Uh you said only Bayonetta did alright, then in your second reply you said it was all about how they could have done better in hindsight, and I said that's a cop out.  Can't get much more deliberate than that.  Anything and everything could have been done better in hindsight that's a stupid claim to make, Guitar Hero wouldn't have been milked in hindsight, Tony Hawk wouldn't have had a lame/expensive board in hindsight, Okami on the PS2 could have been delayed for the new consoles and sold a lot more in hindsight.  

The only way you can really look at anything is the here and now... and whats in the here and now is Platinum Games has three games that have made them money, they've improved their sales vs a lot of their last gen Clover products, and they're rated very well.  Not sure what spells success in your book but that's solid to me, sure they could be doing better, but they're not dead in the gutter like so many other developers this generation.

Well, I think you're being totally unrealistic then.

But out of curiosity, given the OP asks what, looking back at their previous games/sales, does one think of their performance, how would you answer without using hindsight?

Would you ignore it's now obvious Platinum were silly to make Bayonetta exclusively for 360 despite the fact a poor port rushed by the publisher sold more than their much more polished 360 version?

Would you ignore they released whay looked/played exactly like an okay PSN/XBLA live title that is short in duration, lutraviolent and essentially a one trick concept as a full price on the Wii?

How would you discuss their performance without hindsight or referring to anything that is now clear with the benefit of history.

I'm curious?

Or should we just say to the OP don't be silly - pointing our errors with the aid of hindsight is a cop out and there's nothing to discuss.

You're avoiding your original argument which is "So far only Bayonetta seems to have done okay - " I brought that up time and time again, and you're going on and on about some hindsight drivel to overlook they've had 3 projects that have done well for them and the forth still has the holiday season before we can call it a success or failure. 

And if you really wanted to get into the hindsight BS I already stated how they made their spiritual successor to God Hand sell five times as much as its predecessor, or hey a game that flew under the radar with no commercials sold 120k on DS which isn't ground breaking but they're not breaking the bank at all there.  

Oh no I'm the one completely unreasonable here lol no you want to say only one project did okay cause of ABC, when called out on it, you go into how hindsight is the only way to somehow give a pass or fail grade to their success, it's complete BS, development takes time, you have to work with publishers especially in the spot they're in they're not owned by Capcom so having a secure publisher that works with them is big.  

You can't know the market before hand, you can't just start development on all these different consoles, a small company can't afford to spread themselves so thin to work on both PS3 and 360, or afford to hire their own team to port to the PS3, so when a publisher offers to port your most expensive project to the other console and you're a new company like they are, you take it, you can't possibly know they'd mess up the port, either way it still sold well even on the PS3, hell the patch they put out not even a couple of weeks later smoothed everything but the graphical advantage out for the PS3 so later buyers didn't even notice an issue if they updated.

Then guess what? They said they transitioned development for Vanquish to PS3 so the 360 can get the port and it'd be much smoother.  

Really though they had two projects do quite well, their DS project did alright, and still have the holiday for Vanquish, that is not unrealistic in anyway, to say it was just alright because it could have been better is just asinine mainly because no matter how much you say it could have been better you really can't prove it, there really isn't any button you can press to go back and test your theory, so what do we have?  

All we have is their work and the sales to show for it, and that's what you have to work with cause even if you think it could have been better you're not in Platinum Games nor SEGAs shoes, it isn't some fantasy land where everyone has all the money in the world to work on a project, or all the best connections to have ads penetrate just the right market, or some psychic to tell you some hitches were gonna come along... cause like I said, just about EVERY game in existence can do better than what it did, what you're asking for is outlandish and unreasonable, though I suspect you're just hiding behind this hindsight argument because your first statement was already a bit out of touch.

-Edit-PS: Did you even play Madworld?  By the way you're talking you just read some reviews, it's not a 1 trick pony, it's got style, a cool story, its completely absurd much like it's predecessor God Hand, and the only reason it's shorter than that title is because they toned down the difficulty in hopes it would sell better, and guess what?  IT DID! Oh and guess what else, when you beat the game you get a hard mode for those that actually did like the difficulty of God Hand and it makes the 5 hour game turn into a 20 hour game, yeah terrible replay value for sure :

Geez and the fact you said it was in line with a PSN or XBLA release is even worse, I dare you to find one PSN or XBLA game that has as much work put into it with top of the line music and voice acting to boot and a good story, you're sounding like Daemon Hatfield from IGN when he claimed New Super Mario Brothers Wii would be a XBLA game like Splosion Man. 

We clearly disagree here but here's my final say.

On Bayonetta...

I would expect a game this well reviewed to hit at least 1.3 to 1.5 Million to be considerd a success on PS3/360.  It did, but no thanks to Platinum.  SEGA saved them from a poor exclusive platform choice and as a result instead of sitting on approx 700K sales they're sitting on approx 1.4 million and counting.  Small team or not they made a poor choice of lead platform that remains perplexing for the genre of the game

SEGA took a lot of heat for a bad port and with Sony patched it enough to make it a bit better - mainly load times - but the PS3 version still remains graphically inferior.

I have the game, it's very good.

On MadWorld...

I have the game, it's an above average game but at 3 hours not one I would judge as a full price title.  The closest game I can think of in terms of being unique and short is Portal, which was TBH much better than Madworld overall.

To me it felt like a high end PSN title.  Wipeout HD and Flower for example, are easily as good.  Wipeout HD definately better overall.  It's story was okay'ish but that was it.  Some driving sections felt unfiinished to me next to the rest of the game.  I certainly wasn't impressed with it as a full title.

Again, though, I think given the Wii's install base barely getting past 500K isn't anything that made me feel they made the right platform choice.  I don't consider it a great sales success although critically it did fine.  I see no reason it wasn't multi-platform nor looked to other avenues for release.

On Vanquish...

I have it, it's pretty good but it's weaker than Bayonetta.  Stripped on a more novel lead, saddled with a poor narrative to underpin it and with gunplay that feels a little lose and a lack of clarity around the arguably real way to play the game - i.e. not as a shooter but in line with something like Bayonetta - it seems to have failed to connect and with a new CoD, GT5 and lots of other big titles rattling down the tracks I think it's going to perform worse than Bayonetta unless it really gets some stronger word of mouth to give it legs.

Better developed, but I don't believe it was marketed well enough.

On Infinite Space...

Well, I haven't actually commented on this as I haven't played it.  All I can say is those look like low sales for a DS title that's been on the market for 34 weeks.

Again, I don't know what you expect.  The OP invited comments on their performance and you're ranting about 'you couldn't do better' etc.  How said we could?  We're being critical, as is our right.  And as we've been invited to evaluate we're using hindsight.

Hinsight says Platinum, whatever their size and whatever their reasons, should never have delivered Bayonetta only on 360.

Hindsight says the Wii may well not have been the right platform for Madworld.  I have one, and I can tell you I really didn't feel Madworld belonged on the platform.  The controls were fine, but the game really felt like it should have been on PS3/360 for me.  Either way I firmly believe Platinum left sales on the table going Wii exclusive with it.

Hindsight (at this early stage) says Vanquish probably needed a more unique setting/narrative and a clearer communication of it's main 'hook'.  Personally, I feel that by making something that looked so much like a Western space marine shooter Platinum took the game into an arena that wasn't best suited for it.

I like them as a quirky developer.  But they made mistakes - some pretty big and obvious ones IMHO - and that's my view.  I have no interest in trying to do better than they did, nor am I saying I could, but I do reserve the right as a critical customer to point their mistakes out.

Maybe you feel I should have been making excuses for them, but I don't see any need to or that they seserve any to be made.

In the end of the titles shown only Bayonetta seems to have achieved a decent level of sales IMHO.

Wow... uh I don't disagree I'm just saying you're factually wrong in a lot of cases so yeah disagreeing in the sense I'm not on your page, but I'm trying to point out some stuff to you.

Like "SEGA took a lot of heat for a bad port and with Sony patched it enough to make it a bit better - mainly load times - but the PS3 version still remains graphically inferior." Sony patched it?  You mean the developers that made the game patched it right? Cause Sony patches their games and hosts patches for people, they don't go out of their way to patch a game for a third party developer that put an inferior multiplat on their system

Madworld I just don't really believe you've actually played it, your comments are sparce, you're comparing it to a racing game of all things, and calling it 3 hours long... you had to be in a REAL rush to try and beat it if you finished in 3 hours, you're the first I've actually heard of beating it in 3 hours, in fact most reviews and people I talk to average 5 to 6 hours, I'm more likely to believe them over random user on the webz #469, if you could even somewhat make a post that sounds like you played the game then, I could carry on and give some weight to your platform discussion but you calling it a XBLA or PSN title is just a gross over statement, in fact what PSN or XBLA title (not full retail up for download) is over 3 gigs in size like Madworld?  Its not and you're just wrong.

And overall you're giving so much credit to SEGA and trying to bash Platinum for using 360 as a lead platform, when it's like no shit 360 had the biggest install base in two regions at the time Bayonetta was coming out, a game with a lot of western appeal, and SEGA is supposed to be doing the port to PS3... for being called reasonable you're not being very reasonable here

I mean come on man, you're trying to pull the "you're just wanting me to make excuses for them" defense and thats just a lame fallacy, trying to make up some reason to devalue my statements instead of trying to tackle them.

Fact - average Wii development costs 1/4 that of the HD consoles according to the guys at EA

Fact - many publishers state development costs of the Wii are more in line with last gen consoles which typically broke even at the 200k-250k mark and by the time it hit 500k developers/publishers would look into sequels, from the guys at IGN and was the reasoning behind making De Blob 2, at the time it was just at 500k when they started discussing making a second.

Fact - The reason 1m seems the norm for third party sales this gen is their strong support of the HD consoles, EA has come out to say that 1.1m is the typical break even point because of the high development costs, last gen PS2 rarely had these sorts of limitations and so many MANY more publishers and developers were successful even when they were selling 500k copies of a game, look back and I brought up how Wii is more in line with PS2 development.

Fact - God Hand didn't do well so making another game in this vein was a bad risk if they wanted full on HD development with all the bells and whistles and sell a million copies

Looking at these facts my reasoning is very sound, Madworld was developed on the safer bet and made money and did better than the game that came before it God Hand.

Bayonetta sold over that average HD development break even line, even then the project was probably still a bit cheaper than your average product simply because of the smaller staff at Platinum Games and the fact that SEGA handled the port, this was a success on their part.

Infinite Space was outsourced to another developer with Platinum Games' oversight, turned out well, and at least broke even.

Looking at the facts thats 3 out of 4 projects that you could easily say were a success, and the 4th being released a few  weeks ago the towel isn't thrown in yet, Platinum Games made the choices that were most logical to them in their position, and it turned out alright for them.  So I say that's good performance and learning from previous projects they can build on that, you really can't get more sensible than that.

I'm not factually wrong.  SEGA created the port and Sony then worked with SEGA to patch it to fix the slow menu loading and allow you to install the game removing some other slow loads.  Platinum delivered a game on 360 only and SEGA/Sony dealt with the PS3 version and patch.

As for the choice they made the wrong one - period.  Whatever their reasons producing such a title only for the 360 at that time was a simple act of strange perversity.  The clear choice for the title/genre was to be exclusive to PS3 if they had to be exclusive due to small size.

Developing Madworld for Wii was also a similar act of perversity - let's deliver a short, high concept ultra-violent title on the platform with the worst demographic for such a title.  Sounds familiar and I guess this choice took place during the same strange phase that saw them put Bayonetta.

Now, with Vanquish they didn't do much wrong - although I'd argue they didn't really nail how to market and differentiate the game.

As for your facts - they refer to PS2 and costs/break evens that are now irrelivent.  In this market, a title like Bayonetta should be targeting 1.5 Million plus on HD twins.  Vanquish the same.  It's that simple.  That's the marketplace now.  Platinum can make a good, quirky game, but they're going to struggle IMHO with titles like Bayonetta and Vanquish unless they get better at aligning their quirky style to a very, very tough, expensive marketplace.

Clearly you have a soft spot for the developer.  I don't.  I'm neutral.  I looked at the OP, I looked at the three titles I'd played it referred to and their sales and I put forward opinions that I would argue are fully backed by the evidence.

In the end you are putting forward reasons why they might have made bad choices or why they might have seemed reasonable at the time.  But TBH that doesn't affect my points - which are hindsight evidence in neutral constructive criticism of where they clearly made poor choices.

Dear lord it's like a brick wall that has wrong painted all over it and doesn't know when to topple over.

Look patches are done by the developer period, now you're back peddling with SEGA/Sony, do I care? No it's just wrong from the get go.

Now instead of debating about Madworld you're saying the concepts don't match the market, being the first time you've actually had a decent argument on the title, but you essentially went from calling it a PSN title that could have been up for download to saying it was the wrong type of game, that's debatable for both sides especially when you see super stylized titles of that genre being really only offered on the little white box, Bayonetta being the closest thing I can think of on the PS3 and 360 to be honest.

And you're purposely twisting what I said to fit your argument, you're not going to get anywhere with me doing that, I said last gen development costs are in line with Wii not HD consoles, I brought up the facts EA brought to the table, the facts THQ and IGN has given as well, 200k to 250k for the average Wii title and 1m to 1.1m for the average PS3/360 title.  

So again given the real facts not twisted around, you're not neutral at all, only trying to fit things within your own argument, which is fine, but you're trying the same fallacy again, attacking my credibility by saying I have some sort of bias towards the company, which I have yet to mutter one word of "Platinum Games is great!" or even try to attribute ANY of my argument towards the quality of their work, no I just bring in numbers, facts, and figures for the average development costs, what breaks even, and how their titles are holding up against those standards and you have your arbitrary definition of success that essentially lets you set goal posts as you please...

I can literally do this all day since well my argument hasn't changed one bit unlike yours, my facts are backed up by searching for the articles, hell I could get you that podcast from IGN.  Yep, totally some biased fan of theirs, which is apparently all you can say to try to devalue my statements.

Where exactly can I find these statements ? I mean I believe EA's statement, because they're just bad with money, but EA is always trying to make AAA products, thus more budget and more marketing and that isn't the case with every developer.

http://uk.gamespy.com/articles/108/1082176p1.html
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/cost-of-development-greatly-favors-wii-say-publishers/69714/?biz=1

I think you're a bit too high on HD games on a bit too low on Wii games.

More like:

550k - 1.1m for HD games

225k - 350k for Wii games

(everything fullprice of course)

You can find the THQ bit in the IGN podcast, its from early/mid 2009, it was when De Blob hit 500k sales and THQ told them they were going to start looking into a sequel when Matt C stated how much like PS2 development you break even in that 200k range and then when you hit 500k you start discussing sequel/making a series out of it.

I really don't know about your EA statements, I mean they aren't really bad with money, they didn't reach biggest 3rd party publisher status last gen for nothing, just this gen if you look back most of their HD titles have failed to hit a million across both platforms, they gave the figure it takes 1.1m copies sold to break even on the "average" HD title.

So you know the 2D shumps like Raiden that come out on the 360 aren't going to need 1.1m copies of course, but personally when I think of average middle of the line projects I do think EA and if they're saying the average is 1.1m I'm gonna believe them, as for the other bit EA released a statement how Wii games took 1/4th that of HD consoles to break even (even then EA has failed to make many projects on the Wii turn a profit )

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_game_costs

Nice little page I found here.

I still think EA is slightly over the average budget with all of their titles.

As Ubisoft said in 2008 and 2009: $18.8m-$28.2m for their average HD games. (650k-1m units at full price.)

Even Reggie says that Wii games are $5-$10m and HD games $20-$50m (while both high ends aren't really average costs)

And when we look at Platinum Games, they are surely on the low end of these averages.