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

Scoobes on 08 September 2010
EncodedNybble said:
miz1q2w3e said:
iWarMachine said:

but uncharted 2 it's one of the best games this gen, even if it's copying Gears or whatever, the presentation, the story, and the gameplay it's far better than most of the games out there....following that reasoning, then killswitch has to be the best game ever, half life should be the biggest hit ever, Mario games should not sell that well, and Halo would be dead already.

Which games did Mario and Halo copy off of?

Probably late to the party here, but what did Halo rip off?

See Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Quake 2, Rise of the Triad (for the dual weapons), Blood 2, etc. etc. etc.

Only thing it really "innovated" was that it was on the xbox, limiting to two weapons and the regenerating shields.  So, if UC2 borrowed lots of ideas, Halo did too.  Just saying :)


Don't forget the seamless integration of vehicles. I can't think of another FPS that did that before Halo was released.




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EncodedNybble on 08 September 2010
Scoobes said:
EncodedNybble said:
miz1q2w3e said:

Probably late to the party here, but what did Halo rip off?

See Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Quake 2, Rise of the Triad (for the dual weapons), Blood 2, etc. etc. etc.

Only thing it really "innovated" was that it was on the xbox, limiting to two weapons and the regenerating shields.  So, if UC2 borrowed lots of ideas, Halo did too.  Just saying :)


Don't forget the seamless integration of vehicles. I can't think of another FPS that did that before Halo was released.


Ah yes, I forgot about that, though I don't think people care for vehicles too much anymore do they?



Scoobes on 08 September 2010
EncodedNybble said:
Scoobes said:
EncodedNybble said:
miz1q2w3e said:

Probably late to the party here, but what did Halo rip off?

See Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Quake 2, Rise of the Triad (for the dual weapons), Blood 2, etc. etc. etc.

Only thing it really "innovated" was that it was on the xbox, limiting to two weapons and the regenerating shields.  So, if UC2 borrowed lots of ideas, Halo did too.  Just saying :)


Don't forget the seamless integration of vehicles. I can't think of another FPS that did that before Halo was released.


Ah yes, I forgot about that, though I don't think people care for vehicles too much anymore do they?

I dunno. I'm not too bothered but maybe the Halo and UT players would. Virtually every FPS has to have an obligatory vehicle section.




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mundus6 on 08 September 2010
Ping_ii said:

Besides Halo what other MS owned IP sells 10m? right......
Besides GT games what other Sony IP's sells 10m?

Fable 3m
Uncharted 3m
LBP 3m
Resistance 3m

Crackdown 1.5m
Infamous 1.6m

Lost Odessy 800k
Valkyria 900k
Demon soul's 700k

MS IP's sells the same as Sony's IP's quit bitchin.


GT was last gen... and Fable has sold more than 3 million if if you don't count Fable 1. Sony might have a lot of franchises but none of them do partically well. M$ doesn't have as many, but they all do better on average. Niether of these companies strong suite is their exclusives though, M$ have like 2 franchies worth mentioning, every other is for PC as well. Sony got like 3-4 worth mentioning.



Michael-5 on 09 September 2010
mjk45 said:
Michael-5 said:
mjk45 said:

i remember seeing heaps of halo bundles bought one myself and the used game shelf  was full of the bundled version .

The used game shelf had bundled consoles? What?

If you meant that the used game shelf was filled with copies of Halo, then that just makes it difficult for the game to sell new.

Also the only Halo 3 bundle came out a year and a half after Halo 3 came out. Halo 3 had sold 8 million of it's 11.1 million sum in holidays 2007, without bundles.

sorry i meant the games from the bundled  consoles , but more to the point each Halo version has had less need of bundling than the one before in regards  to it's sales, but for the sake of selling consoles  it might be a different story. many people i know said getting halo when they got a Xbox or 360 was a no brainer so i imagine they would look at getting it bundled if possible  making it  important to the system whether it sold consoles or was picked up after. What seems missing here is not the fact that MS and SONY have one huge first party each , but will we get a monster hit from either party originating this gen, In regards to the two titles they both seemed to fill a void at the time of there publishing so is it a matter of geat games at the right moment for it to be replicated  or is it something else?

Post-ponning GT5's release from 2008 to 2010 definatly hurt the PS3. Halo was a trademark franchise, and was Microsoft exclusive. MS put out a good product early, and that helped sales.

However this debate is about Making a mega franchise. Bungie and Microsoft definatly made Halo a mega franchise, and almost did the same for Gears. However currently Sony has none, why, lots of possible reasons. I think the biggest is the lack of a single star game. If Sony devoted all their $$$ from Resistance and Killzone, and focused on one franchise, that franchise could be mega. Instead they wanted more titles.



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Michael-5 on 09 September 2010
zgamer5 said:
Michael-5 said:
zgamer5 said:
Michael-5 said:
zgamer5 said:
jarrod said:
zgamer5 said:

kilzlone=realistic shooter

halo=arcade shooter

those are two diffrent things. also halo isnt on ps3, when killzone came out it was competiting with cod not with halo.

Eh... I don't think any console first FPS can really be considered "realistic".  If you want something more sim-y or realistic, you need a PC.  Halo, Killzone, COD, etc are all more "arcade" than not.

i was talking quality wise. you cant compare halo and killzone since killzone aims for a more realistic feeling, while halo is just plain arcady fun. the console fps which i consider realistic is killzone, because of the weight system(in real life you cant turn 360 degrees) also because if you concetrate your eyes on the screen for a while you will think that you are really in that game, that was one of the complaints my friends had with the game.

It doesn't make it a more realistic shooter, none of the plot is realistic, most of the tech isn't, and except for how your gun fires and how you walk around, it's not really a realistic game. Yes playing the game, you feel human, and it simulates how you would move well, but in Halo your a Spartan, your in a mechanically powered suit. Of course you can jump two stories, and turn 360 degrees, I mean the suit weighs over a ton, how would you be able to move that youself?

If anything, a future war is more likely to have suits like this, war would not be like it is today, so by that logic, Halo is more realistic.

:p lol



you tried, but you failed./facepalm

Killzone is not a realistic shooter. Realistic shooters don't have people flying around in jetpacks being completly exposed. You fail to prove me otherwise.

Only games comparable to Call of Duty are Medal of Honor, Battlefield, and similar games. These types of games do not involve space colonization of any sort, and do not use tech that doesn't exist.

Killzone, Resistance, Halo, Gears of War, Lost Planet, Half Life, etc. They are comparable as they are all arcade sci-fi shooters.


im not going to bother arguieng with you, you still dont get what im saying. 

Your saying that Killzone 2 simulates real world physics better then Halo, and should be compared to Call of Duty instead. I'm saying it's more then physics that define realistic. A realistic shooter should be defined by plot, not mobility and recoil. So I'm saying comparing Killzone to Halo is fine.



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Michael-5 on 09 September 2010
Kasz216 said:
Michael-5 said:
Miguel_Zorro said:

Gears of War isn't that big of a seller (around 6 million), at least compared to Halo.  It had a better sales trajectory than Uncharted 2 has, but it's not that extreme.

As for why Sony can't seem to produce a "Halo" franchise?  I think there are a lot of reasons.

1) Marketing.  Halo marketing is huge, and effective.  I haven't seen Sony go as big with a marketing campaign yet.

2) Bundles.  Sony could pick a flagship game and bundle it with their console.  They don't do that enough.

3) Investing in franchises across generations.  The first Halo on the original xbox sold 6 million.  The next one sold 8.  They carried that over to the 360, where now Halo 3 sold over 10 million.  Sony carried over Gran Turismo from the PSOne, but what about Crash Bandicoot?  It had three titles which sold around 7 million each.

4) Not owning their biggest game.  The biggest exclusive on the PSOne after Gran Turismo was Final Fantasy 7.  The biggest game on the PS2 was GTA: San Andreas.  Imagine if Sony had released FF13 or GTA4 as an exclusive on the PS3?  Sony could have purchase Squaresoft in the 90s before it merged with Enix.  I think they've learned from this by purchasing the first party studios behind their PS3 games (like Media Molecule).

5) The 360 audience is perfectly suited to make Halo big.  Most people who own 360s are American.  Most people who own 360s like shooting games.  It's the perfect audience to make games like Halo and Gears huge.  The PS3 has more owners in Europe vs. the Americans, with a bunch in Japan, where shooters don't sell as well.

6) Diverse gaming audience - as mentioned, a lot of PS3 owners like different types of games, it'd be easier to hit 10 million if they all liked one type of game.

7) People who buy the 360 buy it for the games.  That's pretty much it.  The console has an amazing attach rate.  A lot of PS3 owners bought it primarily for the Blu-Ray player.  They're not buying a lot of games.  A lot of people bought the PS2 because it wasn't that much more expensive than a DVD player.  Same story.

When you're looking at mega-franchises (8-10 million sold per title) that started this gen or last, the list is small: Halo, Wii Fit (I'm excluding Play and Sports for hopefulyl obvious reasons). Then multiplats like Call of Duty and GTA.  (I may have missed a few).  The real question is - what is it about those games that make them such blockbusters?

 

1) I 100% Agree

2) MGS4 was bundled with the last PS2 backward compatible model PS3. So if you wanted a backward compatible PS3, you had to buy MGS4 as stand alone PS3's were different models. Motorstorm did the same, why do you think MGS4 sold 5 million?

Also Halo did 11 million without any significant bundles. There was a Halo 3/Fable 2 bundle a year and a half later on Elite models, but that didn't boost sales much.

3) I think in past generations, Sony relied a lot on 3rd party exclusives. GTA, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, all went multiplatform, or simply switched consoles entirely. It should have brought over Crash Bandicoot, bu I think they ran out of money when everyone left them.

4) in 1987 Square was a company on the verge of bankruptcy. In 1990, they were cheap to buy, but largly loyal to Nintendo, and Sony didn't even have a console back then. By the time PS1 came out, Sony did buy about 40% of the square stock, and they still own a large portion now (thats why FFXIII was not released on the 360 in Japan), but by 1996 Square was a rich and expensive company, and then they merged with Enix. Sony tried, but I don't think the had enough $$$ to buy Rockstar or Square. Even MS could only buy a timed DLC exclusive from Rockstar for 50 million.

5) Gran Turismo 5 will sell well as it appeals to PS3 owners tastes better.

6) I 100% agree

7) I 100% agree, I even know people who bought the PS3 for Blu-Ray and end up buying a couple games for it, just because they can.

As for 10 million sellers, there were a bunch in the NES era, but N64 took a dive in sales, so for N64 and SNES era it was uncommon. During PS2 era, games jumped again, remember PS2 has 5 10 million sellers, 3 GTA titles, 2 GT titles.

Wii just tapped that casual audience, and so did Halo and CoD kind of.


4) They bought like, 10% or 20% of Square stock.  Which is now down to 4-8% due to Enix being the more valuable company when they merged.  Additionally, it's non voting stock and Sony never EVER had anyone on their board of directors.  So that's NOT why FFXIII was on PS3 only in japan.  Sony literally has no rights outside of dividends.

The reason it wasn't on 360 was time.  They made the 360 decision late and they didn't want to risk the game being pushed back anymore.  (While never having an announced date before, it obviously was meant to come out sooner.)


Also you aren't going to sell 10 million unless you tap some of the casual market.

Really, Sony bought a non-voting stock? Way to go cheap. Thanks for correcting me, now I know.

As for your bolded statement, I agree, but I think games like Halo, Call of Duty, and Gran turismo do tap into a portion of the casual audience. A lot of people buy Halo, CoD and GT simply because they are Halo, CoD, and GT, games that are critically acclaimed to be the best of their genre, and have extensive re-playablity (multipler). Yes Wii Party is a much more "casual" game, but HD franchises do tap into a similar audience.



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Michael-5 on 09 September 2010
CGI-Quality said:
mundus6 said:
Ping_ii said:

Besides Halo what other MS owned IP sells 10m? right......
Besides GT games what other Sony IP's sells 10m?

Fable 3m
Uncharted 3m
LBP 3m
Resistance 3m

Crackdown 1.5m
Infamous 1.6m

Lost Odessy 800k
Valkyria 900k
Demon soul's 700k

MS IP's sells the same as Sony's IP's quit bitchin.


GT was last gen... and Fable has sold more than 3 million if if you don't count Fable 1. Sony might have a lot of franchises but none of them do partically well. M$ doesn't have as many, but they all do better on average. Niether of these companies strong suite is their exclusives though, M$ have like 2 franchies worth mentioning, every other is for PC as well. Sony got like 3-4 worth mentioning.

3 or 4? lol...... He's right about the averages. Microsoft and Sony's IPs do about the same amount on average, and Sony has FAR more than 3 or 4 franchises worth talking about. Something doesn't have to sell 5 million to become anything worth talking about, as Fable, God of War, Uncharted, LittleBIGPlanet, inFAMOUS and many others have all proven, and that's not even going into anything yet.

Ping_ii, you missed a few franchises, but your point is accurate. Not only do MS franchises get similar ratings to PS3 franchises, but they sell equally well too.

The IP's I scratched out are third party. Really MS only has Halo, Fable, Forza, Crackdown, Viva Pinyata, and the random Rare title. Too Human, Lost Odyssey, Prey, Gears of War, Mass Effect, Alan Wake, Project Gotham Racing, etc are second party exclusives. Sony only really has GT, Uncharted, Killzone, LBP, God of War, and Motorstorm. Resistance, Valkyria, Demons Souls, and Heavy Rain are all second/third party exclusives.

In regards to # of franchises, Sony has 1 or 2 more, but 360 franchises see more interations (4th Halo title, 3rd Gears, 3rd Forza, second Fable comming out by 2011, while 2nd Killzone, possibly a 3rd Uncharted, 2nd GT, 2nd InFAMOUS, 2nd LBP, etc)



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Michael-5 on 09 September 2010
CGI-Quality said:

Sony owns the Resistance and Demon's Souls IPs, so no not 3rd party exclusives. They also have a TON more IPs than Microsoft. It far exceeds 1 or 2.

Also, Microsoft onws the PGR IP. No matter who develops it, it's still theirs.

Sony owns the IP's to Resistance, and Demon Souls, but does not actually own the company developing the game. This makes them a second party developer. Insomniac is currently working on a multiplatform title, and Atlus makes games for everyone as it is. I only said Second/Third party because I am unsure if Sony owns the IP to Heavy Rain.

Microsoft owns the PGR IP, but if Bizzarre Creations made a PGR 5, it would be a second party exclusive title. However to be fair, at the time PGR 1-4 were made, Bizzarre Creations was owned by Microsoft and PGR 1-4 are fist party exclusives.



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Michael-5 on 09 September 2010
CGI-Quality said:
Michael-5 said:

Post-ponning GT5's release from 2008 to 2010 definatly hurt the PS3. Halo was a trademark franchise, and was Microsoft exclusive. MS put out a good product early, and that helped sales.

However this debate is about Making a mega franchise. Bungie and Microsoft definatly made Halo a mega franchise, and almost did the same for Gears. However currently Sony has none, why, lots of possible reasons. I think the biggest is the lack of a single star game. If Sony devoted all their $$$ from Resistance and Killzone, and focused on one franchise, that franchise could be mega. Instead they wanted more titles.

Again, Gran Turismo is still a mega franchise. Also, have you got a link providing info that GT5 was slated for a 2008 release? Without that, you're blowing smoke.

As for mega franchises up till this point, GT5 will continue to prove that the franchise is "mega". Therefore, Microsoft and Sony are equal there. In the grand scheme of things though, it doesn't make a difference. Sony doesn't need another franchise as big as GT. They just need to provide experiences not found elsewhere, which they currently have no trouble doing.

GT5 was postponed again and again, I don't have the actual link saying GT5 was suppose to launch in Fall 2008, but I'm sure if you look in VGchartz archives you'll find something. Only recently the game was postponed from a 2009 release, to a fall 2010 release, to a November 2010 release. I remember this clearly as I am waiting on the game. I'm a big racing fan and have GT1-4, as well as GT PSP, the game was delayed several times. I think it was originally supose to release a year after the Prologue, so summer 2008?

Never said GT5 wasn't a mega franchise, I just said postponing GT5 hurt PS3 sales, and thats true.



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