By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

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

NYANKS on 05 September 2010
RolStoppable said:
Doobie_wop said:

Marketing is far more a factor in how a game sell's than the actual quality of the game. The market is ignorant and misinformed, most of the general public don't know they want something until they are told what to want. Nintendo would never have been the success that it was if they didn't start grabbing celebrities for ad's, putting the Wii on talk shows and advertising the system non-stop for the first three years of it's release. The same applies to their games. 

You've seen the marketing push that's followed games like Halo 3, MW2, Gears of War, Wii Something Something, Mario and Gran Turismo. If little Timmy had never heard about Halo from his TV box or never read the back of a Mountain Dew can, he most likely would never have heard of Halo. People could say that word of mouth is the cause of their success, but that only works after the ad's kick in because they have to develop a large enough userbase to spread the word to a significant amount of people.

Your opinion on what games are innovative and important is skewed because I'm willing to bet that you don't play most of the PS3 games you've mentioned or you already have some sort of weird affiliation with another console that hinders your enjoyment of PS3 games. 

Marketing is a factor in how a game sells initially, in other words right after release. If a game isn't as good as people were led to believe by marketing, sales will drop sharply while the games that hold up to people's expectations enjoy long legs. Halo, CoD, GeoW, Mario and Gran Turismo fall in the latter category. So do Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit, but not Wii Music despite having a similar marketing push.

I also don't believe that Sony is that horrible at marketing their games. As a rule of thumb, if I see plenty of commercials for a game on German television, then the same holds true for the UK and the USA, because I highly doubt that companies invest more money in ad campaigns in Germany than in the bigger markets for video games. Uncharted 2 and LBP certainly had good marketing. But blaming the marketing is easier than admitting that the games themselves might be the problem. That doesn't mean that the games are bad, it only means that they aren't mega franchise material.

In the post you responded to I said that my opinion doesn't matter, it's the market as a whole who defines what is amazing and important in a video game. Therefore you questioning my opinion is absolutely irrelevant and even if you were correct, it would mean nothing because my personal opinion about games isn't the base of my argument.


So I'm assuming you agree with the hardcore vs. casual distinction, or something like it?  You say the quality of the game is not the problem, but simply the premise of the game, or should I say, the real or perceived complexity of them.  Basically, consumers can only stomach so many things or so much complexity.  I mean, Wii Sports.  Does what it does well.  The topic is sports, easy to get into.  A new way to play sports, the closest thing we have to playing real sports in the home I guess? Doesn't seem like to tough a sell. And very easy top play, very few buttons to memorize, mostly motion.  And some perception of a challenge, because the Wiimote is relatively accurate.  

Then we have Call of Duty, which I believe sells on par with some of those games.  A game about war, perhaps particularly resonant now.  Has a highly competitive structure, played by I assume a large majority of males.  I feel like the online perception of "all my friends have this, I should too!" helps this game alot. Then again, I guess that goes for the Wii series as well. 

Gran Turismo, a game about cars and racing them.  Again not a tough sell, cars are pretty big.  Quite similar to reality, graphics-wise and I believe physics-wise.  Allowing people to drive beautiful cars they may never even see in person in their lifetimes.  Has a legacy as being the BEST of all driving games.

It seems the most popular games ar the ones most easy to understand and relate to real life.  Either that, or they just do something innovative to some degree or simply raise the past bar a great, great deal.  Sports, War, Cars.  Easy sells, but still either amazing or innovative games or both. 

Wii SPORTS, Wii PLAY, Wii MUSIC, Wii FIT.  You can't get much simpler than this.  Couple the simplicity of these games with the new "I'm really doing it!" play mechanic, and I guess it's not so mindblowing to understand.

Sony does innovate, but they are big into technology. They like pushing the envelope in this way, and it has paid dividends ever since they started.  They've made some of the greatest games in the history of games.  They do what they do well, but Sony hasn't really made things so simple and basic like Nintendo did.  Note that it's not Okami, Little King's Story, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, No More Heroes 1 and 2, Muramasa or Trauma Team doing so incredible.  It's games like Rock Band (about guitars), Just Dance (about *gasp* DANCING) that are simple that do incredible. 

And of course Nintendo has some old ips that can do it too, like Mario.  Link does pretty well.

Sony makes some beautiful games.  However, they don't always make themselves look simple, approachable or easy to understand.  Shadow of the Colossus.  Very simple game.  Doesn't appear incredibly simple at first look, but it's not  that hard.  Appealing colorwise? Not particularly. The concept is simple, kill 16 monters.  But it was more than that.  Gamers thought it was beautiful.  However, the bottom line is people don't want art, they want fun and they want it to be simple and easy to understand and make sense of.  Shadow is fun and relatively simple, but not easy to tell someone about.  Not as easy as Gran Turismo or Call of Duty or Wii Sports.



Around the Network
Darth Tigris on 05 September 2010

Because its . . . really hard to do?



NYANKS on 05 September 2010
RolStoppable said:
NYANKS said:

So I'm assuming you agree with the hardcore vs. casual distinction, or something like it?  You say the quality of the game is not the problem, but simply the premise of the game, or should I say, the real or perceived complexity of them.  Basically, consumers can only stomach so many things or so much complexity.  I mean, Wii Sports.  Does what it does well.  The topic is sports, easy to get into.  A new way to play sports, the closest thing we have to playing real sports in the home I guess? Doesn't seem like to tough a sell. And very easy top play, very few buttons to memorize, mostly motion.  And some perception of a challenge, because the Wiimote is relatively accurate.  

Then we have Call of Duty, which I believe sells on par with some of those games.  A game about war, perhaps particularly resonant now.  Has a highly competitive structure, played by I assume a large majority of males.  I feel like the online perception of "all my friends have this, I should too!" helps this game alot. Then again, I guess that goes for the Wii series as well. 

Gran Turismo, a game about cars and racing them.  Again not a tough sell, cars are pretty big.  Quite similar to reality, graphics-wise and I believe physics-wise.  Allowing people to drive beautiful drive cars they may never even see in person in their lifetimes.  Has a legacy as being the BEST of all driving games.

It seems the most popular games ar the ones most easy to understand and relate to real life.  Either that, or they just do something innovative to some degree or simply raise the past bar a great, great deal.  Sports, War, Cars.  Easy sells, but still either amazing or innovative games or both. 

Wii SPORTS, Wii PLAY, Wii MUSIC, WII FIT.  You can't get much simpler than this.  Couple the simplicity of these games with the new "I'm really doing it!" play mechanic, and I guess it's not so mindblowing to understand.

Sony does innovate, but they are big into technology. They like pushing the envelope in this way, and it has paid dividends ever since they started.  They've made some of the greatest games in the history of games.  They do what they do well, but Sony hasn't really made things so simple and basic like Nintendo did.  Note that it's not Okami, Little King's Story, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, No More Heroes 1 and 2, Muramasa or Trauma Team doing so incredible.  It's games like Rock Band (about guitars), Just Dance (about *gasp* DANCING) that are simple that do incredible. 

And of course Nintendo has some old ips that can do it too, like Mario.  Link does pretty well.

Sony makes some beautiful games.  However, they don't always make themselves look simple, approachable or easy to understand.  Shadow of the Colossus.  Very simple game.  Doesn't appear incredibly simple at first look, but it's not  that hard.  Appealing colorwise? Not particularly. The concept is simple, kill 16 monters.  But it was more than that.  Gamers thought it was beautiful.  However, the bottom line is people don't want art, they want fun and they want it to be simple and easy to understand and make sense of.  Shadow is fun and relatively simple, but not easy to tell someone about.  Not as easy as Gran Turismo or Call of Duty or Wii Sports.

I don't agree with the hardcore vs. casual distinction at all, simply because it's something that doesn't make any sense at all. If we would be going by it, we would run into problems immediately. For example, Gran Turismo is easy to understand and play, so it must be a casual game. Now those who believe in hardcore vs. casual would object and say that GT is a hardcore game. So let's forget this stupid distinction entirely.

You are right when you say that the most popular games tend to be ones that are either easy to understand and immediately entertaining and/or easy to relate to. It's no coincidence that many publishers are eager to get the rights to make games based off of movies, TV series or major sports. People are interested in that content and buy it even if the game isn't really that great, that's why mediocre movie tie-ins routinely outsell good original games.

Basing a game off of things that people already like or are greatly interested in is the easy way to create a big selling title, but of course it's by no means a guarantee to sell a lot of copies only due a popular license.

The other way is to make a fun original game. But what is fun? It's a game that lets the user find success pretty much immediately while maintaining a certain level of challenge. If the player always wins it would get boring quickly. In Super Mario Bros. you can clear the first stage pretty quickly, but it won't stay so easy. You have to learn to time your jumps, if you want to get farther into the game. Tetris is incredibly simple, but there's a constant challenge with the increasing drop speed of the blocks.

Are such games easy to make? Not at all. In fact, they are much harder to make than something like Okami. It's a difficult task to catch the player's attention within a few minutes and get him/her hooked. During the timespan people get addicted to a game like Mario or Tetris, they don't even get to play anything of Okami. Likewise, Shadow of the Colossus isn't fun for most people, because the first 15 minutes are boring as hell too.

You mentioned Wii Music, even though it doesn't fit in with the rest of the games. You are right that it is easy to understand, but it's not fun. That's why it flopped. That's also why so many other games that are easy to understand flop all the time.

These games absolutely need to require skill in one form or another, they always have and always will. If you could master Wii Sports within a few hours, it would have never been such a big hit and sold so many Wiis. If it would be easy to make a game like Wii Sports, we would see dozens of new mega franchises each and every year. But since it's actually hard to do, we see most publishers assigning their top developers to games that cater to people who are willing to invest a couple of hours into a game without it being entertaining during that time period, because "eventually, it will get good".

It's also not like Nintendo only makes simple games. Metroid, Fire Emblem, F-Zero, to name a few. But they are usually overlooked, because for some people Nintendo is only Mario, Zelda and Pokémon.

It seems an unfortunate thing that games that can't hook you instantaneously have no chance of keeping people's attention.  In a way I feel like this is just the failure of the consumer to expand their horizons.  And I know, the consumer is never wrong.  It's the games fault.  However, it seems the masses are unwilling to try anything that requires a bit of thought, so games that have stories that try to be coherent or any more complex than that of a Mario game are immediately at a disadvantge.  It seems that most people don't deem the medium to be worth the time  or effort.  There ARE somewhat more complex games that do a very good job of keeping a player's attention, but no dice.  And about Metroid, Fire Emblem, F-Zero....this saddens me.  Just like Uncharted.  And it's not for "some" people.  It's for most people.  Only people like ones on this site are playing Fire Emblem.  It's not that everything Nintendo does is insta-gold, they just have that devious old man behind the scenes....lol.  He has been the source of a good deal of their win, hasn't he?  Hell Zelda barely qualifies as a mega hit.  That's still mostly people on sites like this.  It's sad, the majority of people I've shown games like Uncharted or Zelda to can't believe how cool or fun they look.  Adults, kids, peers, you name it.   :(



NYANKS on 05 September 2010
Darth Tigris said:

Because its . . . really hard to do?

In a way it's easy and in a way it's crushingly hard.  I mean, Ninty didn't do so well in that department during the gamecube era.  And the N64 era, they had a couple of megas, and then nothing.  And they got stomped twice.  No developer is invincible.  I think I'm mad at consumers actually!  :D lol



Killiana1a on 05 September 2010

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.



Around the Network
NYANKS on 05 September 2010
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.


They don't own Crash anymore.  Legacy of Kain and Persona could NEVER attain the popualrity of a Mario, no matter how well marketed.  Sony makes amzing games, some of the best ever, they're just not all pick up and play like a Mario.

To me sales do not equal quality.  Just because the game is made easier or simpler to me doesn't necessarily make it better.  Is Mario great. Yes.  Is Uncharted great. Yes. 20 million more sales won't sway my opinion.  It's just a fact that people want simple, easy things to mess around with.    If the brain has to work t0o hard, its a no go. 

By your definition, Wii Sports is the greatest game of all time. Is this true?



TheBlackNaruto on 05 September 2010
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.

But why does a game have to be easy to be great? Sales DO NTO determine if a game was great or not. I guess because a Honda Civic sells more than a Ferrari that makes the Civic a great car and the Ferrari not? My point is just because something sells well it does not make it great. Sony has games that cater to a broad audience where as in my opinion Microsoft and Nintendo do not. MS focos mostly on shooters if you ask me and Nintendo other than with the Wii no longer take ANY risks at all. You say Sony goes with the Usual when there are what 4 God of War games across 3 systems, Uncharted is a BRAND NEW IP and only has 2 games, and there hasn't been a TRUE Gran Turismo game in over 4 years really?

 

Then you say "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." and say they need to make a Legacy of Kain game and you will be a PS3 right now today, but that's the same thing as a game loved by a devoted few. Why do they need more dance and party games? They way you are talking Just Dance is one of if not THE greatest game ever made because of sales....really?

 

I am not trying to be funny just pointing out that sales ARE NOT everything and as I said 4-5mil for a game is GREAT!



The absence of evidence is NOT the evidence of absence...

PSN: StlUzumaki23

tingyu on 05 September 2010

Its because Sony used to be comfortable with 3rd party, FFVII defined Playstation 1, GTA series defined Playstation 2 (anybody still remembers the debate of San Andreas vs Halo 2 back in the days? Good times indeed). GranTurismo was a surprise hit from Polyphony that wasn't planned to be the pinacle of Sony consoles back then, 3rd paty games define all Playstations. God of War and Socom were big on PS2, but it was still FFX, MGS and GTA series that makes PS2 the most popular home console ever.

Just like when Pokemon and Brain Age Nintendo 1st party game defined DS, Monster Hunter another 3rd party game define PSP. We can only hope Monster Hunter wont play a jump ship to 3DS, which its big brother already jump from PS3 to Wii.

Yet PS3 has the roughest launch ever in console history thanks to $599!!! by Kutaragi. All the third parties jump ship and become cross platform, no more FF and GTA exlusive, it was likes doomsday back than and PS3 was laughed at as the Blu-ray player that also play games. Sony realised its mistake of depending on third party so much, and start to build up its 1st party line up which would never end up on other consoles, and buying good studios here and there (Media Molecule, That Game Company, etc).

Though none of them can reach the level of Halo/Gran Turismo yet because the effort comes TOO LATE to be realised by general public, which already syncronize the Xbox brand as hardcore gaming after the explosion of Gears of War as the best looking shooter ever while Sony side got nothing to show back then except Ok looking Resistance. The hardcore gamers even endure the 'Things Break' nightmare as only a small hindrance of enjoying the best gaming experience everyone in town is talking about.

It just shows that its easy to lose ur fans in this business and so hard to turn them back towards u even after u realise ur mistakes and start to pump out gems like Uncharted 2, cause they if never touch the game, they will never know how good it is and wont miss it.

But now as PS3 is building its momentum and pump up exclusive gems after gems from its 1st party studio, Xbox 360 becomes a Halo box since most of its 'exclusive' third party jump ship just like what they did to PS3 at the start of the gen. Even the house which build Halo is leaving Microsoft which makes me scratch my head what the heck M$ is thinking about.

The tide is slowly turning back into favor of PS3, Sony learned its lesson, at a very dear price. Its time for M$ to learn its lesson.

The moral of the story is love ur wife more, the girls flirting with u might be hot like hell, but they will jump ship anytime a dude with a bigger car comes by, or worse case, cross-platforming between you and the other guy.



NYANKS on 05 September 2010
tingyu said:

Its because Sony used to be comfortable with 3rd party, FFVII defined Playstation 1, GTA series defined Playstation 2 (anybody still remembers the debate of San Andreas vs Halo 2 back in the days? Good times indeed). GranTurismo was a surprise hit from Polyphony that wasn't planned to be the pinacle of Sony consoles back then, 3rd paty games define all Playstations. God of War and Socom were big on PS2, but it was still FFX, MGS and GTA series that makes PS2 the most popular home console ever.

Just like when Pokemon and Brain Age Nintendo 1st party game defined DS, Monster Hunter another 3rd party game define PSP. We can only hope Monster Hunter wont play a jump ship to 3DS, which its big brother already jump from PS3 to Wii.

Yet PS3 has the roughest launch ever in console history thanks to $599!!! by Kutaragi. All the third parties jump ship and become cross platform, no more FF and GTA exlusive, it was likes doomsday back than and PS3 was laughed at as the Blu-ray player that also play games. Sony realised its mistake of depending on third party so much, and start to build up its 1st party line up which would never end up on other consoles, and buying good studios here and there (Media Molecule, That Game Company, etc).

Though none of them can reach the level of Halo/Gran Turismo yet because the effort comes TOO LATE to be realised by general public, which already syncronize the Xbox brand as hardcore gaming after the explosion of Gears of War as the best looking shooter ever while Sony side got nothing to show back then except Ok looking Resistance. The hardcore gamers even endure the 'Things Break' nightmare as only a small hindrance of enjoying the best gaming experience everyone in town is talking about.

It just shows that its easy to lose ur fans in this business and so hard to turn them back towards u even after u realise ur mistakes and start to pump out gems like Uncharted 2, cause they if never touch the game, they will never know how good it is and wont miss it.

But now as PS3 is building its momentum and pump up exclusive gems after gems from its 1st party studio, Xbox 360 becomes a Halo box since most of its 'exclusive' third party jump ship just like what they did to PS3 at the start of the gen. Even the house which build Halo is leaving Microsoft which makes me scratch my head what the heck M$ is thinking about.

The tide is slowly turning back into favor of PS3, Sony learned its lesson, at a very dear price. Its time for M$ to learn its lesson.

The moral of the story is love ur wife more, the girls flirting with u might be hot like hell, but they will jump ship anytime a dude with a bigger car comes by, or worse case, cross-platforming between you and the other guy.

It's not like Sony did nothing.  Sony made Crash Bandicoot, closest thing they ever had to a mascot.  PS2, how about Shadow of the freakin' Colossus. Gran Turismo, SOCOM, Jak and Daxter, Twisted Metal, Wipeout, God of war, it goes on.  They've only failed if sales are the measure of quality, and nothing less than ten million is a success.  Fortunately, we don't live in that world.  Playstation has always been about variety, moreso than Nintendo and Microsoft.

If you told Nintendo they couldn't make a Mario or Zelda game for 5-6 years, they would be f*cked three ways from Sunday.  If you told Sony no GT or LBP or God of War for 5-6 years, they'd be good and dandy.  Because they make new ip's constantly.  Sony is quality.



Killiana1a on 05 September 2010
NYANKS 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.


They don't own Crash anymore.  Legacy of Kain and Persona could NEVER attain the popualrity of a Mario, no matter how well marketed.  Sony makes amzing games, some of the best ever, they're just not all pick up and play like a Mario.

To me sales do not equal quality.  Just because the game is made easier or simpler to me doesn't necessarily make it better.  Is Mario great. Yes.  Is Uncharted great. Yes. 20 million more sales won't sway my opinion.  It's just a fact that people want simple, easy things to mess around with.    If the brain has to work t0o hard, its a no go. 

By your definition, Wii Sports is the greatest game of all time. Is this true?

By my definition, yes Wii Sports is the greatest of all time because it has sold the most. Who have I seen playing it? Seniors in nursing homes, girlfriends, moms, dads, little sisters, and on. It is the greatest because of the  sheer sales and capturing a market that a Final Fantasy game, Uncharted,  Infamous, Modern Warfare, and on could never catch no matter how much it is polished.

Games are first and foremost about fun. Wii Sports is fun. Niche games are fun too, but they are not as great because their sales numbers are indicative of a limited audience who can have fun playing them.

If I wanted to work my brain or think, then I read. I don't come home at 6am from work thinking, what game will be the most stressful intellectual activity? I play games for fun, but it has become convoluted over the years because as niche games have gotten more complex or nichey, players for some illogical reason set these games as the bar for greatness.

I did not start playing games with Grand Theft Auto 3, Halo, Legacy of Kain or Final Fantasy. I first started with Duckhunt and Super Mario Bros. They were filled my fun needs. As I have aged, I have naturally gravitated towards more complex games that require thinking. I find complex games fun, but many times they are a "one an done" game because it requires too much time and thinking to play through them again when I have other priorities pressing.

A series like Legacy of Kain is great and beloved by many including me, but it is a picnic compared to Wii Sports' three course meal. Wii Sports developers get paid while many niche game developers look for another job once their niche series has run it's course and can't put food on their table anymore.