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Forums - Sales - The 3rd Party Balance Sheet of Terror

amirnetz on 29 November 2008
Million said:

... the consumer doesn't know the difference between 3rd party ,2nd or 1st party titles in many cases they wont' even know a game is multiplatform (possibly due to the way it was advertised) . A libary consists of 3rd party ,2nd part and 1st party games at the end of the day , 3rd party support can be a significant influence I agree but that's only dependant on the level of 1st,2nd party support ,multiplatform games , other consoles , the quality of the 3rd party games in question.

The reason other people are telling you to include these other factors is because the signifiance (or insignificance) of strong 3rd party support becomes more apparent when considered against or with the other variables.

It's all good and well making a list of 3rd party titles which will clearly favour Microsofts strategy of pushing 3rd party support heavily on their platforms but Sony and Nintendo's ethos is different they tend to push internal development more .We're not trying to derail the thread when we say factor in "X" or "Y" but we are in fact doing the very opposite , trying the make the comparison a better quality one.

Before I answer the main point you are making (which is a good point), I want to clear one repetitive perception that is showing on the thread here. The perception that Sony is much more reliant on 1st and 2nd party titles than Microsoft. When looking at the current release (from October onward to April) you can see that Sony is the publisher of 8 titles and Microsoft the publisher of 7 titles. Not a significantly statistical difference. Generally, both companies are publishing less than 10% of the titles for their respective consoles. These titles may be the biggest hits for the platform but for the question of "perception of abundance" they are just a few titles out of many.  

As a last comment on that topic – Looking back we can see that Sony crushed the original xbox and the GC with their 3rd party support. So it really is inaccurate to suggest that Sony is not relying on 3rd parties as a central part of its strategy.

So with that off our chests, you are absolutely making a valid point that the TOTAL sum of titles on the platform is going to determine the “perception of abundance”. When we try to draw conclusions, this is exactly how we’ll look at it.

That said, what we are trying to do here is to find if we can identify a leading indicator that will suggest that a platform is heading into a danger zone. A platform will always have 1st parties – not much variability here. The vast majority of the big 3rd party block busters will also always go multi-plat. No doubt about. Again little variability.

The place where we should expect to detect the first changes in platform support trends will be the independent small 3rd parties.  These are the “canaries in the coal mine”. If one platform is going to start losing support in the market, these independent 3rd parties will be the ones to exhibit the phenomena first.

This thread is about figuring out if there is such a trend evolving and this is why we have resorted to such method of measuring.

Does it make more sense now?



Prediction made on 11/1/2008:

Q4 2008: 27M xbox LTD, 20M PS3 LTD . 2009 sales: 11M xbox,  9M PS3

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Million on 29 November 2008

@amirnetz Yes , yes it does.




whatever on 29 November 2008

PS3: LittleBigPlanet

I also think it is lame to include as "exclusive", games that are also on the Wii. So you should remove "High School Musical 3: Senior Year DANCE!" and change that rule.



amirnetz on 29 November 2008
whatever said:
PS3: LittleBigPlanet

I also think it is lame to include as "exclusive", games that are also on the Wii. So you should remove "High School Musical 3: Senior Year DANCE!" and change that rule.

LBP is published by Sony so it is out.

In this thread we are more focused on the titles that a platform is NOT getting rather than the ones it is getting exclusively. See my first answer to crumas2.

 



Prediction made on 11/1/2008:

Q4 2008: 27M xbox LTD, 20M PS3 LTD . 2009 sales: 11M xbox,  9M PS3

crumas2 on 29 November 2008
amirnetz said:

Wow, I love your questions. Do I have a cross-over in mind? Not yet, but I do have some ranges in mind though. Let's think through it together (it is a bit subjective and I know others may have other cross over points in mind):

If one platform has on an average week 100% more titles overall (including 1st and 2nd) than the other platform (i.e. twice more), then this is clear and utter domination in market place. By now the winner/losers are well known.

If the one platform has 50% more titles on an average week then I think it is also domination, though in early stages.

If the one platform has 10% more titles on an average week then it will probably fly under the public perception radar. No harm done.

If the one platform has 20% more titles on an average week then I think it is reaching the point of visibility. People may start noticing that one platform has always more titles than the others.  This is the "red zone" for the lagging platform. It may still recover or get lucky and survive it, but it is certainly in danger.

With 30% regular advantage to one platform than I think we have passed the cross over point and the death spiral will start.

So I think we'll need to track which system is starting to trend towards the 20% and later the 30% advantage point. I don't think we are there today, but we need to track it over time to see what the trends are showing.

Do you think this makes sense?

It sounds reasonable to me.

I wonder if it would be possible to add some sort of qualitative--as opposed to quantitative--ranking for the visibility/appeal of a title.  Perhaps something like:

o   COD 6, Fallout, or GTA5 would be a high-visibility title (sales >= 1.5m) and granted a full point

o   FIFA Soccer 09 or Burnout Paradise would be a medium visibility title (sales <= 1m) and granted a half point

o   Need for Speed: Undercover or Conan would be a low visibility title (sales <= 100k) and granted a quarter point

The thresholds I chose are definitely arbitrary, but might fit within the high/medium/low visibility values.  Using this sort of factor could possibly help alleviate situations where a COD title carries the same impact as a Conan title, which most consumers wouldn't equate because most consumers weren't interested in buying Conan.

With this in mind, if there are 100 total 3rd party games for consoles X and Y, and console X has 3 high-level exclusives, 4 medium level exclusives, and 3 low-level exclusives, then the total impact would be 3*1 + 4*.5 + 3 *.25 = 5.75 points exclusivity out of 100 titles, or 5.75%.  This would likely be more fair than saying console X had 10 points exclusivity, or 10%.

It's not the most scientific way to approach it, but when dealing with qualitative measurements, compromises often have to be made.  Alternative factors could be chosen to determine the qualitative impact due to lack of a title for a console, but consumer demand (sales) is probably one of the more reliable ones.

EDIT: obviously the full/half/quarter point assignments are quantitative values... hard to use high/medium/low in a calculation where the result should be a number



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Serious_frusting on 29 November 2008

the fail is strong in here



Nobody's perfect. I aint nobody!!!

Killzone 2. its not a fps. it a FIRST PERSON WAR SIMULATOR!!!! ..The true PLAYSTATION 3 launch date and market dominations is SEP 1st

Mr_Tee_ on 29 November 2008

lol seriously are people reading and understanding the OP?

its a list to compile 3rd party exclusives on the Xbox360 and PS3

its basically to have a better understanding of how the two companies are doing with regards to relations with outside developers. therefore how well/bad they are doing in general in the console gaming scene.

correct me if im wrong





Owner of PS3, Wii, Xbox360, NDS, PSP - Feel Free to add me on PSN or XBL :)

leo-j on 29 November 2008

Red Alert was re announced for the ps3, and Last Remnant isnt exclusive, neither is crash, and neither is High school musical w.e its called.



 

mM
AnarchyWest on 29 November 2008

Demons Soul for the PS3



amirnetz on 29 November 2008

OK. I have been doing some additional research on the up coming titles in 2009. Most of the info is from GameRatings.com and then cross-verified on Google. I am still going through the list and expect 10-15 more titles added.

The balance sheet is starting to look very one-sided. I am sure this will trigger many hate posts. I just was to declare in advance that I had no idea that this is how it would shape up when I started the thread.

360 3rd Party Exclusives:

  1. Start Ocean 4
  2. The Last Remnant
  3. Left 4 Dead
  4. C&C Red Alert
  5. Splinter cell conviction.
  6. Huxley
  7. Dead Island
  8. Raven Squad: Hidden Dagger
  9. Stocked
  10. Velvet Assassin
  11. Indianapolis 500 Evolution
  12. Brave: A Warrior's Tale
  13. Secret Service: Ultimate Sacrifice
  14. Crash: Mind Over Mutant
  15. Guilty Gear 2: Overture
  16. SBK Superbike World Championship
  17. Winter Sports 2: The Next Challenge
  18. High School Musical 3: Senior Year DANCE!
  19. Dance Dance Revolution Universe 3
  20. Naruto: The Broken Bond
  21. Two days to Vegas (time exclusive)
  22. APB
  23. Avalon
  24. Demons of Mercy
  25. Galactic Command - Excalibur
  26. The Maw
  27. The Shadow of Aten
  28. Theseis
  29. Totems
  30. Castle Shikigami 3
  31. RacePro
  32. Dogtag
  33. Puzzle Arcade
  34. Blood Bowl
  35. Airburst
  36. Gomz
  37. Dungeon Explorer

PS3 3rd Party Exclsuive:

  1. Valkyria Chronicals
  2. FF XIII VS.
  3. Quantom Theory
  4. Yakuza 3
  5. Disgaea 3 (PAL only)
  6. Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm
  7. Redwood Falls


Prediction made on 11/1/2008:

Q4 2008: 27M xbox LTD, 20M PS3 LTD . 2009 sales: 11M xbox,  9M PS3