Here is what I think GTA is a big game but sells best in america with a weaker currency. But it still sell well europe with a higher currency value. DQIX will sell at least 1.5 million on th DS in japan alone with higher currency and decently in other areas.If monster hunter 3 can sell well in japan and europe, the places with higher currency values then those two game can easily gain more profit than GTA because sony will lose some profits since a majority of sales will come fron the U.S weak dollar.But most also take in the fact that the DS in japan is oversaturated. So DQ IX wont sell to much hardware and by time monster hunter comes out the wii might my be in a similar situation.GTA on the other hand will drive up hardware sells and would've even more if it was exclusive.

In conclusion in terms of instant profit the loss of the rpgs is bigger but, in terms of future profits and hardware sells the loss GTA is bigger.

p.s sorry for the rant a litlle hyper.

Dragon Quest

Monster Hunter 

For me the DQ/MH is the bigger loss. these are games that are really important in the japanese market... and that is where PS3 hurts the most. GTA4 is just $$ loss, the others are marketshare loss and japanese developper support loss.
(SE being more active on Nintendo is great... that was the biggest blow to nintendo after the SNES :x, they should have invest in SE to guarantee some titles at least)

Losing the Japanese support is devestating for PS3.

There are a lot of people that bought the PS2 for it's Japanese games like FF, DQ, MH, KH, Suikoden, Tales etc. etc. etc. These people won't be buying a PS3 without that kind of Japanese support. Without the Japanese games PS3 is just a more expensive 360. Sure there are differences, but what really contributed to PS2's enormous success was that ALL Japanese games appeared on that system.

I honestly tried to look it up but it was impossible to find anyehre that says which platform DQ 10 will be on... It doesn't even say if it is even planned or in pre-production yet, let alone released soon and Wii exclusive....

Links anyone?

Dragon quest 9 will sell more then 1.5 million copies in Japan. According the VGChartz the ps2 installment sold 4.69 million copies ww The vast majority of which was in Japan. The DS has a larger install abse then the ps2 did in Japan at that point so its going to be a massive launch. If you think Monster Hunter was big. Just watch this one.

On a branding equity basis, losing those titles exclusitivity is about equal because it means it will no longer monopolise NA and Japan regions. On a revenue sense, obviously GTA4. The PS2 was the console to get to play the best games. Trying to brand the PS3 as anything else was the biggest mistake. EU is the saving grace at the moment, where the uptake into BluRay is alot faster than other regions and MS has much lower brand equity.

I swear VGchartz is getting more ridiculous than ever.

The OP makes an absolutely absurd suggestion that losing MH3 and DQ10 is worse than losing GTA exclusivity and most people seem to agree with him?!?

According to VGchartz data, the entire MH and DQ franchises combined have sold little more than San Andreas alone!

Even if Sony had lost FF13 exclusivity as well, it would be nowhere near as important as GTA4, and FF13 is much more important than DQ10 and MH3 combined.

To put it in perspective, gaining exclusivity for the GTA series would have sold more additional PS3s in NA/Others than the Wii has sold units in Japan.

To put it another way: if Sony had announced GTA exclusivity early on in this generation, the 360 would probably have been discontinued by now. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration... but only a bit.

It is I suppose sad to see a brand like Playstation have this happen. Especially since I owned 35 games for my Ps2 and only like 8 on Xbox and I think 9 on GC. Ive been waiting awhile for Japanes style games to appear for PS3. As I already have a 360, all the shooters and American style games on Ps3 so far(which is pretty much it's current catalogue) has kept me away. But there is Japanese games coming out this year, so things may change.

But Dragon Quest IX would have went to the DS anyway right? Didn't SE say that it'd go to the highest selling platform in Japan?

But yeah, losing GTA IV [for 50 million bucks], and MH3 were big blows.