badgenome said:
1. Not sure why you think that. Call of Duty is a series that is currently declining from its peak. Its most recent game has lifetime sales of about twice its opening week. Decent legs, but it isn't getting more popular. How can that be? Well, it's simply that not everyone buys their games at launch for full price. 2. All? Come now. How many would you like me to name to prove you wrong? One of Sony's main franchises this generation was new IP introduced at launch, and the first Resistance sold far more with far better legs than either of the other two. 3. The initial sales of the PSP were mostly due to brand enthusiasm for the Playstation that is no longer there. For a while it was simply the hottest thing to have. Lots of people bought it simply for the promise and cool factor of a Playstation in your hand. After that wore off, the PSP started to tank but was saved by a beautiful angel named Monster Hunter... and the fact that, much like the PS3, publishers were already too invested in the system tech wise to completely drop it. This is when it recovered in Japan, all on the back of software. So hardware sales like the early days of the PSP wasn't really possible, but the active, software buying audience of the PSP's later life was. The strange thing is that those software buying people want software that they want to buy, and the Vita doesn't have that. Oops. |
1. Not sure how the most recent call of duty game is relevent... since it's neither a retail game, and is a series so popular that their is going to be sevre supply contraints on production.
Either way if the argumenet that monster hunter 4 would leg out it's way to where it would be via bargain sales isn't exactly inspiring.
2. Has it? First off, you are forgetting Vgchartz numbers include bundles. Which resistance was heavily bundled throught the entire first half of the PS3's life. Way more so then any temporary bundles MH has gotten. At some points you essentially couldn't buy a PS3 without being given a copy of Resistance and Motorstorm.
Secondly, Resistance was popular in two specific regions, North American and Europe. Where it topped 1.6 Million a piece... with the ridiculious bundling.
So... 1.8 Million for a launch monster hunter? Seems fair.
3. and yet again, that doesn't reconcile the fact that those people who put their consoles away later pulled them out again. There is no gurantee those same people would buy the vita, and if anything... almost definitly wouldn't have. Hence why Capcom left and decided to lead development on the 3DS. It doesn't make logical sense to move to the vita and pray things work out when it seems pretty obvious it wouldn't.
If you'll notice back with systems that struggle in sales, publisher push back release dates. Are they all wrong? They want the userbase to already be their before they release the game, because they know if the userbase isn't already their, it won't get the sales it should. For Publishers it's an accepted fact that hardware sales do effect software sales, quite a bit, as the rest of your optimium userbase won't just magically appear the day your game drops.
In otherwords, Monster Hunter didn't go to vita, because the requisite userbase wasn't going to be there to maximize sales, because there wasn't the same hype selling it like their was for the PSP. This is also why Launch games are pretty much New Ip's and trash more often then not.
4) additionally, while you say you aren't saying that Monster Hunter 4 would of sold as well on the Vita now... doesn't that disprove your thesis? Since it it wouldn't sell as well it does show that there is quite a bit of sales that do require userbase. Hardware requires quality software at launch for sales, while Software requires enough of a userbase to get it's maxium sales. One has to sacrifice for the other, outside of some sort of special situation. (Like the PSP's brand name push.)
