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Forums - Sony Discussion - Sony: We Should Probably Develop Less Games

DirtyP2002 on 11 February 2012
osamanobama said:
sales2099 said:
Ha....ha. Id like to say I told you so.

Having a ton of exclusives every year with therefore thin spread marketing per game will lead to sales of each game not giving a proper return on investment. Without proper awareness, blockbusters will be rare and therefore will fade in the memories of the general gaming public within a year.

Thats why MS releases a few exclusives and markets the crap out of them, while releasing new games on lower-risk avenues like XBLA where it doesnt really matter if they flop or not.

and thats good for gamers, how?

why does it matter at all how well the games are selling, if they are good.

are you more statisfied as a gamer to now that, sure you only had 1 or 2 games this year, but at least the company that published them is making alot of money. i think most people just care if there are a lot of good games. (which is why i bought the ps3 because there are a lot of games, with a lot of quality, i didnt buy  a PS3 because i was hoping sony would make billions of dollars. and really unless you own stock in the company, why should you care.

how does that benefit the gamer? i think games benefit the gamer, dont you?


Let me explain:

We have to face the fact that the gaming market, especially for core games, is oversaturated, just with all the multiplats. That is the first thing you have to accept.

Games like Skyrim, Call of Duty, Battlefield 3, Crysis 2, Dragon Age 2, Dead Space 2, Portal 2, DiRT 3, Homefront, Batman, Saints Row The third, Dead Island, Rage, Deus Ex, Duke Nukem Forever, Warhammer, Goldeneye reloaded, Red Faction Armageddon,  Fear 3, Dark Souls, Lord of the rings, Dungeon Siege II, Mortal Kombat etc etc etc are all multiplat core games that released last year. You have to be nuts to demand more games, because there is nothing to play.

So the competition Sony puts their titles in is huge and most of the time they are not doing that good. That means Sony is losing money with these titles in a pretty big way. Sure a hit like uncharted makes a lot of money, but you have games like Resistance or inFamous2 ruining the fun. Sony actually acquired Sucker Punch which has cost them millions on top of that.

Now Sony are facing very hard times for their financial situation. This will affect further investments in the Playsation product family by Sony. Of course external investors will double check any investment in the gaming industry so every developer or publisher might have some trouble to get their money. Ask THQ.

 

In a word: Sony is pushing products into an oversaturated market. That doesn't help anyone, neither the market nor Sony themselves.



Imagine not having GamePass on your console...

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green_sky on 11 February 2012
SvennoJ said:
It will be a sad day when the need for big sales numbers kills variety.

It's okay. PC gaming will take care of it. The amount of small little interesting games on steam is just amazing. :)

Looking forward to Witness. 



Ostro on 11 February 2012
Rainbow Yoshi said:
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is selling considerably well and was only released 3 months ago. Microsoft rely on the same old franchises which boosts their profits as they do not take the plunge of seeing through a new franchise.


Couldn't resist.



Turkish on 11 February 2012

I agree, they should developer less games so they have more money to market them. The way it is now they pump exclusive after exclusive without really marketing them. They sell good but not big numbers. Overall if you count every PS3 exclusive sales they sold more then 360 exclusives combined.

This is the first gen Sony is heavily relying on its first party studios becoz of losing 3rd party exclusives, in the long term this will pay off.



Jay520 on 11 February 2012
freebs2 said:
Jay520 said:

Advertising plays a large part in the low sales of many PS3 exclusives, but from what I've experienced through research and a lot of anecdotal evidence, the main reason behind the low sales of some PS3 games is a lack of good combination of quality and appeal. Games like Uncharted and God of War are high quality and appeal to the masses, hence, the higher sales.

But then you have a game like say Killzone which is a well-made, quality game. But it lacks appeal. It's not very accessible. You try to get some new people to play it and they feel lost & uncomfortable. It's too hardcore to be super successful on the PS3. Or you take something like LBP, which is clever and innovating, but most PS3 fans think it's too kiddy. Or you take a game like SOCOM 4 which is just low quality.

At least that's from what I experienced. Most accessible, non-niche, games do sell well. Sony can make a lot more blockbusters. They just gotta make them the right way.

I think the reason why LBP is not a succes, is the same reason valid for SOCOM 4 .

If they tried to make a good Crash Bandicoot instead, it would have sold TONS.

LOL, I think it's overrated too, but it's not nearly as bad a game as Socom 4.



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kitler53 on 11 February 2012
BasilZero said:

...

 

This banner and the thread title, genius.

 

They need to learn to do better advertising and focus on gaming aspects rather than multimedia aspects of their systems.


i like the multi-media support.  they just need to pick their priorites better.  i mean, the ps3 can't access the web browser from gameplay but it can send a screenshot to a printer.  wft?!? 

and NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO about thinking they made too many games.  lots of games is why i like sony over MS.  gears is a good franchise but i like to play more then 1 game a year.



bouzane on 11 February 2012

”When questioned by GameInformer why Microsoft were able to sell just one game in 2011, Gears of War 3 [...] and it still managed to sell more than all of Sony’s products combined”

This statement is blatantly untrue, Gears of War 3 did not sell more copies than Uncharted 3 and LittleBigPlanet 2 combined.



miz1q2w3e on 11 February 2012
bouzane said:
”When questioned by GameInformer why Microsoft were able to sell just one game in 2011, Gears of War 3 [...] and it still managed to sell more than all of Sony’s products combined”

This statement is blatantly untrue, Gears of War 3 did not sell more copies than Uncharted 3 and LittleBigPlanet 2 combined.

I think they were talking about hardware, as in they sold more hardware than Sony with just GoW3



bouzane on 11 February 2012
miz1q2w3e said:
bouzane said:
”When questioned by GameInformer why Microsoft were able to sell just one game in 2011, Gears of War 3 [...] and it still managed to sell more than all of Sony’s products combined”

This statement is blatantly untrue, Gears of War 3 did not sell more copies than Uncharted 3 and LittleBigPlanet 2 combined.

I think they were talking about hardware, as in they sold more hardware than Sony with just GoW3


That would also be unture as the PS3 sold on parity with the 360 in 2011. Additionally, it would be wild conjecture to insinuate that there is a direct correlation between long term hardware sales and the release of a somewhat popular game. Finally, GoW = God of War, Gears = Gears of War.



Jay520 on 11 February 2012
Jexy said:

They've lost their fan base for Socom.  It isn't coming back anytime soon when you crap out 2 bad games in a row over the span of what, 5 years?  Not to mention that many of the Socom fans haven't even played these two newer ones in longer than that.  The sales show the truth.  Like someone said, Sony can't listen to its hardcore fans on gaming websites like they have been.  They need to start making intelligent BUSINESS decisions or they won't be around for much longer to make ANY games, good or bad.  Think about it, the Socom developers made mistakes and put out crappy games that ruined the franchise.  My friend got a PS3 to play the new Socoms on.  He won't be getting a PS4 and making the same mistake.   If anything, he would get a PS4 for whatever library it happens to have, or features... but not because of Socom anymore.  That ship has sailed.  And judging by the sales, it has for most of its fans.


They haven't lost their fanbase. Socom fans are still out there, they just will only buy good Socom games. I'm sure if a good Socom game released, your friend would buy it and so would plenty of other fans. Just because you don't buy the crappy games of a franchise, doesn't mean you are no longer a fan. Now, I do agree that a portion of Socom have moved on indefinitely, but I'd say there are still between 1-2million people out there with the Socom brand still in their memory  who would buy a Socom game if it was good enough.

Besides, even if it did lose it's fanbase, that doesn't mean all future Socom games won't be successful, unless they are still crappy of course. That's how revivals work, I guess. It releases to be a good game and former fans and a few new fans would buy it.