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Forums - Sales - Why does Sony fail at making another mega franchise?

mjk45 said:
Killiana1a said:

RolStoppable should change his username to RolUnstoppable. Talk about taking names of alts and punching in numbers.

Here is what I believe:

The market by the lifetime sales of a game determines whether a game is good or not. Period.

As a niche gamer myself, I went through that adolescent phase in the late 1990s/early 2000s where I thought Mario games and cutesy games were retarded games for little kids. Well, guess what? The games I was playing at the time could not sell a quarter of the copies of a Mario game even if they were marketed equally. As I have aged, I have since come to realize niche gaming has it's place, but niche gaming alone would not be able to support the industry today to an extent where this would be the last generation of consoles.

Gamers, hence the market, are not stupid at all. Gamers want games where you can pick them up and play them without worrying about re-orienting yourself to what level you are at, what skills you need your character to develop, how many collectibles you need before you get the master sword, where the collectibles are, and on. Thusforth, games where you can put them down just as easily as picking them up are likely to cater to a larger audience and sell more.

As for Sony, it comes down to the games and marketing. Sony needs more easily accessible platformers, motion sports games, dance games, party games, and less niche titles such as Shin Megami Tensei, which are loved by a devoted few, but players like myself who are fairly well informed have never heard of because Sony was too lazy to market the game outside of Japan.

Sony is in no mean or shape "doomed." Sony has a lot of classic franchises they can revive such as Ratchet & Clank, Jax and Dexter, Crash Bandicoot, Legacy of Kain and on. Instead, Sony has decided to go with the usual God of War, Gran Turismo, and Uncharted path to such an extent where their PS3 software offerings are just as culpable in Sony being in last place this generation as the initial entry price for a PS3 until the price drop.

Sony should revive a franchise such as Crash Bandicoot. I will tell you with 100% certainty right now, if a Legacy of Kain game was announced by Sony tomorrow, I would be purchasing a PS3 that day.

It would be nice if you checked up on who owned what ,Universal own Crash Bandicoot always have ND just made the game ,legacy of kain is an eidos/ square-enix ip, ratchet and clank are on the PS3 and PSP,  so on your list the only one Sony can do anything about is Jak and daxter and they willl leave that up to ND to decide when and what they want to do with it.

I have always associated those series as Sony games because they all came out on Sony systems. Ratchet and Clank had a release when the PS3 launched. I forgot about it. As for Legacy of Kain and Crash Bandicoot, I am all for Sony purchasing the series, though it may be pricey for both as both are beloved franchises whom the original owners could argue future Legacy of Kain and Crash Bandicoot games have tons of profitability in future games.



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They've won two generations with just having one mega franchise, Having an amazing library is far more important than a couple huge overhyped games.



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11/20/09 04:25 makingmusic476 Warning Other (Your avatar is borderline NSFW. Please keep it for as long as possible.)
Zkuq said:
irtz said:

i dont agree with may i think to let go crash bandicoot it biggest mistake as it was becoming a famous game and each new part had better sales than previous one

It seems Naughty Dog wanted to do something else... Which would probably have led to the same outcome as we got. Maybe Sony would have found another studio that could have made the series even better and more popular but I doubt it. Haven't done much research about it though, so...

Which reminds me, I wonder what Halo will become after Bungie. And what will Call of Duty become after Infinity Ward.

Naughty dog is a first party developer so they made wrong decision to let go crash as it was evolving and it was considered mario competitor if u see its sales on ps1 see that all three parts sold differently each new part had more sales than previous one and if they didnt let it go and it was sony mascot then on ps2 crash would have sold like more than 15 million on each part that would have come on ps2 as mascot. Naughty dog made jak & daxter it didnt to that well as crash did.



mjk45 said:
Zkuq said:
irtz said:

i dont agree with may i think to let go crash bandicoot it biggest mistake as it was becoming a famous game and each new part had better sales than previous one

It seems Naughty Dog wanted to do something else... Which would probably have led to the same outcome as we got. Maybe Sony would have found another studio that could have made the series even better and more popular but I doubt it. Haven't done much research about it though, so...

Which reminds me, I wonder what Halo will become after Bungie. And what will Call of Duty become after Infinity Ward.

Universal owned the  crash bandicoot ip not sony not ND they got ND to develop it and when Sony bought ND Universal got travellers tales to make the cb games


hmm i get it but still its a not good sony should have thought about this game should have taken rights



NYANKS said:
Michael-5 said:
NYANKS said:
Michael-5 said:

Microsoft has more money to market their games. I mean I saw more adds for Crackdown 2 then I did for God of War 3.

Sony and Microsoft are at battle at making "the" home theatre station. They both want their console to be the centerpeice of your livingroom. Except Sony went all out, making a PS3 Blu-Ray before Blu-Ray was cheap and practical to produce. They put too much in, and it's hurting them. Only recently have they seen a profit. Microsoft simply wanted to control games, and influence movies. I think a 360 successor will try to be "the" home theatre system, but with the 360 Microsoft simply wanted to make a name for themselves.

To put it simply, thats what they are doing, convincing people that they are "the" gaming platform for gamers. Yes Wii sells better, but 360 is the gamers system.

Microsoft still puts out as many great products as Sony does, this year I see 7 big exclusives on both consoles. For 360 there are Halo, Fable, Mass Effect, Alan Wake, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Crackdown 2, and Metro 2033 (I know there are more). For PS3 there are GT5, LBP2, God of War 3, Heavy Rain, MAG, ModNation Racers, White Knight Chronicles (Again I know there are more).

However Microsoft has Call of Duty limited bundles, early map packs for 3 more years, and they do stuff like this with all big titles. They have enough money, 360 generates cash, and Microsoft spends it making a name for themselves.

So that is why 360 titles are always soo successful saleswise. Sony on the other hand, I blaime a lack of a solid fanbase. Hear me out, an FPS on the 360 will sell extremly well because the 360 is full of FPS nuts, and has established itself (through a few great early titles, and marketing) as the Shooter console. However Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey, and Tales of Vesperia didn't sell that well. Thats because the 360 lacks a significant RPG fanbase. Don't get me wrong, I love my RPG's, especially the 360 installments, however I can see why a lot of die hard RPG nuts don't relate Microsoft to RPG console.

So for the PS3 FPS don't sell well. No matter how good Uncharted, Killzone, and Resistance are, there is a lack of a PS3 favoring FPS fanbase. That shows in it's regional sales (Most PS3 fans are from EMEAA, a place where ALL FPS just don't do that well).

However Racing games sell well on the PS3, so do RPG's. Take a look at GT5 Prologue, and Final Fantasy XIII.

In conclusion, 360 games are successful due to marketing and a strong FPS fanbase, PS3 games generally aren't as successful because established fanbases are for smaller genres like racing and RPG. Many of PS3's past exclusive titles have gone multiplatform as well (See P.S. below)

P.S. for Sony established mega franchises, Final Fantasy was exclusive to Sony during the PS1 and PS2 era, MGS still kind of is, Gran Turismo is also a big Sony branded game, and until GTA IV came out, GTA was largly associated with Sony. God of War is pretty epic still, and so are Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest. Resident Evil was mega on the PS1.

Funnily enough, most of those games are not made by Microsoft, while Sony makes just about all of theirs on the list. 

Technically Sony only owns the studios that make their first party titles. Nintendo is the only company to really develop their own games, where only a handful are handled by other studios (Pokemon by Game Freak, and Metroid: Other M by Team Ninja). You may think some other Nintendo franchises are developed by third party companies (Advance Wars and Fire Emblem by Intelligent systems, Metroid Prime, and DKCR by Retro Studios, and Smash Bros/Kirby by HAL Laboritories), but if you do a history lesson, these companies originally branched off from Nintendo R&D 1&2, Nintendo EAD 1-5, or were simply bought out in early life. I beleive Camalot, Game Freak, Team Ninja, and Creatures Inc were the only developers that ever got to work on a big Nintendo project (Golden Sun/Mario Sports, Pokemon, Metroid: Other M, and Earthbound).

This is similar to Bungie, which was conceived by Microsoft.

To my knowledge, the only first party studio that originated withing Sony would have been Polyphony digital, everything else was bought out. Even Square-Enix, Sony bought large shares for that company back during the N64 days, and thats why Final Fantasy games largly remain exclusive.

Edit, I looked it up. Polyphony Digital, SCE, Zipper Interactive, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, Evolution Studios, and Media Module are the big ones. So Sony develops Gran Turismo, God of War, Ape Escape, Ico, SOCOM, Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper, Jak & Dexter, Killzone, Motorstorm and LBP

Microsoft has 343 Studios, Lionhead, Rare, Turn 10, and Wingnut Studios. So they develop Halo, Fable, Conker, Perfect Dark, Killer Instinct, Forza, and flight simulator.

Most of these companies have been bought out, the difference from Nintendo to Sony and MS, is that most of their studios separated from Nintendo development studios to work on different games. I think Nintendo only bought Retro Studios.

If your refering to games released in 2010, all 360 titles are published by Microsoft, and PS3 titles are published by Sony.

Who cares WHEN they buy them out. Nintendo still bought them out. How about Media Molecule, Sony got them early.  Sony develops, because they are part of Sony. 

If you read a word I said, I said most of Nintendo's first party studios developed from within a Nintendo Development studio (like R&D 1,2 and EAD 1-5). The only studio Nintendo bought out was Retro Studios, and I think with Camalot and Gamefreak they have long term contracts (As in Gamefreak gets the privledge of making Pokemon games, if they never make a non Nintendo game, thus Gamefreak only makes Pokemon, and other Nintendo games).

You can't really critisize Microsoft about First Party Studios because Sony only had 2 more then Microsoft (7 compared to 5, I named them in my previous quoted post). Only Wii/DS owners can critisize other manufacturers as only Nintendo really develops their own games.



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goddog said:
Michael-5 said:
NYANKS said:
Michael-5 said:

Microsoft has more money to market their games. I mean I saw more adds for Crackdown 2 then I did for God of War 3.

Sony and Microsoft are at battle at making "the" home theatre station. They both want their console to be the centerpeice of your livingroom. Except Sony went all out, making a PS3 Blu-Ray before Blu-Ray was cheap and practical to produce. They put too much in, and it's hurting them. Only recently have they seen a profit. Microsoft simply wanted to control games, and influence movies. I think a 360 successor will try to be "the" home theatre system, but with the 360 Microsoft simply wanted to make a name for themselves.

To put it simply, thats what they are doing, convincing people that they are "the" gaming platform for gamers. Yes Wii sells better, but 360 is the gamers system.

Microsoft still puts out as many great products as Sony does, this year I see 7 big exclusives on both consoles. For 360 there are Halo, Fable, Mass Effect, Alan Wake, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Crackdown 2, and Metro 2033 (I know there are more). For PS3 there are GT5, LBP2, God of War 3, Heavy Rain, MAG, ModNation Racers, White Knight Chronicles (Again I know there are more).

However Microsoft has Call of Duty limited bundles, early map packs for 3 more years, and they do stuff like this with all big titles. They have enough money, 360 generates cash, and Microsoft spends it making a name for themselves.

So that is why 360 titles are always soo successful saleswise. Sony on the other hand, I blaime a lack of a solid fanbase. Hear me out, an FPS on the 360 will sell extremly well because the 360 is full of FPS nuts, and has established itself (through a few great early titles, and marketing) as the Shooter console. However Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey, and Tales of Vesperia didn't sell that well. Thats because the 360 lacks a significant RPG fanbase. Don't get me wrong, I love my RPG's, especially the 360 installments, however I can see why a lot of die hard RPG nuts don't relate Microsoft to RPG console.

So for the PS3 FPS don't sell well. No matter how good Uncharted, Killzone, and Resistance are, there is a lack of a PS3 favoring FPS fanbase. That shows in it's regional sales (Most PS3 fans are from EMEAA, a place where ALL FPS just don't do that well).

However Racing games sell well on the PS3, so do RPG's. Take a look at GT5 Prologue, and Final Fantasy XIII.

In conclusion, 360 games are successful due to marketing and a strong FPS fanbase, PS3 games generally aren't as successful because established fanbases are for smaller genres like racing and RPG. Many of PS3's past exclusive titles have gone multiplatform as well (See P.S. below)

P.S. for Sony established mega franchises, Final Fantasy was exclusive to Sony during the PS1 and PS2 era, MGS still kind of is, Gran Turismo is also a big Sony branded game, and until GTA IV came out, GTA was largly associated with Sony. God of War is pretty epic still, and so are Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest. Resident Evil was mega on the PS1.

Funnily enough, most of those games are not made by Microsoft, while Sony makes just about all of theirs on the list. 

Technically Sony only owns the studios that make their first party titles. Nintendo is the only company to really develop their own games, where only a handful are handled by other studios (Pokemon by Game Freak, and Metroid: Other M by Team Ninja). You may think some other Nintendo franchises are developed by third party companies (Advance Wars and Fire Emblem by Intelligent systems, Metroid Prime, and DKCR by Retro Studios, and Smash Bros/Kirby by HAL Laboritories), but if you do a history lesson, these companies originally branched off from Nintendo R&D 1&2, Nintendo EAD 1-5, or were simply bought out in early life. I beleive Camalot, Game Freak, Team Ninja, and Creatures Inc were the only developers that ever got to work on a big Nintendo project (Golden Sun/Mario Sports, Pokemon, Metroid: Other M, and Earthbound).

This is similar to Bungie, which was conceived by Microsoft.

To my knowledge, the only first party studio that originated withing Sony would have been Polyphony digital, everything else was bought out. Even Square-Enix, Sony bought large shares for that company back during the N64 days, and thats why Final Fantasy games largly remain exclusive.

Edit, I looked it up. Polyphony Digital, SCE, Zipper Interactive, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, Evolution Studios, and Media Module are the big ones. So Sony develops Gran Turismo, God of War, Ape Escape, Ico, SOCOM, Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper, Jak & Dexter, Killzone, Motorstorm and LBP

Microsoft has 343 Studios, Lionhead, Rare, Turn 10, and Wingnut Studios. So they develop Halo, Fable, Conker, Perfect Dark, Killer Instinct, Forza, and flight simulator.

Most of these companies have been bought out, the difference from Nintendo to Sony and MS, is that most of their studios separated from Nintendo development studios to work on different games. I think Nintendo only bought Retro Studios.

If your refering to games released in 2010, all 360 titles are published by Microsoft, and PS3 titles are published by Sony.

"This is similar to Bungie, which was conceived by Microsoft."

 

not true, bungie, had years of being an independent studio making awsome games such as marathon, also before they were bought formed a second studio that pushed out a PS2 game oni

I heard of Marathon, but did not know the rest. However to be fair, Polyphony Digital used to be called Polyphony Entertainment, and they produced Motor Toon Grand Prix in Japan before Sony bought them out. So Bungie is as much Microsoft as Polyphony Digital is Sony.



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Squilliam said:

Mega Franchises:

Sony 3 generations:

  • Gran Turismo
  • God of War
  • LittleBigPlanet

Microsoft 2 generations:

  • Halo
  • Gears
  • Fable
  • Forza Motorsport

Nintendo 5 generations plus Arcade titles.

  • Mario
  • Donkey Kong
  • Duck Hunt
  • Zelda
  • Mario Kart
  • Mario Party
  • Wii Sports franchises
  • Wii Fit (I would clasify all Wii --- games as one franchise)
  • Probably another one or two that I missed.
  • Smash Bros.
  • Brain Age
  • Nintendogs
  • Animal Crossing
  • Mario & Sonic franchise (kind of)
  • Pokemon (kind of)

Anyway Nintendos rate of massive franchise generation is simply higher. Probably this is due to the one man Miyamoto who had a significant hand in many of these games. Its not that Sony sucks, its just that one person is probably worth as much as all their studios combined. Luckily for Sony Miyamoto will retire eventually.

Filled in the blanks



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Squilliam said:

Sony developers make core/hardcore games for themselves. That immediately limits their market potential. If Microsoft were in charge of Sony developers you could bet that games like Uncharted 2 would have local multiplayer even if it sacraficed somewhat the visual presentation.

Also the other big one is that they don't have Miyamoto. How many big franchises would Nintendo have without this man?

None, Nintendo wouldn't exist. Hell, video games probably wouldn't exist.



I don't know about you but I'd rather have several great franchises then a couple mega franchises.

I just did this research real quick so correct me if I'm wrong but:

 

I count that Sony has 9 first party million sellers that are new IP's from this gen: Resistance 1 & 2, Uncharted 1 & 2, Heavenly Sword, Heavy Rain, LittleBigPlanet, Motorstorm and Infamous... and 2 more that are very close (Motorstorm 2 and MAG)

Where as Microsoft just seems to have 4 which are Gears 1 & 2, Viva Pinata and Crackdown.

 

I just did a quick search in the VG database so correct me if I missed any, but it seems pretty obvious Sony gives you a lot more options when it comes to new IP's. They may not become multi million sellers like Gears, Halo and Gran Turismo but that doesn't mean they aren't great games.



RolStoppable said:
Rpruett said:

This had better be a joke. 

It's not even remotely accurate in most accounts.  Do you think that Gears of War was the first third person shooter?   Or that Devil May Cry was the first 'slash em up' ?    Killzone followed Halo but Halo followed a myriad of other games.

Gran Turismo certainly wasn't the first racing game.

Little Big Planet did sell well, but not spectacular.  Yet NSMB Wii sold spectacular.  Why?   Little Big Planet had rights to the multi-player / platformer far before it did.     Heavy Rain is a one of a kind type of gameplay experience.

My post must have hit a nerve, because it keeps getting quoted. What I got out of this thread is that the most favorite explanation as to why Sony doesn't have more mega franchises is due to Sony sucking at marketing their games. That reasoning isn't sound, but it does what it is supposed to do: protect the games. In other words, there's nothing wrong with the games.

But the games themselves are the problem. None of them with the exception of Gran Turismo are really genre-defining, so nothing that Sony makes becomes huge. Their games usually borrow elements from already popular games. Sure, Sony's games are polished, but they lack the wow-factor of offering something new. This isn't a Sony only problem, it holds true for pretty much every major publisher in the entire industry.

Now I'll address some of the things you said.

Do I think that GeoW was the first TPS? I said that it redefined its genre. If that isn't clear enough, in order to redefine a genre, games of that kind have to exist already. So no, I don't think that GeoW was the first TPS. Devil May Cry wasn't the first of its kind either, but it made its genre popular years before GoW. Halo changed the FPS genre on consoles and other games still take inspirations from it to this very day. Killzone brought nothing new to the table, at least not anything that other developers would be eager to imitate.

Gran Turismo redefined its genre, no other racing simulation before it offered so many licensed cars. So games that do something outstanding have a chance to become mega franchises while games that do not have no chance. Since Sony mostly uses ideas that have been done before and polishes them up, their games just sell well, but not spectacular.

NSMB Wii would have sold more than ten million copies even if it had only two players taking turns like previous games of the series. This franchise was already huge and had an amazing track record. What LBP had going for it was the extensive level editor, but as I already said in another post in this thread, most gamers aren't interested in building their own levels. And LBP as a platformer is really not that good of a game as anyone who has played platformers during their golden era on the 8- and 16-bit consoles will most likely confirm. Heavy Rain is unique, but never had any massmarket appeal. For what it is, it did very well commercially and exceeded everyone's expectations.

I really  don't want to get involved in this battle but ... whatever

So , Sony games don't sell well because they consist of ideas borrowed from somewhere else and mixed together, they're not innovative and don't "redefine" anything , that's one

you think Devil may cry "redefined" it's genre and not God of war , Two

you aware that every GOW game has outsold DMC game right? , doesn't that make your logic fail ?

Devil May Cry 2.78  VS God of war 3.73 ( let alone the collection which sold 1.44 )

DMC2 1.82  VS GoW2 3.13

DMC3 1.93 and 0.05 VS GoW3 2.93

DMC4 1.31  1.25  VS Gow3 2.93 ( again ) , Gow shall hit 3.4 by the end of the year btw.

You can't really define what " redefine " is you know , for example I could say That Geow" is more or less just another TPS game with a couple of new ideas " right ? , that such a twisted logic you're using .

And what about games like Metal gear , Ico , shadow of colossus, Twisted Metal , Mag  ?  just another "genre" game with a couple of new ideas ? 

Ah what about MW2 did it r.......... you know what , I guess everybody got my point XD

Please dear sir when people disagree with you doesn't mean that your "post must have hit a nerve" , it's a matter of opinions after all and everybody have the right to disagree.

I don't think that I'll take this any further . -_-