PL said:
Promised Land. First of all, there's the "promised titles." These are the 1st-party stuff you know you'll get on the console of choice. Mario, GT, Halo. I don't believe THOSE will ever directly impact sales outside of the early adoption stage--the people that want THOSE games want THOSE systems. They don't typically wait until the promised titles are released. This was a purchase that was made long before the anticipated game was released. (See: SSBB, HALO3). My theory is that the software impact of these types of titles is front loaded into the sales. You know, the old "only Nintendo fans are buying it" argument. These lead directly to the next phase of titles. Ok, let's go from there.
Note that I'm numbering your points to reply to.
jimbo said:
Your post is way too long to try to debate all the point you made, but this one in particular stood out as completely wrong.
1. This way of thinking is pretty popular among gamers on GAF and it's extremely flawed. Most people DO NOT buy consoles for games that come out 2 years later. They buy consoles for what they can play on them now. Watch what happens to 360 hardware in September when Halo 3 comes.
2. Pay attention to what happened to European sales because of the Halo 3 beta. People have known for quite some time that you could play the beta through Crackdown....so if your theory is correct....why was there a spike in Crackdown sales? Gamers knew for some time that if they wanted the beta they HAD to buy Crackdown. Why didn't they ALL buy it a long time ago?
3. Because people don't INVEST in videogames. They spend their money on immediate returns. A game that comes out months or years later is NOT an IMMEDIATE RETURN. It's an eventual return, a guarantee......but there's better stuff for them to spend their money on RIGHT NOW.
4. Just look at all the people on this forum that say they will buy so and so console when so and so game comes out. Sure they KNOW it WILL come out. But they're still not buying that console now.
5. And of course the other 80% of gamers....that don't spend their time on GAF don't even know when a game is coming out, of if it's even coming out at all. We do. But most people don't.
1. You're wrong, plain and simple. If you look at my quote in which you have disagreed, I am talking about 1st party games and their impact on hardware sales, and I'm right. Almost the entirety of hardware sales from these games (Zelda, Mario, Gran Turismo, etc) are front-loaded into the console's early phase. If you'd like to argue against that, you must agree to NEVER suggest that the people buying launch systems are "just Nintendo fans" ever again. People buy launch systems because of what they know is coming. People by Nintendo at the early stages because they KNOW they'll get at least one Mario, one Zelda, and one Metroid. Throw in a Mario Kart, a DK game, some Pokemon...and you have your hardcore hardware-buying public--and they almost entirely get the system the moment it launches. Same thing with Sony products. Now, if you wanted to argue that people aren't buying the XBOX 360 at the beginning for 1st party games, you'd have a much easier time arguing that--they have a lot less established franchises.
2. Irrelevant. You're talking about software's impact on software sales. I'm talking about software impact on hardware sales.
3. The other issue with this basic argument is that you suggest that people don't "invest" in videogame systems. How ****ing arrogantly ignorant can you get? It's like you're trying to be obtuse just to get a rise out of people. Are you trying to suggest that people don't buy launch hardware under the assumption that they'll eventually get the "promised" titles that they expect from the 1st-party? Wouldn't buying launch hardware be as ignorant as your arguments? Sounds stupid to me. Well--it's NOT stupid. Everybody buys systems under the assumption that the promised titles are coming out eventually. It's not a hard concept at all.
4. Now there is a teeny tiny little point to be made, and one in which you might be helped by capitalizing on. The price of the systems. When a system is ****ing $399-$599, then you get people waiting to buy hardware. Hell--I'm waiting too. OF COURSE people are waiting to buy a system when
such n such comes out. Those hardware prices throw the whole thing out the window because they make the price barrier so much higher, making the initial "promise" that much more of a stake. Basically, they have to offer that much more before casuals will make the leap of faith and drop half a thousand on a new console. So when Halo 3 comes out and (if) we see a bump in 360 hardware, it's not because the majority of Halo fans didn't already own a 360 (and they do), it's because up until that moment...the 360 wasn't worth the purchase to them. In that sense, titles like that become part of the avalanche that may convince the greater majority of casuals to purchase a system.
5. Those 80% of gamers that you refer to make most of their hardware purchases because of the greater sum of games, which I referred to as 'The Avalanche' in my original post. Not sure what that has to do with first party games, unless those games are the motivator that convinces them a hardware purchase (in addition to the greater sum of all games available for the system) is worth it.