Very few people in this world have enough money to buy the same video game for two different consoles - let alone to buy two different consoles in the first place! There are, apparently, 30 million 360 users in the world (Jan 2009) and 23 million PS3 users (June 2009). So, you can either market to 23 million or market to potentially over 50 million... which do you go for?
I can't understand how people can't see the business sense behind this. Let's take a look at a sample of RPG fans - in fact, FF fans - EoFF! In the gamertag thread in General Gaming, a total of nine PSN ID's have been submitted. There are 54 Xbox 360 gamertags... some of us (possibly myself) might buy a PS3 purely for FFXIII Vs. But I don't think too many will - it's expensive, even at the lower price. The PS3 isn't known for it's RPGs, and Square Enix will know what the market is like and cater to the people who are most likely to buy their game.
I don't know anyone offline with both consoles and I know very few people online with both.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
I do, and I know hardly any people with 360s only... It doesnt prove anything my friend l0l.
I already told you the PS3 is not far behind the 360. But you'd rather measure it by amazon software sales and EoFF PSN ID threads
And who said they cant understand the business sense behind it? That really wasnt the point here.
I cant be bothered anymore, im gonna go do something fun.
Last edited by Croyles; 09-10-2009 at 03:50 PM.
I measured the sales of consoles being 23million and 30million, but yeah.
Well, nobody said "I can't understand the business sense behind it" in so many words - but many have said that it would be obvious for S-E to make two different games for PS3 & 360 as they'd make more money that way due to people wanting to buy both games. I disagreed. 'sall.
As for the continued debate, it's giving me time out from my reporting which takes hours on end so yeah. >_>;
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
It's obviously a lot more complicated than that. As some of the Rockstar execs have said about their upcoming title "Agent", exclusivity makes sense in a lot of ways from a business standpoint.
I think the only thing I have left to say is that at the end of the day, any compromises in FFXIII will most likely be minimal. But what I've been trying to say all along is that you need to draw a line somewhere and it's important we have conversations about this to know where that line will be.
I wouldn't want two different games, just leave the PS3 version how (i.e. how it will be released in Japan) and do whatever they have to do for the 360 version. It will be the same game, for the most part. If Squeenix wants to make more money by releasing it on the 360 as well, more power to them. They are making slight modifications, which I don't think will ruin the game, in the name of "fairness". The thing is that there is nothing fair over someone choosing to buy a 360 over a PS3, or whatever. That was the consumer's choice, let them deal with it. Also, it is not "fair" that NA players on the PS3 version will get something slightly different from the original Japanese release.
Honestly, I don't see why they should modify the PS3 version. It is simply a consequence of whatever console you buy. Sure it might to be avoid the 360 users complaining about it being "unfair" or w/e but now it is just the PS3 users complaining. There may be less of us, but at the end of the day Squeenix is still pissing in someone's cornflakes. :/
keep all the extra stuff on the PS3 but make it a bit more expensive than the lacklustre 360 version (or do the opposite, make the 360 version a bit more cheaper than it's "normal" price).
It's annoying 360 is lacking in space, but it kind of makes it seem more like the old VII to IX game play, which is in no way a bad thing.
PS3 has gone down in price recently with the new slim line.. and it is awfully tempting..
As was mentioned earlier, that smaller number of PS3 owners have been making the third party developers more money then the 360 owners. That crowd of people is more focused on the Microsoft second party titles such as Gears of War and Halo, and other such stuff.
Now who should be the focus for a third party like square? The larger group of people who consistently pay little attention to third party games, or the smaller group of people who buy more third party games then the larger group of people?
Now I'm not saying you should just cut one or the other out, but Square went and pissed of the people more likely to purchase their game, in order to appease the people less likely to do it.
I can fully understand why they did it, I just think their reasoning was stupid, and their CEO's need to rethink their business strategy.
And in response to Kawaii, I do agree with you to an extent. It's not so much that It's going to do a lot to hurt the game, it's more developers may start to get the Idea it's okay to pull crap like this, and start pushing it farther and farther. Companies will start cutting corners on the PS3 for Multi-platform games simply because precident shows the can get away with doing it.
True, the company is out to make money, but we aren't out to make them money. We are out to get the games we want. And if companies are allowed to get away with cutting corners in their games for reasons like this, we risk cutting back on quality aspects of a game, so while the companies make the money they need to run, we the fans get shorted.
If, however, the fans make it clear they dont' want this to happen, the company will adjust to the desires,and make their money that way. It's not like all this fan protest is going to stop making square money, it's going to change the way they make money to better suite it's fans, assuming enough of them cry out at least.
Is that Beatles Guitar Hero thing third party software? 'cause 360 outsells PS3 for that. Just sayin'.
I don't think there is really going to be any real protest about this. The only gamers hardcore enough to even know about any of this are also the gamers that are hardcore enough to buy the game regardless. I can't think of anyone who would boycott the game for the reasons being given and if they do, I think they're the only ones losing out in this and that it's a pretty stupid, pointless thing to do.
I wonder if there are any non-PS3 owners that are disappointed about this news.
As for developers and third party software...
Xbox 360 third party sales (top 10 with 1m+ sales)
GTA IV - 4.074m
CoD 4 - 3.772m
CoD WaW - 3.35m
Assassin's Creed - 2.285m
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance - 2.08m (US)
Guitar Hero II - 2m (US/Europe)
Saints Row - 2m
Madden NFL 09 - 1.87m
Oblivion - 1.762m
Madden NLF 07 - 1.72m
PS3 third party sales (top 10 with 1m+ sales)
Metal Gear Solid 4 - 3m
GTA IV - 2.659m
Resident Evil 5 - 1.21m
(that's it, just the three)
Last edited by Loony BoB; 09-11-2009 at 11:13 PM.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
I'm not saying a protest, that would just be silly. We've seen how well video game protests work.
But that doesn't mean peopel should loudly voice their opinions on the matter. If no one does, nothing gets done, and the problem will never be solved. If enough people realize that they are starting to intentionally cut quality, there will be a loud enough voice to prevent it from happening further.
And as for third game sales, Video Games, Sales, Charts, News, Reviews, Videos, Forums, Game Cheats - Wii, Xbox, PS3, DS, PSP, PS2, PC, iPhone on VGChartz.com, it would seem PS3 is doing better this year in terms of both game sales and console to this point, beating out Arkum by close to 50K, and only falling behind about 42K for GH5. Mind you, they also have a third game in the top ten for that month.
I would re-link it if I could, but there was an article posted here a while back showing companies like EA and a couple other big ones making more profit on their PS3 sales then that of 360 sales, but I can't seem to find the article anywhere, if anyone still has it, the link would be appreciated.
Edit: There is one more thing to add, essentially another factor that greatly changes the number on consoles sold, people selling their systems to used game stores such as gamestop.
Mind you, I don't know where to find this info online, but my friends a manager at a local store, and from time to time we talk about some of the info he has most don't.
Far more XBox's get traded in then PS3's. People are complaining about all the hardware issues mostly, and a lot of people just stopped trusting Microsoft in teh console department for one, and various other reasons.
Regardless of why though, they've greatly lowered how much they pay for used 360's, simply because they get so many in, yet can't seem to sell the ones they get.
This is something that hasn't happened for the PS3. The only drops in how much they are willing to buy PS3's for are when the price of the actual system goes down. So in reality, the difference between how many people own a 360 and how many own a PS3 are a lot slimmer then the typical sales charts show.
Last edited by NeoCracker; 09-12-2009 at 01:10 AM.
This sidequests thing. Has anyone from Square actually confirmed anything? 'cause from the way that article words it, it's just some PS3 site speculating. I agree with Kishi. Mountain out of a molehill. If it was confirmed that the 360 caused a couple of towns or whatnot to get cut I'd understand, but really now.
"But it's the principle of the thing!" Yes yes, console tribal warfare. I know.
I think were the role reverses, 360 users might be issuing the same complaints.
I think anyone with a decent head on their shoulders, realizes that it won't ruin the game. I think the point of the matter is in the name of being "fair" in the multi-platform release, or whatever you want to call it, that you are ultimately offending one group.
Also, as for the whole "There's more 360's in NA than PS3", I think that will soon be negligible if this is any indication of the new trend in PS3 sales. I wouldn't be surprised that the Christmas season sees more PS3s sold than 360s in North America, especially given the big amounts of releases in the beginning of 2010 (though I suspect many will be available on both).
To make more profit than they do on the Xbox 360 would mean they would need to hike the price on PS3 games to the point that they can sell millions less and still make more money. So basically that's just them ripping you off for owning a different console and you should probably focus more on complaining about that than about multiplatform releases being adjusted to suit both consoles. That's something I would complain about! Is this true, though? Because that's pretty harsh on customers.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
Jesus the way you lot go on you should be politicians!