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Jay520 on 01 December 2012
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JWeinCom said:


But... Star Wars the force unleashed sold in excess of a million copies across the three systems in its first weeks.  Even the Wii version sold about 250K.  The games reviews weren't any better than PSASBR.  Do you really think that the force Unleashed would have sold that well if it was a completely new IP without a popular license?  Not a chance in hell.  Star Wars the Force Unleashed benefited greatly from being part of a well established IP.  It had a HUGE leg up on actual new IPs. 

So, if Star Wars got such a huge bump due to its license, why not PSASBR?  I don't expect Sony's franchises to have the same kind of following Star Wars does, but considering that they have their biggest franchises reprecented and they have an audience completely comprised of gamers, shouldn't we expect SOME boost over an actual new IP which features no recognizable characters?  Kratos, Drake, Ratchet, Jak, Sackboy, and Cole have to be worth SOMETHING don't they?

So, we come to one of two conclusions.  Either

A) The collective value of Sony's franchises is absolutely nothing.

or

B) People thought Playstation All-Stars looked like crap.

Either way, not good for Sony.  If I was a Sony fan, I'd be rooting for B.


Star War's First Week isn't much better than PABR's First Week. In USA, Star Wars opened to 160k versus PABR's 130k. It trounced it in Europe though, but that can be attributed to the demographic taste, rather than the two options you've suggested. And we still haven't received Japan First Week Sales. And we don't know digital sales either. Add in digital sales and Japan sales and I wouldn't be surprised if PABR and Stars Wars were a statistical tie. 

Star Wars was a bad example though. Not only is it one of the biggest IPs in all of entertainment (much larger than Uncharted, God of War, etc). But it's also in the action adventure genre, which is much more prosperous than the fighting genre.  Here's a better example: Take a game like Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe. Do you think just because it added DC universe characters (who are much bigger than Sony's characters), the game would see a large opening as a result? Of course not. Same goes for nearly every movie adaptation as well. Just because they had recognizable characters doesn't mean consumers would pick them up. 

@ the bolded. Yes! I've said earlier that Sony's characters are not popular. though not to the extreme of "absolutely nothing." Merely having characters isn't going to offset the fact that it's a new IP, especially on a console where fighters haven't been doing incredibly well, and certainly not characters as small as Sony's characters. I honestly believe only various Nintendo characters are big enough for that. You should have expected as much beforehand. But you seem to agree with me that Sony's characters are not big enough to negate the game's disadvantages. So I take it you agree with me?

EDIT: For the record, I do think Star Wars would have done similarly without the Star Wars name. It was a well-made action adventure game, which seem to be doing well this generation. Star Wars had a great opening because it was a fun game. I also should say that I do believe certain characters can bypass the disadvantages of being a new IP, but they need to be much bigger than Sony's characters.