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Stever89 on 26 February 2008
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Renar said:

I disagree with the 'casuals are lifeblood'. As you can see in most of his example, the majority of the games sold within the first 2 months, implying I think, as he did, that the more hardcore was picking it up. Now, for the Wii, and to a lesser extent the handhelds, I think C being lifeblood is true, but only because of the type of games. And as mentioned, any game with legs is probably going more towards c. than not.


Yeah the point was to show that many hardcore players buy the game sooner rather than later after a game comes out. Of course some mainstream users might pick up the game as well, so it's hard to say how many of the first 10 weeks sales were hardcore users and how many were mainstream.

And both GH2 and Lego Star Wars sold more after the first 10 weeks, suggesting that more mainstream users were buying those games than hardcore users. And those were only some examples, as I mentioned. Every single game that sells decently (anything about 250k probably) after the first 10 weeks can almost exclusively thank mainstream users for those extra sales. Kingdom Hearts wouldn't have even topped a million in Japan if it wasn't for the mainstream audience.

And it's not so much how many were sold after the first 10 weeks, it's how much more profit do those extra sales bring? When I say "lifeblood" I was referring to the financial stability that casuals bring into the market. Not that many of the games that I mentioned couldn't have been profitable without mainstream users, but they wouldn't have been as profitable, and might not have warrented a sequel.

Gran Turismo 4 sold 1.5 million in NA first 10 weeks, then sold another 1.2 million after the first 10 weeks. Profitable at 1.5 million in NA? Yes. More profitable at 2.72 in NA? Hell yes. Even Killzone only sold 300kin NA first ten weeks, but was able to reach 750k after a year or so. There might not even have been a Killzone 2 if it weren't for mainstream users, because 350k (probably want it would have sold without mainstream users). In this case, mainstream users can almost certainly be considered the lifeblood of the industry.

And like I pointed out in my original post, if you would add up the sales of every single traditional hardcore game, and then add a few million for copies still on store shelves, I bet they would just barely make it to 50% of the total software shipments for the PS2. The mere fact that every game in those 6 series that I mentioned (GTA, GT, FF, MGS, KH, DQV) barely made it to 10% of the total shipments, I could hardly believe that the rest of the games (which won't be as big as these) could make up an additional 40%, which would just show how much "mainstream" games take up of the market. This wouldn't be an exact science anyway, because casuals would buy every single game you put on that list... and I have no idea how one would compensate for that.

For the recond, here's a link to Sony's financial's that state cumulative software shipments through March 2007.

And also for the record, one user in the Others Weekly Charts said:

Yeah there was casual stuff last gen, but it's ten fold now. And now more people buy the cheap cash ins then anything else. It's sad to see a game like uncharted barely beating out carnival games in sales.

He obvsiouly doesn't know that SpongeBob: Battle sold 1.5 million on the PS2... And he didn't read my thread (which I posted twice in the Others weekly charts), because I have the reason for this (taken directly from my original post):

Problem 1) So finally, here we are. And where are we, you ask. Well, the problem, as of this writing, 2/25/2008, 3:34PM Eastern Time, many traditional hardcore games are on the PS3/360, while almost all casual games are on the Wii. Without the casual market, PS3/360 can’t (generally) have those massive sales, nor can they have sustained legs, while without many hardcore games, the Wii sells a lot of casual games, which sell well anyway, and thus seem to dominate the charts.

To sum it up: Lack of (good) hardcore titles on the Wii make it look like mainstream games are (only) selling really well, and lack of a high userbase on the PS3/360 side makes it look like mainstream games are selling better. In other words, one system has the userbase, but doesn't have the games, while the other (two) have the games, but not the userbase, nor the casuals.

It's actually a lose/lose situation for just about everyone involved. Hardcore developers can't have the sales they would like, while also having higher costs. Sony and Microsoft can't be as highly profitable as they'd like without highly successful software sales. And Nintendo can't get people to STFU about not "catering to the hardcore" even when the bring out as many games as they can, while also trying to cater to the mainstream users. I mean, this year Nintendo should have: SSB:B, MarioKart Wii, Zelda, Mario, Tales of Symphonia, Disaster: Day of Crisis, Fragile, and many others that I won't even bother to mention. Nintendo can't do it alone. 3rd parties have to release some hardcore games too. And they are coming this year.