Lazard Analyst: PS3 & 360 games need to sell 600k to break even, Wii 300k

[Bodhesatva]

Legend11 said:
I look at games on their own merits rather than if they're exclusive or not. I've seen exclusive games on the 360 that are terrible (Vampire Rain) while seeing cross-platform games that are very good (Rainbow Six: Vegas). Exclusivity holds out the promise of a game being better because they're designed specifically with a certain system strengths and weaknesses in mind but there's no real guarantee of that actually happening.

This is completely valid from a player's standpoint, and I really really wish more people kept this in mind when arguing n these boards -- some seem to think that the whole point is that their console wins and has all the exclusives and everybody else loses and they're ugly, when the point should be, I think, to have fun with games.

This issue is different from a hardware developer perspective, though. If all the major 360/PS3/PC exclusives end up going multi platform, it means that each console has less value to distinguish itself from its competitors. The major differentiating factors become marketing and price point, and obviously Microsoft and Sony could end up fighting a horrible, bloody battle over the same demographic. They will market constantly, even at the cost of hundreds of millions; they will cut the price of the system repeatedly, even at the cost of billions.

As I said earlier, this ocean is very, very red. Good for current gamers, but brutal for system makers.