Overall performance of Platinum Games

[MaxwellGT2000]

Reasonable said:

MaxwellGT2000 said:

Reasonable said:

MaxwellGT2000 said:

Reasonable said:

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We clearly disagree here but here's my final say.

On Bayonetta...

I would expect a game this well reviewed to hit at least 1.3 to 1.5 Million to be considerd a success on PS3/360.  It did, but no thanks to Platinum.  SEGA saved them from a poor exclusive platform choice and as a result instead of sitting on approx 700K sales they're sitting on approx 1.4 million and counting.  Small team or not they made a poor choice of lead platform that remains perplexing for the genre of the game

SEGA took a lot of heat for a bad port and with Sony patched it enough to make it a bit better - mainly load times - but the PS3 version still remains graphically inferior.

I have the game, it's very good.

On MadWorld...

I have the game, it's an above average game but at 3 hours not one I would judge as a full price title.  The closest game I can think of in terms of being unique and short is Portal, which was TBH much better than Madworld overall.

To me it felt like a high end PSN title.  Wipeout HD and Flower for example, are easily as good.  Wipeout HD definately better overall.  It's story was okay'ish but that was it.  Some driving sections felt unfiinished to me next to the rest of the game.  I certainly wasn't impressed with it as a full title.

Again, though, I think given the Wii's install base barely getting past 500K isn't anything that made me feel they made the right platform choice.  I don't consider it a great sales success although critically it did fine.  I see no reason it wasn't multi-platform nor looked to other avenues for release.

On Vanquish...

I have it, it's pretty good but it's weaker than Bayonetta.  Stripped on a more novel lead, saddled with a poor narrative to underpin it and with gunplay that feels a little lose and a lack of clarity around the arguably real way to play the game - i.e. not as a shooter but in line with something like Bayonetta - it seems to have failed to connect and with a new CoD, GT5 and lots of other big titles rattling down the tracks I think it's going to perform worse than Bayonetta unless it really gets some stronger word of mouth to give it legs.

Better developed, but I don't believe it was marketed well enough.

On Infinite Space...

Well, I haven't actually commented on this as I haven't played it.  All I can say is those look like low sales for a DS title that's been on the market for 34 weeks.

 

Again, I don't know what you expect.  The OP invited comments on their performance and you're ranting about 'you couldn't do better' etc.  How said we could?  We're being critical, as is our right.  And as we've been invited to evaluate we're using hindsight.

Hinsight says Platinum, whatever their size and whatever their reasons, should never have delivered Bayonetta only on 360.

Hindsight says the Wii may well not have been the right platform for Madworld.  I have one, and I can tell you I really didn't feel Madworld belonged on the platform.  The controls were fine, but the game really felt like it should have been on PS3/360 for me.  Either way I firmly believe Platinum left sales on the table going Wii exclusive with it.

Hindsight (at this early stage) says Vanquish probably needed a more unique setting/narrative and a clearer communication of it's main 'hook'.  Personally, I feel that by making something that looked so much like a Western space marine shooter Platinum took the game into an arena that wasn't best suited for it.

I like them as a quirky developer.  But they made mistakes - some pretty big and obvious ones IMHO - and that's my view.  I have no interest in trying to do better than they did, nor am I saying I could, but I do reserve the right as a critical customer to point their mistakes out.

Maybe you feel I should have been making excuses for them, but I don't see any need to or that they seserve any to be made.

In the end of the titles shown only Bayonetta seems to have achieved a decent level of sales IMHO.

Wow... uh I don't disagree I'm just saying you're factually wrong in a lot of cases so yeah disagreeing in the sense I'm not on your page, but I'm trying to point out some stuff to you.

Like "SEGA took a lot of heat for a bad port and with Sony patched it enough to make it a bit better - mainly load times - but the PS3 version still remains graphically inferior." Sony patched it?  You mean the developers that made the game patched it right? Cause Sony patches their games and hosts patches for people, they don't go out of their way to patch a game for a third party developer that put an inferior multiplat on their system

Madworld I just don't really believe you've actually played it, your comments are sparce, you're comparing it to a racing game of all things, and calling it 3 hours long... you had to be in a REAL rush to try and beat it if you finished in 3 hours, you're the first I've actually heard of beating it in 3 hours, in fact most reviews and people I talk to average 5 to 6 hours, I'm more likely to believe them over random user on the webz #469, if you could even somewhat make a post that sounds like you played the game then, I could carry on and give some weight to your platform discussion but you calling it a XBLA or PSN title is just a gross over statement, in fact what PSN or XBLA title (not full retail up for download) is over 3 gigs in size like Madworld?  Its not and you're just wrong.

And overall you're giving so much credit to SEGA and trying to bash Platinum for using 360 as a lead platform, when it's like no shit 360 had the biggest install base in two regions at the time Bayonetta was coming out, a game with a lot of western appeal, and SEGA is supposed to be doing the port to PS3... for being called reasonable you're not being very reasonable here

I mean come on man, you're trying to pull the "you're just wanting me to make excuses for them" defense and thats just a lame fallacy, trying to make up some reason to devalue my statements instead of trying to tackle them.

Fact - average Wii development costs 1/4 that of the HD consoles according to the guys at EA

Fact - many publishers state development costs of the Wii are more in line with last gen consoles which typically broke even at the 200k-250k mark and by the time it hit 500k developers/publishers would look into sequels, from the guys at IGN and was the reasoning behind making De Blob 2, at the time it was just at 500k when they started discussing making a second.

Fact - The reason 1m seems the norm for third party sales this gen is their strong support of the HD consoles, EA has come out to say that 1.1m is the typical break even point because of the high development costs, last gen PS2 rarely had these sorts of limitations and so many MANY more publishers and developers were successful even when they were selling 500k copies of a game, look back and I brought up how Wii is more in line with PS2 development.

Fact - God Hand didn't do well so making another game in this vein was a bad risk if they wanted full on HD development with all the bells and whistles and sell a million copies

Looking at these facts my reasoning is very sound, Madworld was developed on the safer bet and made money and did better than the game that came before it God Hand.

Bayonetta sold over that average HD development break even line, even then the project was probably still a bit cheaper than your average product simply because of the smaller staff at Platinum Games and the fact that SEGA handled the port, this was a success on their part.

Infinite Space was outsourced to another developer with Platinum Games' oversight, turned out well, and at least broke even.

Looking at the facts thats 3 out of 4 projects that you could easily say were a success, and the 4th being released a few  weeks ago the towel isn't thrown in yet, Platinum Games made the choices that were most logical to them in their position, and it turned out alright for them.  So I say that's good performance and learning from previous projects they can build on that, you really can't get more sensible than that.

I'm not factually wrong.  SEGA created the port and Sony then worked with SEGA to patch it to fix the slow menu loading and allow you to install the game removing some other slow loads.  Platinum delivered a game on 360 only and SEGA/Sony dealt with the PS3 version and patch.

As for the choice they made the wrong one - period.  Whatever their reasons producing such a title only for the 360 at that time was a simple act of strange perversity.  The clear choice for the title/genre was to be exclusive to PS3 if they had to be exclusive due to small size.

Developing Madworld for Wii was also a similar act of perversity - let's deliver a short, high concept ultra-violent title on the platform with the worst demographic for such a title.  Sounds familiar and I guess this choice took place during the same strange phase that saw them put Bayonetta.

Now, with Vanquish they didn't do much wrong - although I'd argue they didn't really nail how to market and differentiate the game.

As for your facts - they refer to PS2 and costs/break evens that are now irrelivent.  In this market, a title like Bayonetta should be targeting 1.5 Million plus on HD twins.  Vanquish the same.  It's that simple.  That's the marketplace now.  Platinum can make a good, quirky game, but they're going to struggle IMHO with titles like Bayonetta and Vanquish unless they get better at aligning their quirky style to a very, very tough, expensive marketplace.

Clearly you have a soft spot for the developer.  I don't.  I'm neutral.  I looked at the OP, I looked at the three titles I'd played it referred to and their sales and I put forward opinions that I would argue are fully backed by the evidence.

In the end you are putting forward reasons why they might have made bad choices or why they might have seemed reasonable at the time.  But TBH that doesn't affect my points - which are hindsight evidence in neutral constructive criticism of where they clearly made poor choices.

Dear lord it's like a brick wall that has wrong painted all over it and doesn't know when to topple over.

Look patches are done by the developer period, now you're back peddling with SEGA/Sony, do I care? No it's just wrong from the get go.

Now instead of debating about Madworld you're saying the concepts don't match the market, being the first time you've actually had a decent argument on the title, but you essentially went from calling it a PSN title that could have been up for download to saying it was the wrong type of game, that's debatable for both sides especially when you see super stylized titles of that genre being really only offered on the little white box, Bayonetta being the closest thing I can think of on the PS3 and 360 to be honest.

And you're purposely twisting what I said to fit your argument, you're not going to get anywhere with me doing that, I said last gen development costs are in line with Wii not HD consoles, I brought up the facts EA brought to the table, the facts THQ and IGN has given as well, 200k to 250k for the average Wii title and 1m to 1.1m for the average PS3/360 title.  

So again given the real facts not twisted around, you're not neutral at all, only trying to fit things within your own argument, which is fine, but you're trying the same fallacy again, attacking my credibility by saying I have some sort of bias towards the company, which I have yet to mutter one word of "Platinum Games is great!" or even try to attribute ANY of my argument towards the quality of their work, no I just bring in numbers, facts, and figures for the average development costs, what breaks even, and how their titles are holding up against those standards and you have your arbitrary definition of success that essentially lets you set goal posts as you please...

I can literally do this all day since well my argument hasn't changed one bit unlike yours, my facts are backed up by searching for the articles, hell I could get you that podcast from IGN.  Yep, totally some biased fan of theirs, which is apparently all you can say to try to devalue my statements.