IDC says sales "not good": over 300K PS3s on retail shelves collecting dust - Page 7  

OK, so that MIGHT matter to the overall console war. Although in Japan, Xbox 360 seems to refer to the number of consoles a day that sell , so how hard is it for the PS/3 to win when its competitor is only popular in two of three key markets?

Since the Xbox 360 is a failure in Japan, and (hard to believe) HD DVD is even a BIGGER failure in Japan, ultimately this means that the one studio that is keeping the war going will have to decide if it wants to give up the Japanese home video market or release on Blu-ray. At which point, it might as well release in North America too.

60K+ BD recorders + 640K PS/3 sold where there is no BD stand-alones, and they have a history of using the game console as the primary disc player (witness PS/2). How tragic is the current situation for BD in Japan?

Gary

You mean like they release VCDs in NA now because they do so in Asia ?

Uhhh, game console sales figures are never going to be tragic. They just aren't that important.

The current situation? The PS3 is not knockin em dead in Japan.

Is that still going? Still big in India?

Actually, I meant that since Japan is in the same region as NA, if Universal releases to Japan on BD they are effectively releasing to North America anyway (same 60Hz power-line frequency, so none of those issues). So, why not make it official?

It's really sort of the opposite. Those Japanese prices would be high.

Gary

Sure is.

http://shopping.sify.com/shopping/pr...5&mid=13176759

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - VCD for $6.72, for eg.

How big is the Japanese BD market anyway ?

Well your semi right in your statement. Sony really doesn't have the 1 giant title like a Halo or a GoW. Sony's strength will come in the form of multiple 2 million sellers instead of a couple of 5 million sellers. Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts from Square will push 2 each easily. GT: HD should push 2mill if not more simply due to the "wow" factor of seeing it in HD. Oddly enough, Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Dakter pushed around 1.2-1.5 mill with each release (not a big fan myself).

Other than that, all the big time money makers are EA sports and THQ and other multi-platform publishers (especially since GTA is coming to both)

Microsoft has correctly positioned themself so that if GTA is the only reason you'd get a PS3, then now you can get an Xbox360 a year early, get Halo, get GoW, still play all the EA sports and get your GTA on. What they don't have is a decent RPG. No, Oblivion doesn't count. That's why they're pushing Blue Dragon.

Normally, in North America RPG's aren't that huge of a deal, but that is why they are getting stomped in Japan. Japan knows who Square does business with. That's why it was very important for MS to get Blue Dragon to market before a real RPG showed up on PS3. They had to eek out as many sells as possible.

The only thing I can't figure out for the life of me is how PSone beat out the N64 back in the day. N64 had better shooters (Goldeneye anyone?), better platformers (DK, Banjo, Mario) and freaking Zelda. Heck, the first polygonal 3D version of Madden was Madden 64 for the Nintendo. It didn't even have the NFL license at the time. The only thing the N64 didn't have was a decent RPG. Subsequently, Square only published for Sony, playstation wins in Japan which translates into lots of Japanese companies only developing for them which translates to lots of language translation imports to Sony over here in the US.

I think that's why you see Microsoft heavily catering to American developers like Epic who also make games for the PC. I mean let's face it. The PC market is decidedly American while the console market has been decidedly Japanese for a long time. The shooter was BORN on a PC and to me the Xbox and it's games have a western style shoot em up feel. I think that's a bad stigmata the Xbox is getting especially due to the recent success of Graw and Gow along with Halo.

Japanese developers may feel that some of the more quirkier Japanese type games will not make on the "American" Xbox and thus not release them. That would suck to think a mario or zelda like game is out there and not being released because the Xbox keeps getting pigeonholed as this "adrenaline pumping, shoot em up, balls to the wall console"

I just bought a PS3. 20gb. Yikes. Oh well, at least I finally get something besides HD cable and 360 onto my HDTV.

Bought Superman Returns and Black Hawk Down via Amazon. Hit up Monoprice for a HDMI-DVI converter and a HDMI cable.

You're kidding, right dude? Call of Duty 2 was a Game of the Year. It led Activision to release a GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION! And that was a launch title.

Must haves?? Gee. PGR3, DOA4, Oblivion. We've already gone past the must haves on the PS3 side.

You also mysteriously left Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter off that list.



Fair enough. But they will have to compete with Forza Motorsport 2, Mass Effect, Shadowrun, Crackdown, Halo 3, Guitar Hero II, and Too Human. The idea that the PS3 will be the only console with those kinds of sellers is a little premature however.

I guess that Halo 3 selling well is speculation on the same order then.

Recorders went on sale in late November (two Panasonics and a Sony) and they sold about 60K of those three in a little over one month.

The Panasonic DMR-BW200 accounts for 50% (30K) making it the most successful Blu-ray player in the world. A recorder. Sold only in Japan.

Of course, you could argue they'll only use the burner for moving TV programs off the HDD, and never buy a movie. But, then that only means the BD-R/RE media is going to drop like a rock in price.

Either way, it's great for Blu-ray.

You know, there are TONS of A/V sites and mags in Japan. Just like here. I sure wish I could read Japanese. Unless Rio translates for us, we're pretty starved for Japanese data over here.

Gary

Aren't we talking about games that sell "big?"

If you want to tell me that Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy selling well is 'speculation,' then I'm happy to put my money where my mouth is and make a bet with you that will have tangible financial consequences to the loser.

Ahh, how Sony managed to 'steal' the video game console market from Nintendo and Sega.
PSone won the battle for game developers as for N64 they were forced to publish on the higher proprietary cartridge format instead of the DVD. (Something that's often overlooked in this forum is the battle for developer support which was stated as one reason the retail price of the PS3 was pre-emptively cut in Japan.)

Then of course PSone had strong games of it's own such, RR, Tekken, FF but then from a consumer perspective it also doubled as a DVD player at a time when DVD was very much going mainstream and desired.

PS3, Wii sales slow in Japan



Gary

360 launch (outside Japan) was much better than the PS3's in terms of gaming.

1st Party games Kameo, PGR3 and PDZ were all reviewed well and looked better than current gen, DoA4 delivered a solid fighter, COD2 was a genuine hit, Online gameplay was improved all the way around along with a much better interface than any console ever delivered, high def resolutions and wireless controllers became the standard and 3rd party games like Condemned, Quake 4, EA games and the rest looked better than current gen overall.

PS3 had a higher standard to meet coming out a year later and at a higher price. 1st party games have delivered very little at launch with RFoM and NBA 07 being the only 'good' 1st party games (which doesn't scale up for many sets, ugh) and 3rd party games being rehashes of games already out on 360.

For users that didn't have or see the 360 much PS3 launch games came off better thanks to the 3rd party stuff. Where the 360 falied was in hardware moreso than any problem with game lineup, having a higher than normal defective rate at launch and coming up way short of demand when they could have easily sold double the units.

Um, no. The Playstation was released in 1994, while the first DVD player didn't hit the market until two years later. The PSOne (redesigned Playstation) was released several years after DVD (and the same year as PS2), but it still had a double-speed CD-ROM drive just like the original Playstation.

There has never been a light grey sony console with a DVD drive in it. DVD going mainstream had absolutely nothing with Playstation/PSOne being the first console to sell 100 million units. The popularity of CD-R drives was definitely a factor, however, as Playstation games were the first ones to be easily pirated.

I can confirm that just before xmas, in Akihabara Tokyo, if you hunt carefully through some of the smaller stores, BD-R can be had for $10, and Tokyo usually don't have the cheapest media prices. The bigger stores still charge Y1900+

Sales for Week Ending January 14


Some more numbers for debate...

Not to insult the Japanese, but they don't make or break any CE market. They certainly couldn't save MD even though they loved it so dearly.

The real market for gaming is in NA where the amount spent on gaming is about 30X what is spent in Japan.

30x??? Don't suppose you'd have a link that could back up that claim?

It's just another ignorant post from someone with nothing to add to the debate. The three main territories are of comparable size, with Japan representing only slightly lower sales than Europe and the US.

The Japanese spend about 2x per capita more on video games than North Americans. And they are rapid early adopters of new technology (CE, cell phones, etc.). They have a population of 120 million.

And MD has lasted for 15 years. The market has moved on because of cheap tiny hard drives and flash memory.

Gary

Wow. That is amazing. $10 already.

Bless the Japanese. They're going to bring BD-R/RE mainstream in no time.

Gary

Most of you guys are looking at the Japanese market and thinking...wow...Wii and PS3 are both dead.

The problem is that handhelds are so hot in the Japan gaming market right now. Two letters are why nobody cares about home systems there: DS

Gran Turismo series is bigger than Halo or GoW, and have appeal in all 3 territories, unlike Halo and GoW which mainly sell to US buyers.

I guess my point on this particular must have title is that it is equally available for PS3 so it's a wash when considering launch titles.


When comparing PGR3 to GT:HD there is no comparison. GT wins hands down, thus not making PRG3 a "must have". In my opinion DOA is only a must have for Xbox fans as it's one of the few fighting games out there that are good on the Xbox. It's not enough to draw in Tekken, Soul Caliber fans. And Oblivion was a decent game although it didn't hold up to it's predecessor Morriwind. Maybe that's due to the fact that I am also a heavy PC gamer so I cringe when I see Oblivion type games coming to consoles. (I won't buy it on PS3 either)



Excellent game, wasnt' on the list of launch titles at IGN.com



Your list of titles brings up a good point. 4 new titles and 3 sequels. I have no doubt that the sequels should sell around the same amount. That's why I listed mainly sequels in my list of top selling exclusive games for Sony. You can't really start listing "new" titles when talking about how many sells they are going to get. For example, Lost Planet looks sweet but it's only 8 hours long. Huge drawback, will it sell?? Could solely depend on multiplayer which is getting some accolades. Lair for PS3 looks sweet and hey, flying around on dragons just sounds cool (Panzer Dragoon anyone?) , but there is no point in listing that game when talking about sells cause it could sell 7 million or it could tank at 250,000.

Very true about the appeal. I was mainly referring to the statistics on GT4 (2.1 mill) as it didn't quite sell as well as GT3 (5 million). There could be a waning trend on the GT franchise simply due to the fact that it's basically the same game it was when it was first released. However, it could get a HUGE boost due to the fact that it is looking absolutely gorgeous in HD. It's still the most realistic racer out there on any console and it will sell well. How well is another discussion.

You throw around that ignorant word a lot, don't you...

In other news, John Carmack weighs in with just about every other developer with disdain regarding software development for the PS3...Has any developer said it's a great development platform?

John Carmack Speaks on DX10, Vista, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii

From the link about numbers we get a very good idea why this is so correct (though I think Wii has some life) ... of the top 10 titles, 2 are Wii and 8 are Nintendo DS.

Every other... PC developer.

So those guys can't hang in the world of non-x86 processors. Well, they never could. Props to Microsoft for giving them tools to make their jobs easy, but the best games this gen (on any console) will definitely not be coming from Carmack or Newell.

Gabe Newell bashed the PS3 as well...only about 8 months after dropping a nearly identical diatribe against the 360.

PC developers, with the excpetion of maybe Epic, hate HATE consoles, 360, PS3 or otherwise.