| GTAexpert said: This is a question I often see come up on VGC hence I thought a bit about it, and here's what I came up with. 1. Platinum's first major HD game suffered huge technical problems on its biggest platform: Bayonetta suffered major technical problems which effected its gameplay on PS3. The big problem was that most of Bayonetta's customers bought the PS3 version, which probably made them look at Platinum as a poor developer. 2. Platinum's games are short: Gamer's today seem to care far more about quantity than quality, and that's a problem for Platinum as their games are very good but also very short. Their games are usually 10 hours long, but one of their games MGR: R is just 5 hours long, with most of that time being cutscenes. That stops many people from buying their games even if they really want to play it. 3. Platinum's games are of niche genres: Most of Platinum's games are hack n slash, which is a very niche genre. The only mainstream game series in the genre is God Of War, even though their are many other series of this genre. The one which aren't hack n slash, like Wonderful 101 are even more niche. Platinum needs to broaden their appeal. |
1. Beyonetta sold quite well. It was a new franchise and so its openning wasn't huge but had impressive legs. 2m is good for an AA title.
2. Yup! Its hard for single player, linear games to sell in huge quantities. Only the massive AAA titles seem to escape this.
3. The niche quality comes over not just in genre but in visual style which I think effects peoples buying choices quite a bit.
The only thing I think they should change/explore is graphical stye and approach to story telling (their games have a tacky/B-film aspect to them). Otherwise I think they're destined to remain niche without selling out to the mainstream. I don't think theres anything wrong with that, they just gotta keep an eye on budget and be very selective with marketing (i.e no tv ads which cost millions)
