A [url="http://www.mercextra.com/blogs/takahashi/2008/01/06/meanwhile-this-xbox-360-memo-showed-up-in-my-inbox/"]team-wide memo Microsoft PR shared with Dean Takahashi[/url] has some interesting information on the state of the current console war.
A few interesting quotes from the document:
[quote]While final sales numbers are still being collected, consumers in North America have spent over $3.5 billion dollars on Xbox 360 hardware, software and accessories. That’s $1 billion more than consumers spent on the Wii, and $2 billion more than the PS3. When December data is added, we expect Xbox 360 in 2007 to have generated more calendar year revenue than any other gaming platform ever, including PS2 at its peak.
[quote]This growth, however, is not limited to just Microsoft and Xbox 360. The work that you do is also driving growth throughout our industry’s entire ecosystem. History has shown that the eventual winner of each console generation was the console that generated the most 3rd party revenue, and according to the most recent NPD data, Xbox 360 generated more 3rd party revenue in 2007 than Nintendo and Sony combined.
[quote]When you look at the best-reviewed games, consumers will find that Xbox 360 has more than double the number of titles (81) with a Metacritic score of 80 or higher than PS3 (40), and six times more than the Wii (13).
I almost fear for gaming.
[quote]That’s $1 billion more than consumers spent on the Wii, and $2 billion more than the PS3. When December data is added, we expect Xbox 360 in 2007 to have generated more calendar year revenue than any other gaming platform ever, including PS2 at its peak.
wow
I only had (have) one PS2...I don't remember people saying that. :-S
but I will say that there IS alot of XBox hardware out there that you'd be stupid not to buy.
Because every console will break right? They just had a high rate of failure.
I find it rather funny how the failure of a 360 is often realized when the green LED's are covered with Red.
Reference to the "Red ring of death", a phrase that was created after this occurrence.
I remember when they said historically the winning console was the first to reach critical mass, ie 10 million units sold. Then they didn't reach that when they said they would and Wii got to 17 mil in a year.
Let's see if 360 3rd party support is just as invincible when devs realise by next Christmas Wii will have 3 times the install base of 360.
Except devs will still turn to the 360 for those bluckbuster, super flashy games we've all come to expect from current-gen titles. The ones you can't quite do on the Wii. If anything the PS3 would get the short end of the stick in this case, since devs will be using the Wii to make money fast and the 360 for their big budget titles.
Or not, who knows.
Where the **** are my RPGs?
Even the RPG developers are makin' shootan games.
BETHESDAAAAAAAAAAAAA
man, gonna rock so hard.
Yes, thank you for clarifying my point.
[quote=Vampiro V. Empire;803205]Except devs will still turn to the 360 for those bluckbuster, super flashy games we've all come to expect from current-gen titles. The ones you can't quite do on the Wii. If anything the PS3 would get the short end of the stick in this case, since devs will be using the Wii to make money fast and the 360 for their big budget titles.
Or not, who knows.
I don't really believe that "big blockbuster" goes hand in hand with awesome graphics. Are "big" games in the context of length possible on Wii? They were possible on GBA. Are "big" games in the context of groundbreaking new gameplay that recieve a lot of media buzz possible on Wii? It's already happened. Are "blockbusters", games that sell lots possible on Wii? They're possible on the worst of formats, let alone such a fast-selling system.
[quote=S
Speedfreak, we get it, you like the wii. Now go buy a 360 or something
[quote=Speedfreak;803428]Are "big" games in the context of length possible on Wii? They were possible on GBA. Are "big" games in the context of groundbreaking new gameplay that recieve a lot of media buzz possible on Wii?
I'm pretty sure he's talking about 'big' as in 'large in scope and scale'. Oblivion, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, BioShock, and so on. You know, the games that actually win awards? Games that mix in so much content with fresh ideas that people are eager to sample them. I don't speak for all gamerkind, but I get more excited by the concepts Bethesda have for Fallout 3 than I do about the new ways we'll be shaking the Wii remote in No More Heroes.
For all you wax lyrical about 'groundbreaking new gameplay' on the Wii, Speedfreak, here's a challenge: name a genre that has been created as a result of this new gameplay. Or, at least, one that has been flipped on its head by the way in which the Wii plays. Minigames isn't a genre, by the way.
You're an apologist, quite simply. I have a Wii, and I shat bricks at E3 2006. I'm not bashing the console out of petty spite, but c'mon, man. If it didn't have Brawl or Galaxy, I'd have traded it in months ago - and there's nothing on the horizon that looks to revolutionize the way we play games. I honestly haven't seen anything, and neither have most people.[spoiler]in b4 BUT MILLIONS OF SALES[/spoiler]
[quote=The X;803462]I'm pretty sure he's talking about 'big' as in 'large in scope and scale'. Oblivion, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, BioShock, and so on. You know, the games that actually win awards?
If I was one of those gits that stops reading posts when they read something stupid it would've been right there. Assassins Creed is big in scope and scale? Sorry, this is the game that was criticised for being short and repetitive, right?
Biggest game in scope and scale that I played last year was [I]Pok
[QUOTE]If I was one of those gits that stops reading posts when they read something stupid it would've been right there. Assassins Creed is big in scope and scale? Sorry, this it the game that was criticised for being short and repetitive, right?
Biggest game in scope and scale that I played last year was Pok
[quote=Speedfreak]Before you jump in with your minigame bulls[COLOR=lightgreen]h[/COLOR]it, Bowling is actually a full sport in real life. The fact that you don't count games because of their size proves to me that you don't know jack s[COLOR=lightgreen]h[/COLOR]it about games, digital or otherwise.
I didn't mention Wii Sports, or Bowling specifically. It was more at a jab at the fact the Wii's library is full of minigame games, rather than 'groundbreaking' titles.
Pok
[QUOTE]Pok
But will the Xbox 360 win in the Most Profits category?!
dun dun dun duuuuunnnn.
Yes. Everything.
The Xbox 360 earned first place in its third grade talent show, where it did an interpretive dance to Starship's We Built This City, was voted "Most-Likely to Succeed" its senior year of high school, and has been nominated for an Oscar for directing "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."
THE XBOX 360 WINS EVERYTHING!!!
[QUOTE=The X;803562]I didn't mention Wii Sports, or Bowling specifically. It was more at a jab at the fact the Wii's library is full of minigame games, rather than 'groundbreaking' titles.
Pok
Deep? I haven't come across a "Deep" game in awhile that's current gen. Mass Effect and Oblivion don't apply, because to me, they aren't deep at all. They give you options, and in the case of Oblivion, pseudo MMO's, but those are what I call time-sinks.
When I think of "Deep", I think a game with an extravagantly articulate and powerful storyline. If I want a time-sink, I'll pop in WoW or FFXI.
So, let me get this straight, a game, Mass Effect, which has thousands upons thousands of lines of dialogue along with backstory for every single item, event, character, species, planet, solar system, etc etc, plus a fully explained timeline and history isn't deep?
Haha, all right, buddy.
Not deep by my definition, no. Maybe deep in an MMO-timesink fashion, sure.
Hahaha, jesus.
[QUOTE=S
Then there's no point in discussing this with you. Deep doesn't mean just storyline, it's applicable to controls, modes, mechanics, gameplay, online, and so on and so on.
I'd argue that most RPGs don't even have that deep a story. A lot are fairly generic and cliche.
Games with literally no story can be deep as hell. See - Virtua Fighter 5.
deepest fighter ever
[QUOTE=S
RPGs with stories
Oh yeah, makes sense.
So apparantly Wi's attach rate is as follows:
Japan - 3.37
Americas - 6.88
Others - 5.628
Worldwide - 5.6229
The source is Nintendo's financial report. The attach rates can be inferred from hardware and software sales (obviously).
So Wii's sitting at 20 million units worldwide with an already very large attach rate despite 99.9999% of the games being complete trash and small in quantity due to only being a year out.
I'm not too worried about 3rd parties jumping ship now. And it just makes business sense to not throw trash on th Wii and make decent games for expensive systems. If everyone's making crap on Wii then there's a huge gap in the market for good Wii games. Managing directors will, of course, recognise this and the problem will remedy itself. Until then play PC, 360 and DS.
I'd like to make one more point about deep games on weaker systems. Chess and Go are deeper than any video game ever made, no one who knows anything about games would dispute that. They will run on an Atari 2600. Mull that one over.
The scope of those games can attribute to that fact, Speedy. :cookie:
[quote=Vampiro V. Empire;809921]Like there was ever a fear. Even the ****tiest games (sans Boogie) sell fairly well on the Wii. Cheap cost, good sales? No jumping ship.
A lot of people were worried about 3rd parties jumping ship because of the old clich
[QUOTE]A lot of people were worried about 3rd parties jumping ship because of the old clich
Oh I see, you're talking about developers of the trashy games. Yeah, no need to worry about those abandoning Wii. I'm talking about developers of games actually worth playing.
Well, all we've really seen are trashy games. I honestly can't think of five good third-party titles.
Good is rather subjective, but I could probably think of at least 5 where the developer clearly put the effort in or at least don't look at the system as a trash dumping ground.
Capcom is the No.1 supporter with RE:UC, Zack and Wiki, and even their half-arsed but very good RE4 port. Then consider their Okami port and their willingness to make Wii versions of Bionic Commando and Street Fighter IV. No More Heroes seems to be getting good reviews, Sega clearly tried to do a great Sonic game and a lot of people liked it, Atlus' two Trauma Center games are also quite highly rated. Even EA got stuck in right away with their very highly rated Madden game at launch.
They're thin on the ground, but they're there. And support definately isn't slowing down. The devs I mentioned are already looking into deeper, more traditional Wii games, expanding their Wii support and so on.
Effort doesn't count for much. Neither does ports with added waggle. I'll give you RE:UC, Wiki possibly and No More Heroes. That's about it though.
RE4 worked out to well to count as merely added waggle. There's an original Trauma Center game on Wii and I don't see any good reason to not count the Wii version of Madden.
If we're just going to count games that we like or games where we only think the devs put in enough effort based on how much said effort appealed to us then I could quite easily say 360 has about 4 worthwhile games based on the lack of interesting game design. But that's not looking at the situation objectively and doesn't help us judge the market, does it?
Aside from online it was generally accepted that the Wii version of Madden played a lot better. It was sort of a big thing at the time, how the Wii version was better. I don't know how you missed it. They made a whole seperate studio for the Wii versions. If that isn't effort I don't know what is.
Explain to me why RE4 isn't worth counting? It's proof that Capcom are behind the system and the sales of the port indicate further support. I know the prospect of such a game might now exactly blow the Kotaku readership away, but big budget games that don't make decent income like, say, Lost Planet aren't exactly blowing Capcom away either. Who are they going to support, the vocal minority or the people that vote with their wallets in the millions? Plus the game was decent.
And for the same reason, Guitar Hero III. The guitar bundle sold best on Wii, there's further support secured.
I'll say it again, it'll start with trash, ports and a few interesting exclusives before it turns into a huge race among the 3rd parties to get their good **** on the system before everyone else. It happened to DS and it'll happen to Wii.
Support? When did I start discussion support? All I'm saying is that most of the third-party games suck. Nothing more, nothing less. Wow, you can name five decent games (including a couple ports and Madden, great!) So? It's pretty ****ing obvious third-parties are just trying to cash-in now and get while the going's good and they'll eventually have to buckle-down and make something worth playing. Not arguing that. The Wii is another DS. It's silly to think that third-parties are going to jump ship. Again, they're clearly not looking for amazing sales right now. Just a quick buck to support their other projects or just to simply make more money. That's obviously going to change because it'll eventually need to.
[quote=Vampiro V. Empire;812699]Wow, you can name five decent games (including a couple ports and Madden, great!) So?
...
I have no idea. I can't think of a single reason for why I tried to do that. Honestly, you tell me.
Oh wait.
Dude, it's five games out of how many Wii third-party games? And only three of those are original games. I never asked you to point out any decent games because that was never the point. Hell, you could name another five slightly above average games and that wouldn't change much. The vast majority of developers on the Wii aren't at the state of caring yet.
They don't care yet they're trying to get games on it as fast as possible. Paradox.
>
Assuming that that's all they'll do is folly. There's more money in bigger games, that's why they're even made. That's why this thread suggests 360 will dominate. I just don't understand your lack of faith in what is common business practise in the industry. You don't trust developers to deliver in future what's still impossible for most of them to do now, I can't see the sense in that.
I hope that XBox doesn't take so much business away from the other companies that they start to become the only major gaming company. I know that would be a long way off, but I would hate that because I am a life-long fan of Nintendo's products.
The fact that Wii is more or less crushing the 360 should be a pretty good indicator that that likely won't ever happen.