cmq raga questa cosa che è stata riportata fa parte di un lungo scambio di due giornalisti non sono dati dif atto ma solo semplici rumor è facile travisare le cose riportando solo una piccolissima parte [allo sony ha ragione..]
cmq se vi interessa è tutto scritto qui
Geoff,
Let's start with hardware. Two numbers immediately jumped out at me: 360,000 units sold for the Wii, and 82,000 units for the PS3. The Wii sales figures are as phenomenal as the PS3's are--well, since I've already used words like "abysmal" and "sucking wind" back when the February numbers were reported at 127,000 units, what am I supposed to say now? Horrific? Ghastly? Appalling?
The current strategy--offsetting the high price and lack of exclusive killer apps with the ostensibly strong brand loyalty of the Playstation name--simply isn't working. The only killer app in the near future is Ninja Gaiden Sigma, and that seems far more likely to appeal to the hardcore gamers who already own a PS3 than to persuade newer ones to buy in. That would suggest a strong need for a price cut, but having just declared a $2 billion loss within Sony Computer Entertainment, I'm not sure that newly-minted Playstation overlord Kaz Hirai and his boss Howard Stringer have an appetite for more red ink.
So Sony seems caught between a rock and a hard place. If they leave the price as is PS3 sales will remain anemic, giving publishers and developers no incentive to make PS3 exclusives or even lead development on that platform. But if they cut the price, the path to profitability gets pushed out even further. Decisions, decisions. What's your take on all this? And how much of a problem is it for Sony--and Microsoft--that Nintendo is storming towards first place?
Cheers,
N'Gai
QUOTE(Geoff Keighley to N'Gai Croal)
Re: Second Quarter--Which Color Will Revive the PS3, Blu Or Green?
N'Gai,
For months we've wondered if the PlayStation 3 would ever drop below the 100,000 units a month sales mark. Now that it has rather ominously dipped below that line just six months after launch, it's fair to wonder what this means for the future of the platform. It's interesting to see you invoke terms like "horrific" and "appalling" in reference to the sales, because a layman might look at the first six months of PS3 sales (1.3 million units) compared to the Xbox 360 during the same time period (1.5 million units) and wonder why we're making such a big fuss about a 200,000 unit difference.
Here's why: During the first six months the PlayStation 2 sold more than 2.1 million units. Why have almost a million early adopters of the PS2 opted to not buy a PS3 up until this point? Are they playing Wii or 360 instead? Is all of this explained by the higher price point and a slower ramp? To me the canaries in the mineshaft for this console war are the 115 million PS2 owners around the world. And right now it looks like the early adopters in that 115 million-member group are skittish on buying a PS3. Whatever pent-up demand existed for the PS3 has completely evaporated.
The real problem for Sony will come when those early PS2 adopters decide to buy a rival system instead of the PS3. The good news for Sony is that the NPD numbers don't support the conclusion that PS2 owners are switching to the 360. By all accounts the 360 has a fantastic software lineup right now, the Halo 3 beta, and a best-of-breed online service. And you can get one for $299. (Well ok, $399 if you want to play the Halo 3 beta because you need a hard drive.) And it still only sold under 200,000 units in April?
The PS2 user base is still sitting on the fence. But that's going to change this fall. Post God of War II, PS2 software releases are really starting to dry up. Thus, a good chunk of users will likely be upgrading by the end of the year. Which way do they go? Do they switch to a rival system or do they bet on the PS3 again, even though it's more expensive, third party games look the same or better on the 360, and online is still an open question mark? Sure, there are a handful of good first party games due out for the PS3 and the Blu-Ray value proposition, but is that enough to stop users from switching? If I were Sony I would actually spent a lot more time and money focusing on the Blu-Ray playback story for the PS3. Do and end-run around the 360 by communicating that the PS3 as the "ultimate Blu-Ray player" to even a non-game audience. That would be a quick way to help jumpstart the PS3 sales.
And we both know the sales need to pick up, pronto--especially if Sony wants to keep third party interest. Already third party executives are telling me that if PS3 sales stay below 100k for 3 consecutive months, PS3 SKUs may start disappearing from release lists and in turn create a wealth of de-facto exclusives for the Xbox 360. Sony could stem the tide by supporting third parties financially with co-marketing for exclusivity (or even buying an exclusive window on a game), but I continue to hear tales of Sony expressing a lack of interest in securing third party exclusives. One Sony executive told me last week that Activision's Spider-Man 3 Collector's Edition for PS3 is a great example of how third parties might want to approach the PS3. Exclusive games or exclusive windows don't make a lot of financial sense to either party, so instead differentiate the PS3 version with exclusive content. Activision, as you know, shipped Spider-Man 3 with The New Green Goblin as a playable character only on the PS3 version. Unfortunately I think solving the third party problem will take some different green--and it comes from the U.S. Treasury.
As for your question about Nintendo storming to first place, it's creating concern but not panic. Most of the executives I speak with still think the Wii has a shorter lifespan than the other consoles and may begin to slow down sales-wise later this year. That being said, it's hard to ignore the continued strong software sales for the Wii, including the bafflingly good sales of Wii Play. Again, I look back to those 115 million PS2 owners as the tea leaves. How many of those 115 million will decide to move to the Wii instead of the PS3 or 360? There's certainly a scenario here where Sony gets attacked on two fronts: The 360 starts to steal away the enthusiast gamer crowd that bought the PS2 in year 2 or 3 and the Wii starts to steal away the broad mainstream crowd who bought the PS2 in year 4 or 5 (and is still buying it now.) If that happens I don't know where Sony goes from here. Do you really think a $100 price drop solves any of Sony's problems? Is that disruptive event that the PS3 needs to kick it back above 150,000 a month in sales?
Geoff
QUOTE(N'Gai Croal to Geoff Keighley)
Re: Third Quarter--Um, What HD Era?
Geoff,
I went for the short pass; you opted for the long bomb. Now let me clear my throat.
The reason nearly a million fewer people have bought PS3s than bought PS2s during each system's first six months on the market is that at $599, the PS3 isn't as perceived to be as good a value as was the $299 PS2. At this point in the PS2's lifespan, it had the following meaningful exclusives: next-gen Madden, SSX, Onimusha, the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo with Zone of the Enders packed in, NBA Street and Medal of Honor Frontline, with Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec a couple of months from release. PS3 has Resistance: Fall of Man, MotorStorm and...what, exactly? Many of us were waiting to see how much the PS3's positives (brand strength, Blu-Ray playback, superior computing power) would offset its negatives (high price, lack of killer apps, tricky architecture, Xbox 360's lead and Nintendo simultaneous arrival) during its first six months in stores. Now we have the answer: not much.
At Sony's pre-launch press event, you put me on the spot and asked me "How much would you pay for PS3?" Now, that was a bit of a trick question, because thanks to my job, I'm fortunate enough to get every machine free of charge. So after I finished stammering, I replied, "I'd want the $600 model, but $500 is my psychological threshold. So I would wait for either a price drop or the release of Metal Gear Solid 4." In other words, if I had to spend my own money, I'd still be waiting. And it would appear that many North American gamers feel the same way.
Nevertheless, I don't think we'll see many third party games that are currently being developed for both PS3 and Xbox 360 drop their PS3 SKUs, even if Sony has multiple months under 100,000 units sold. The reason is threefold: Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot estimates the cost of a port adds just 10 percent to the cost of development; marketing budgets don't increase significantly with the addition of another SKU; and Microsoft isn't willing to pay for the majority of those titles to become Xbox 360 exclusives when they know that their larger installed base means that the bulk of those sales will take place on Xbox 360 without Microsoft execs having to lift a finger. Ironically, the latter is the same reason why Sony isn't willing to pay for exclusives: as Phil Harrison himself pointed out, the PS3 ecosystem is so unhealthy right now, any negotiations for a third party exclusive would be a) weighted almost completely in the third party's favor; and unlikely to have much of an impact.
If, having suffered a $2 billion loss during its last fiscal year, Sony is not willing to lop at least $100 off the price of the PS3--and you're correct that a price drop alone is unlikely to move the needle enough--that leaves the company's first party operation and a handful of remaining third party exclusives to shoulder the burden. But great games take time to make, and it's unlikely that such lookers as White Knight Story, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Final Fantasy XIII will be ready by the end of 2007. (SOCOM: Confrontation will get some PS2 dead-enders to upgrade, but the PS3's $599 price tag will remain an inhibitor.) And without potential killer apps on that scale, Sony will more or less be forced to cede 2007 to the Xbox 360 until both a price cut and better software manifest themselves. In the interim, Sony will have to endure message board mockery and mainstream media stories about the PS3's failure until they take the aforementioned necessary steps to reestablish some positive momentum
The one silver lining in Sony's cloud is that Microsoft still seems unable to take full advantage of its first-mover status. There's a $299 SKU, a $399 SKU and a $499 SKU--the last of which nearly outsold the PS3 all by itself. Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, Guitar Hero II and Spider-Man 3 are on store shelves. Yet Microsoft still couldn't break 200,000 units in April? I've said this before, and I'll say it again: this is not the kind of sales performance one would expect from an eventual market leader. Total Xbox 360 sales in North America stand at 5.4 million units; meanwhile, Nintendo has already sold 2.5 million Wiis. At this rate, Nintendo will almost certainly blow past the Xbox 360 globally in this calendar year, and has a shot at overtaking it here in North America, Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV be damned.
I'll conclude my hardware analysis with this: I've also heard the same statements from third party publishers that the Wii is going to run out of steam. And while six months do not a generational champion make, I'd have to ask these executives: upon what basis are they making these assumptions? I hope they're not basing them on the so-called high-def revolution, because many people who have HDTVs are buying them because they're bigger and flatter, not because of picture quality, as evidenced by the fact that a lot of people have HDTVs without any HD content or signals. The Wii, meanwhile is optimized for 480p displays, and remains a phenomenon nonetheless. And when we look at the sustained superlative performance of the Nintendo DS in the face of technologically superior competition from the PSP and mobile phones, I wonder if this refrain that the Wii fad will soon die off isn't merely wishful thinking on the part of publishers who have overextended themselves on next generation consoles and high-end PCs, and are now trembling at the thought of reinventing themselves to compete in a world where Nintendo is number one.
Whew. That should get me into the end zone. Now for extra points--software sales. What do you make of the following:
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 has already fallen out of the top ten
Guitar Hero II PS2 returned to the top ten after a month long absence
God of War II sales plunged from 833,000 to 101,000
Wii Play remains a monster despite terrible review scores
The Pokemon franchise shows no signs of slowing down
Cheers,
N'Gai
QUOTE(Geoff Keighley to N'Gai Croal)
Re: Fourth Quarter--Can Samus Compete With Wii Play 2?
N'Gai,
You raise a number of excellent points about the hardware NPD numbers. To keep with the football analogies, I wonder how Sony can even hope to score a first down with the PS3 in the next few months. After I sent you my last e-mail, SCEA [Sony Computer Entertainment America] released a statement that blamed poor PS3 sales in April on a lack of compelling software. No argument here. I was, however, puzzled by Sony's claim (hope?) that sales will soon pick up because 15 exclusive first party titles are due out over the next year. Lair is coming in July, but beyond that I don't expect any major first party titles until September. And when it comes to third party releases, there's not much due this summer. If MotorStorm couldn't move hardware, I have little hope that Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden Sigma will jumpstart sales. Could we see the PS3 sales numbers continue to creep down over the summer? I wouldn't be surprised. Let's hope Sony delivers a blowout E3 with playable Metal Gear Solid 4, an impressive Killzone demo, and lots more of LittleBigPlanet. After playing LittleBig at Gamer's Day I am now more convinced than ever that it may be Sony's secret weapon this holiday season. (And potentially even a Best of Show contender for our Game Critics Awards at E3.)
As to your point about third party support for the PS3, I agree that most publishers will continue to produce PS3 SKUs no matter the near-term hardware sales numbers. But programming for the PS3 is a challenge, and I'm not sure I buy Yves' suggestion that porting a 360 game to PS3 only costs 10% of the budget. (This is coming from the publisher that still hasn't shipped Rainbow Six: Vegas for the PS3 six months after it was due out.) The likelihood of ports aside, the most important trend to watch is which system publishers use as their base development platform. Sony maintains that publishers will soon switch from the 360 to the PS3, but as of yet I've seen very little evidence to support that claim. Over the past few months almost 100 percent of the third party games I've seen have been demonstrated on the 360. Will things be different at E3? For Sony's sake I sure hope so. But even if publishers port 360 games to the PS3 I don't expect the games to look any different on Sony's platform. And that's a major problem for the PS3, especially given its premium price.
Can Sony afford to cede 2007 to the 360? Probably not, but you never know. As we've both pointed out the 360 still isn't selling particularly well. We assume 360s will really start to move later this summer and into the fall (because PS2 software releases are slowing down), but the bigger risk for the industry is that PS2 owners decide to keep waiting another year and stop buying games in the interim. Everyone assumes Halo 3 and GTA IV will push huge amounts of 360 hardware, but remember: Gears of War didn't really do much to move hardware sales last fall.
As for the Wii success story, I agree that the system shows no signs of slowing down. And I continue to be dumbfounded by the stunning sales of a product like Wii Play. For a few months I'd been wondering if the Wii was actually selling to broad mainstream consumers or if that was just a good PR story from Nintendo? Now the continued success of Wii Play helps confirm that the Wii is reaching a new user base. But here's where it gets really interesting: How does the Wii software sales story play out later this year? All the hardcore gamers are hyped on Nintendo's holy trinity: Super Smash Bros Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3. But if the Wii is selling broadly, could we see a scenario where Big Brain Academy or Wii Health both outsell Metroid Prime 3? We keep asking Nintendo if the "holy trinity" will be out in 2007, but perhaps the real killer app for the Wii will be the next Nintendogs or Wii Sports 2. It's counter-intuitive, but those Wii Play numbers really have me questioning what will sell on the platform.
Also imagine, for a second, how this trend will impact third parties. So far it's hard to point to a blockbuster hit third party Wii game--perhaps with the exception of Ubisoft's Red Steel and Rayman Raving Rabbids. Will third parties be able to adapt and deliver different games for the Wii audience, or will the system once again become a bastion of first-party hits? So far I'm seeing very few signs of innovative third-party efforts for the Wii. And you know publishers don't want to be caught flat-footed this holiday season, especially if the Wii eclipses the 360 in global sales. You have to go pretty far down the NPD list to find a third party Wii game.
Speaking of software sales, yes, let's quickly talk about the NPD top 10 list. I can't say I'm surprised that GRAW 2 is already out of the top 10. Hardcore games on the 360 seem to follow a very similar pattern: Big month one sales followed by a huge drop-off. It happened with Saint's Row, Dead Rising, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and now with GRAW 2. If anything, the drop in GRAW 2 sales confirms that Ubisoft does a great job catering to the hardcore, Xbox Live-savvy user base, but has yet to cross over into the mainstream. But it's still great business for Ubi and it can mine those hardcore users for a lot of money. Apparently the Rainbow Six map pack sold something like 175,000 copies in its first week on Marketplace.
Finally, yes, the success of Guitar Hero is truly stunning--and it's great vindication for guys like us who have long championed the work of Harmonix. Come to think of it, the NPD battle I'm most looking to this Fall isn't Call of Duty: Modern Warfare versus Medal of Honor: Airborne or Halo 3 versus GTA IV: It's Rock Band versus Guitar Hero 3. You can bet that Activision and EA are going to do everything they can to one-up each other.
But of course I'd never want to one-up you on your own blog, so I'll let you have the last word....
Geoff
QUOTE(N'Gai Croal to Geoff Keighley)
Re: Overtime--Could Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV Get Rocked Like a Hurricane?
Geoff,
You're far too modest. After that Peyton Manning-in-the-postseason-esque performance (circa 2007, not 1999-2006), the pressure is clearly on me in the extra session. Let me see if I can get a quick field goal here to grind out a three-point victory.
1. Any Port In a Storm?
Your questioning of Yves Guillemot's assertion that PS3 ports only add another 10 percent to a game's budget is valid. Since neither of us work in development, it's difficult to say for sure. But given the terrible reviews for the company's port of Splinter Cell Double Agent--Ubisoft pretty much admits that it purposely did not send out review copies--we may have to ask whether that 10 percent figure isn't too high!
All kidding aside, what I'm hearing is that a) porting is much easier going from PS3 to 360 than the reverse, but apart from Sony first party, a swath of Japanese developers and Alex Ward over at Criterion Studios, most game creators are doing the reverse, and it shows; some companies are pointing their fingers at the PS3 implementation of Unreal Engine (please don't shoot the messenger, Mark!) and claiming that their own slow-in-the-making internal tech will solve the "OMG!!! downgrade total LOLZ" problem; and c) some publishers have been more or less sitting on completed ports in hopes that the PS3 installed base would grow more significantly during the interim. So much for the latter.
2. Kyoto, Wii Have A Problem
I originally wrote a long, detailed, involved section here. Then I decided that, since I'd promised "Kyoto, We Have A Problem" two months ago and had yet to deliver, this section could in fact serve as that long-awaited post. So rather than get into it, I'll just point out that the companies most disrupted by the Wii's disruptive technology are arguably not Sony or Microsoft, but rather the third party publishers who for the most part seem genetically ill-equipped to thrive in a Nintendo-dominated console market. For the rest of my thoughts on this--and how it poses a problem for Kyoto--my faithful readers should look for "Kyoto, We Have A Problem" later this week soon.
3. Battle of the Bands, Or, Could Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV Get Rocked Like a Hurricane?
This was almost a throwaway line in your final entry, but, taken to its logical conclusion, it may have inadvertently been your most provocative thought yet. Isn't it possible that Guitar Hero III and Rock Band could--individually or collectively--outsell the four titles you listed above: Halo 3, GTA IV, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Medal of Honor: Airborne? I'm reaching here, but as you point out, we could all be wrong in our assumptions that Halo 3 and GTA IV will finally jumpstart this generation given the continued high prices of Xbox 360 and PS3.
At this point in the last cycle, PS2 and Xbox had recently cut their prices from $299 to $199. The cheapest Xbox 360 is still priced at $299; the SKU people are actually buying is $399, and Microsoft just released the $479 Elite, to say nothing of the much-maligned (price-wise) $599 PS3. In my Vs. Mode exchange with Dean Takahashi, I floated the theory that since most copies of Halo and Halo 2 were sold when Xbox was $199 or less, Xbox fans might be more price-sensitive when it comes to hardware than people in the game industry previously believed. Ditto for Grand Theft: Auto Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which shipped after the PS2 was $199 or less. Publishers have been operating on the philosophy that gamers will remain price-insensitive to high-end, high-definition gaming on Xbox 360 (and to a lesser extent, PS3) through the end of this year. But what if they're wrong? What if, as you speculate, Halo 3 and GTA IV don't have the system-selling effect that those franchises had in years past because of the systems are still priced way too high?
If they don't, Guitar Hero III, Rock Band, Wii Sports 2, Wii Health, Buzz! and SingStar (PS2, not PS3) could all be the beneficiaries of this continued drawn-out transition. Their all-inclusive, all-ages gameplay will sell not-only on the next generation consoles, but where applicable, they'll also shift many units on the PS2. This gets back to another point you raised earlier about those 115 million PS2 owners. If they look at a $399 Xbox 360, a $599 PS3 and the $60 games that come with them, wouldn't the most smartest thing to do--or at least, the most economical-- be to opt out for a third straight holiday until these companies all come to their senses and start pricing their wares (hard and soft) more within reach of the common man and woman? And if consumers make that choice, where does that leave all of these developers and publishers who have already made big bets on Xbox 360 and PS3, for whom big-budget AAA titles are at the core of their DNA? Can they adjust, or are they dinosaurs waiting to die out as the dust from the Wii explosion blots out the sun?
It's been fun, Geoff. Let's do this again next month.
Cheers,
N'Gai
L'originale è questo. http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/arc...april-2007.aspx
In merito al topic aperto da Sbarbau questo, in particolare è il dibattito tra i due giornalisti, come potrete vedere sono semplicemente opinioni diverse in merito di due giornalisti che lavorano nello stesso campo.:
Geoff: And we both know the sales need to pick up, pronto--especially if Sony wants to keep third party interest. Already third party executives are telling me that if PS3 sales stay below 100k for 3 consecutive months, PS3 SKUs may start disappearing from release lists and in turn create a wealth of de-facto exclusives for the Xbox 360. Sony could stem the tide by supporting third parties financially with co-marketing for exclusivity (or even buying an exclusive window on a game), but I continue to hear tales of Sony expressing a lack of interest in securing third party exclusives. One Sony executive told me last week that Activision's Spider-Man 3 Collector's Edition for PS3 is a great example of how third parties might want to approach the PS3. Exclusive games or exclusive windows don't make a lot of financial sense to either party, so instead differentiate the PS3 version with exclusive content. Activision, as you know, shipped Spider-Man 3 with The New Green Goblin as a playable character only on the PS3 version. Unfortunately I think solving the third party problem will take some different green--and it comes from the U.S. Treasury
Ngai : Nevertheless, I don't think we'll see many third party games that are currently being developed for both PS3 and Xbox 360 drop their PS3 SKUs, even if Sony has multiple months under 100,000 units sold. The reason is threefold: Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot estimates the cost of a port adds just 10 percent to the cost of development; marketing budgets don't increase significantly with the addition of another SKU; and Microsoft isn't willing to pay for the majority of those titles to become Xbox 360 exclusives when they know that their larger installed base means that the bulk of those sales will take place on Xbox 360 without Microsoft execs having to lift a finger. Ironically, the latter is the same reason why Sony isn't willing to pay for exclusives: as Phil Harrison himself pointed out, the PS3 ecosystem is so unhealthy right now, any negotiations for a third party exclusive would be a) weighted almost completely in the third party's favor; and unlikely to have much of an impact
Geoff: As to your point about third party support for the PS3, I agree that most publishers will continue to produce PS3 SKUs no matter the near-term hardware sales numbers. But programming for the PS3 is a challenge, and I'm not sure I buy Yves' suggestion that porting a 360 game to PS3 only costs 10% of the budget. (This is coming from the publisher that still hasn't shipped Rainbow Six: Vegas for the PS3 six months after it was due out.) The likelihood of ports aside, the most important trend to watch is which system publishers use as their base development platform. Sony maintains that publishers will soon switch from the 360 to the PS3, but as of yet I've seen very little evidence to support that claim. Over the past few months almost 100 percent of the third party games I've seen have been demonstrated on the 360. Will things be different at E3? For Sony's sake I sure hope so. But even if publishers port 360 games to the PS3 I don't expect the games to look any different on Sony's platform. And that's a major problem for the PS3, especially given its premium price.
Ngai: Your questioning of Yves Guillemot's assertion that PS3 ports only add another 10 percent to a game's budget is valid. Since neither of us work in development, it's difficult to say for sure. But given the terrible reviews for the company's port of Splinter Cell Double Agent--Ubisoft pretty much admits that it purposely did not send out review copies--we may have to ask whether that 10 percent figure isn't too high!
All kidding aside, what I'm hearing is that a) porting is much easier going from PS3 to 360 than the reverse, but apart from Sony first party, a swath of Japanese developers and Alex Ward over at Criterion Studios, most game creators are doing the reverse, and it shows; some companies are pointing their fingers at the PS3 implementation of Unreal Engine (please don't shoot the messenger, Mark!) and claiming that their own slow-in-the-making internal tech will solve the "OMG!!! downgrade total LOLZ" problem; and c) some publishers have been more or less sitting on completed ports in hopes that the PS3 installed base would grow more significantly during the interim. So much for the latter
e sono solo semplici scambi di opinione di due giornalisti
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