Groucho said: Man, I really find the stock definition of "AAA" on this site (90+ critic ratings) distasteful. Its completely meaningless, except from the perspective of a gamer, and often does not correlate with sales, profits, etc. In the games industry, from the developer and publisher perspective, a title's "AAA" status is defined by its budget. As far as sales (and IMO this site) should be concerned, "AAA" should be related to profit, profit margins, or at the very least gross income. Review scores... that's just silly, although as a gamer, I appreciate a scores relevance with regards to artistic impact on the gaming community... but that's pretty subjective, and this is a sales site...

 

 I really find your stock definition of what VGChartz posters should talk about distasteful.

It would truly be a dark day indeed if margins are the ONLY metric for developers and publishers. I find it more and more comforting after reading your post that MS constantly quotes Metacritic scores in their PR now.

The Playstation 3 will be victorious in 2009... in 2nd place.

2009

1. Wii

2. Playstation 3                                                                     

3. Xbox 360

EaglesEye379 said: Groucho said: Man, I really find the stock definition of "AAA" on this site (90+ critic ratings) distasteful. Its completely meaningless, except from the perspective of a gamer, and often does not correlate with sales, profits, etc. In the games industry, from the developer and publisher perspective, a title's "AAA" status is defined by its budget. As far as sales (and IMO this site) should be concerned, "AAA" should be related to profit, profit margins, or at the very least gross income. Review scores... that's just silly, although as a gamer, I appreciate a scores relevance with regards to artistic impact on the gaming community... but that's pretty subjective, and this is a sales site...    I really find your stock definition of what VGChartz posters should talk about distasteful. It would truly be a dark day indeed if margins are the ONLY metric for developers and publishers. I find it more and more comforting after reading your post that MS constantly quotes Metacritic scores in their PR now.

I said nothing regarding what posters should talk about.  I have trouble with the label "AAA", since it has several different meanings across the games industry, and "review scores" isn't typically one of them.  I just think trying to guess what games will be rated, this long before their release... is ridiculous.  That, or assuming that games are rated better or worse based upon their genre... ridiculous.

Don't be so defensive -- I'm not trying to police the discussion.  I'm just trying to point it toward something more productive, and less flame-inducing and meaningless.  The topic of upcoming big games has merit, after all.  It would be a shame to turn it into a "this game, which I've never played, and that isn't coming out for a long while, will be better than that one" discussion.

 

twesterm said: triplebph said: "Would you call Portal and Braid real AAA games? They may not be what you call full games but they are better than many of the AAA games released within the last year." But are those types of games the kind that consumers are really looking forward to when deciding to buy a console? I would say the only one of their kind that would be a deciding factor in a console purchase would be Geometry Wars. When most people think about the games they are looking forward to playing on their system, I think it's not Braid or Portal, but the kind you walk into a store and see in shiny cases like Halo, Gears, and to a lesser extent Fable.   Who said AAA has anything to do with console buying?  Whether a game is AAA or how many AAA games a system has in no way at all affects what console I buy.

When I read your post earlier, I thought you were implying that Braid and Portal since they were AAA games would be the types of games that influence people to buy consoles. However, it is my opinion that arcade type games don't influence a large percentage of people to buy consoles. AAA games do influence people to buy consoles and there have been many such examples. Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Halo, Gears, Gran Turismo, Grand Theft Auto, etc. It is a tricky argument," Oh these games here are AAA just like those are." But games like Braid, probably Portal a bit more so since the first one was part of The Orange Box (a AAA package), aren't the ones that will drive most people to buy a particular console as would a game like Gears or Fable that they have to pay more money for in a store. I think this comes down a bit to expectations. The games that people see on store shelves for $60.00, they expect more from them and expect to get more from them resulting in higher sales of the game and higher sales of the console as a result than an arcade game that they only pay $5 to $15.00 for regardless of equal ratings.

If Alan Wake is AAA, then Uncharted 2 should also have this rate. And Heavy Rain should be at least A imo (quite subjective as you said)

"I said nothing regarding what posters should talk about. I have trouble with the label "AAA", since it has several different meanings across the games industry, and "review scores" isn't typically one of them. I just think trying to guess what games will be rated, this long before their release... is ridiculous. That, or assuming that games are rated better or worse based on their genre... ridiculous."

Actually, review scores is the most typical one. When you're talking about AAA games you're talking about Halo, Gears, Zelda, Metroid, GTA, Metal Gear, Resident Evil, God of War...you know the highest quality games of all time. When you're talking about AAA, you aren't typically talking about games that have received sub 90 ratings regardless of their sales. That is why a handful of games that have sold astoundingly well but don't have high review scores aren't considered AAA. It's like when you go to school, you get A's,B's, and C's not because of your good or bad attendance, but for the quality of your work.

EaglesEye379 said: Please inform me (or correct my misinformation) about something. I keep seeing God of War 3 and GT5 as 100% going to be in 2009. Last I checked, the only hint at God of War 3's release date is 'coming soon' from the E3 trailer and the PSP game's manual. How is this 100% guaranteed for 2009? Did I miss an official statement anywhere? As for GT5, last I checked, there was an interview somewhere with the head developer and he said it wont be released until after 2009, possibly 2010. How is this 100% guaranteed for 2009? Again, please correct me if there is an official statement saying it will be 2009. Also, I wouldnt say Forza 3 is a 2009 release, heck it hasnt officially been announced yet.

 

I'd say God of War III has a 95% chance of making it out next year, and Gran Turismo 5 a 75-80% chance.

Apparently, Kazuo Yamauchi "laughed" at the idea of GT5 releasing in 2010, and said the game will be out "sooner than expected."  Of course, this does somewhat contradict earlier statements he made, so I'm not going to say it's definite that the game will release next year, especially given the perfectionist nature of the team at Polyphony Digital.  Delays are hardly uncommon for them.

As for God of War, I believe it will come out next year for a number of reasons:

1.  At E3, Sony stated it was a 2009 title.

2. Sony's not in the position they were in 2005 and 2006, so they're no longer announcing games years in advance in a desperate attempt to make their console look better.  Most of their titles since 2006 have been announced 6-18 months prior to release, with the exception of LittleBigPlanet, which was announced at the very beginning of 2007, when Sony was still extremely desperate.

3.  Sony Santa Monica are some of Sony's best developers, and they're great at meeting deadlines.  They manage to pump games out like clockwork, much like Naughty Dog and Insomniac.  Uncharted was announced at E306 with a CGI trailer, and came out a year and a half later just in time for the 2007 Holiday season.  I would not be surprised to see God of War III follow the same fate.

4. Sony tends to have 3-4 medium to large releases hitting every holiday season.  God of War III would be perfect as their forerunner for the Holiday '09 season, with Uncharted 2 and Ratchet & Clank Future 2 as solid support titles.

Edit:

lulz, forgot my link to Yamauchi's comment:

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=47261

Groucho said: EaglesEye379 said: Groucho said: Man, I really find the stock definition of "AAA" on this site (90+ critic ratings) distasteful. Its completely meaningless, except from the perspective of a gamer, and often does not correlate with sales, profits, etc. In the games industry, from the developer and publisher perspective, a title's "AAA" status is defined by its budget. As far as sales (and IMO this site) should be concerned, "AAA" should be related to profit, profit margins, or at the very least gross income. Review scores... that's just silly, although as a gamer, I appreciate a scores relevance with regards to artistic impact on the gaming community... but that's pretty subjective, and this is a sales site...    I really find your stock definition of what VGChartz posters should talk about distasteful. It would truly be a dark day indeed if margins are the ONLY metric for developers and publishers. I find it more and more comforting after reading your post that MS constantly quotes Metacritic scores in their PR now. I said nothing regarding what posters should talk about.  I have trouble with the label "AAA", since it has several different meanings across the games industry, and "review scores" isn't typically one of them.  I just think trying to guess what games will be rated, this long before their release... is ridiculous.  That, or assuming that games are rated better or worse based upon their genre... ridiculous. Don't be so defensive -- I'm not trying to police the discussion.  I'm just trying to point it toward something more productive, and less flame-inducing and meaningless.  The topic of upcoming big games has merit, after all.  It would be a shame to turn it into a "this game, which I've never played, and that isn't coming out for a long while, will be better than that one" discussion.

I just took your sparing use of the word meaningless too literally I guess. After all, its obviously clear that the posters on this thread are thinking of AAA as in critical game reviews and not AAA in terms of budget. There are a myriad of threads outside here which have discussions on sales/budget and a different meaning of AAA status so Im not sure why you think every discussion would be more productive if its based on that.

I for one think there should be more talk about the quality of games on this site, regardless of whether this is a sales site as it wont exist without them.

And also, I think its even harder to guess how much upcoming games will sell and its developers/publishers rarely divulge what their 'AAA' titles are in terms of budget. But that doesnt stop us from discussing it does it? Talks about sales/budgets can easily end up as 'this game, which Ive never played, and that isnt coming out for a long time, and I wont make a penny out of or have any clue what the real budget is, will sell 5 million minimum' discussions.

 

 

@makingmusic

Thanks for the info. I hope less people pen GT5 as a definite 2009 title after reading that.

And in regards to GoW3, I guess I missed the announcement that it was a 2009 title @ E3. If thats their deadline then its most likely going to come true since Sony is going to take a God of War game very seriously. Do you have any idea when they started development on GoW3? I guess that helps solidify unannounced dates.

EaglesEye379 said: @makingmusic Thanks for the info. I hope less people pen GT5 as a definite 2009 title after reading that. And in regards to GoW3, I guess I missed the announcement that it was a 2009 title @ E3. If thats their deadline then its most likely going to come true since Sony is going to take a God of War game very seriously. Do you have any idea when they started development on GoW3? I guess that helps solidify unannounced dates.

 

They started R&D on the ps3 before God of War II was finished, and from what I know they wrote the story behind GoWII and GoWIII concurrently, so they should've been pretty far along by the time GoWII released.  They started full production immediately upon God of War II's release, back in March of 2007, so by the end of next year they'll have been working on the game for over 2.5 years, if not much longer (hell, at GoWII's release party Cory Barlog stated that the game would be 1080p and support rumble...months before the DualShock 3 was actually announced, so it's obvious they were already making plenty of headway into development).

Of course, Sony's studios have been helping each other out with engine development this generation, so I'm sure Sony Santa Monica's engine borrows heavily from Naughty Dog and Guerrilla Games' engines.  Actually, GG mentioned back at E3 that they had recieved help from "the God of War guys" (as they called them) on their engine for Killzone 2.  Spending most of their time tweaking other team's engines while adding in parts specific to their game probably cut down on some development time.  In comparison, engines for games like Killzone 2 were developed almost entirely from the ground up.