is why you see consistancy generally once the first generation of games come out in a console cycle. There are very few titles which establish themselves on the 2nd or 3rd version as a mega franchise after having failed to do that previously. The start of a generation is the perfect time to attempt to hit these home runs as they can at the very least be milked for 3-4 game generations.

The simplest answer here is that if Sony hasn't published anything which has hit the home run whilst other companies have, then theres something which Sony is failing to do which Microsoft and Nintendo has done. It's obviously not for  a lack of talent that they haven't sold many 10M selling franchises, funnily enough the closest developer to that mark is Naughty Dog whom had gone down hill  somewhat from their Crash Bandicoot days after they were acquired. The more likely answer is that the way Sony developers make games do not resonate with a wider audience and that its probably how Sony themselves act as a publisher which is the reason.

The hardcore gamer Loves Sony (except for PSN) is iffy on Microsoft (except for Live) and is not so fond of Nintendo.

Order of highest selling published exclusives go Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony in reverse order of how much the hardcore gamers love the titles themselves.

 

That 1st generation establishment theory is interesting, and well yea it's kind of true in the case of Sony and Microsoft. Some games do emerge as "mega" franchises down the road of a consoles life, but most started on the home consoles first system. However It's not always the first generation that establishes franchises. Take Nintendo for instance, Mario and Zelda started on the NES, Mario Kart and Donkey Kong Country started on the SNES, Pokemon started on the Gameboy, Smash Bros started on the N64, Nintendogs and Brain Age started on the DS, and Wii -- started on the Wii. So with the exception of the N64 and Gamecube, two consoles who didn't really sell that well in the first place, Nintendo has created at least 1 "mega" franchise per console.

For MS it's only Halo, so your theory holds, and for Sony it's only GT, so your theory holds again, but not for Nintendo.

I'll agree that Sony hasn't published anything home-run worthy as a game since Gran Turismo

As for the part I underlined, you can't generalize that. I consider myself a hardcore gamer and I like the 360 more then the PS3 (I admit it, big deal), and I love the Wii. I think the Wii has more interesting games then the PS3 and 360. If I had to put those consoles in an order it wouldn't be fair because everyone has different tastes. My tastes do not reflect others, and I think most people in the forums here need to realize that their tastes don't reflect everyone elses

You missunderstand me. I was talking about software generations.

I.E. Generation 1: Call of Duty 2, Generation 2: Call of Duty 3. Or Assassins Creed 1 or Assassins Creed 2 = generation 1 and 2 of that franchise. Most games if they don't make it big on generation 1 they aren't going to make it big at all. On the other hand once they make it big they can be milked for 2-3 more software generations for large assured profits. The best time to release new attempts at making massive software is generation 1 of a console hardware generation. So 7th generation console, software generation 1 Epic releases Gears of War and it proves to be a big hit as a new I.P. Thats the reason why Sony released so many new I.P. games. They wanted to hit it big and get another 1/2 huge seller I.Ps to go alongside Gran Turismo.

Furthermore I was talking about published games. I.E. anything from 1st or 3rd party which is stamped with the publishers logo. It takes as much skill to find a big selling franchise and get it published as it does to develop one in house. Theres no difference between Microsoft seeing great potential in Gears of War and publishing it and their making a similar game in house.

For your last paragraph I admit I am wrong. It was a gross over-simplification. Though I do wonder why they are so set to produce / publish so many cinematic influenced games. In this generation a significant proportion of their titles are cinematic whereas none of the Nintendo published games are cinematic and Microsoft published games tend to be traditional as well. In a nutshell a lot of Sony titles this generation seem to focus on the experience of playing the game whereas Nintendo and Microsoft tend to focus on the experience from playing the game. Its a slight and stark distinction at the same time.

Oh sorry, I did misunderstand you. In that case I agree with you, but there are exceptions. Also franchises only need to sell well on their first software generation, they do not need to have the first software generation become a "mega" game. I would also like to add that if an initial game does relativly well, the second installment can still crash saleswise. Resistance 2 only sold about half as well as Resistance 1 despite being just as good, and Lost Planet just crashed (but LP2 sucked, and I was soo disapointed as LP1 is one of my favorite games). However it's very difficult to build a super successful IP, if the first title was received poorly (e.g. Killzone was only an average shooter on PS1, and that image hurt Killzone 2 sales).

Anyway I agree 100% on your first 2 paragraphs, but I think your last paragraph is generalized, yet I still agree. First of all pre-PS1, cinematic experiences were not possible due to the memory limit of cartridged based games. PS1 games such as Final Fantasy VII and MGS were among the first to produce proper cut scenes. I think games are becoming more and more cinematic because a. memory limitations are constantly growing, b. Cinematic trailers make great video game ads (e.g. Gears of War, Killzone 2, etc), c. Cinematics explain the games plot better then in game dialogue, and d. They attract people who are new to games better then games without cinematics.

How is this relevant btw? Just curious why you brought this up.

Anyway I don't think you can centralize this trend on Sony. Metroid: Other M is a largly cinematic game, and I think they made it this way to explain the Metroid story better, and to attact casual Wii owners to the franchise. Gears of War and Halo also contain a fair bit of cinematics. Lost Odyssey requires 4 disks to contain all the cinematics, and lots of franhcises (like Final Fantasy and MGS) have been cinematic heavy since the PS1 era.

What I think is fair to say is that because during the PS1 era, only the playstation was properly copable to include cinematics on game disks they pioneered cinematics into games. During the PS2 era, the Gamecube still had data limitations, and X-Box was more of a shooter platform and had far less games then PS2, so PS2 continued the trend. However this generation, most HD games are a lot more cinematic driven then older games, and even Wii titles have more cinematics. I mean compare the amount of cinematic time in Super Mario Galaxy to Super Mario 64, it's astonishing.