Console Post of the Week: Sony Launches, Microsoft Annoys, and Nintendo Cleans Up
Okay, this is out of order based on the post title, but any guesses as to what I saw Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. as I was driving to Target to pick up supplies for our April Fool's prank?Why, 25 people in line for the Wii at Toys"R"Us, of course.
Are you kidding me? This console launched over four months ago, they've been shipping 90,000 units a week to the U.S. in January and February, and there are still people in line 30 minutes before the store opens on Sunday morning.
That's just incredible, really.
N'Gai Croal interviewed Shigeru Miyamoto last week (full interview here), and Miyamoto had this to say about third party developers:
If there's only one piece of advice that I could give to the managers of third party companies, it would be that a lot of times it seems that when they're putting games out on Nintendo hardware, those games are being developed by their third-string team or their fourth-string team. Maybe that's because they see those products as being unique projects or somewhat smaller-scale projects. But when Nintendo puts out a title that is designed to really support and sell its hardware, that title is always developed by one of our number one teams. And so I think that when it comes to the question of trying to compete with our software, I would really like to see the parties try to do that with their number one teams rather than with the third- or fourth-string teams.
Well, that's bang-on, isn't it? 90% of the Wii games I've seen have been complete shit, really. And for some reason, most developers seem to think that because they can't make their game look as good as a 360 or PS3 game, that they have license to just mail in the graphics. Don't cry about how your game is selling if you made a shitty game.
Let's move on to Microsoft, since we seem to be doing this in the opposite of the direction suggested by the title. They announced the "Elite" unit last week, and here are the hardware details (thanks Kotaku):
The Xbox 360 Elite will come with a 120GB hard drive, an HDMI port, a HDMI cable, both component and composite cables, an audio adapter for use with HDMI and a black finish for the console, wireless controller and Xbox Live headset.
So what are we getting for the extra $80 over the Premium unit? HDMI capability, video cables, and a 120GB hard drive instead of 20GB, basically.
Is it a terrible deal? No. Is it a mistake? Yes.
Here's why. Microsoft needs to put their foot on Sony's throat right now. Sony has endemic problems with the cost of the PS3. What they should have done was have this unit replace the Premium unit, with the one difference being that no component or HDMI cables would have been included.
Seriously, if they can offer all those additions for $80, how much would it have cost them to just include the HDMI connection and the larger hard drive? $40? Eat the $40, Microsoft. With that HDMI connection and larger hard drive, you're $200 cheaper than the PS3, the hard drive is twice as large, and all Sony has is a Blu-Ray drive.
The way they've bundled this package, though, it's going to make people compare the two and essentially conclude that they can get Blu-Ray for an extra $120. You don't want people making that comparison.
Besides, with that larger drive, what are people going to do? Fill it up with content that you're selling them. THAT'S why you sell it for $399.
Oh, and if you want to retrofit the 120GB drive onto your existing 360 (to replace the 20GB drive), it's going to cost you $179.99. That's just so stupid it's not even worth commenting on.
One last note about Microsoft. John Rodman, "group product manager for the Xbox platform and Xbox Live", said this in an interview last week:
“We don’t feel like the Wii customer and the Xbox customer are the same thing,” he said. “We think that as soon as the Wii customer turns 14 they want something else.”
Please note that people like John Rodman had no need to mention the Wii until it started kicking the shit out of Microsoft and Sony.
Every gaming executive in the world should have this sign in their office. It should be a large sign, and placed in such a way that they can see it clearly when they're having a phone conversation. The sign should say:
DON'T BE A DICKHEAD IN INTERVIEWS
I'm serious. Any time a Sony or Microsoft executive says something catty, they come off like idiots. Rodman sounds like a fourteen-year-old girl who didn't get invited to a slumber party. It's pathetic.
Here's a thought: maybe you guys should try to sound intelligent instead of snide.
On to Sony.
Chart Track reported last week that Sony sold 165,000 consoles in the first two days of the UK launch. Sales at launch in Europe (including the UK, I believe) were about 600,000 units.
Uh, okay.
Those are good numbers. There's one question, though, that's very important, and we won't be able to answer it until May. Since Sony satisfied 100% of the initial demand in Europe, which has never happened with a console launch before, who's left to buy the PS3?
My guess is that demand in Europe is not going to be fundamentally different from demand in the U.S. or Japan. The games aren't different, and Europe has far, far fewer HD sets (to take advantage of Blu-Ray) than either the U.S. or Japan. Which means sales are going to fall off a cliff in April, just like they did in the other two countries after launch demand was satisfied.
Now if the PS3 has great sales numbers in Europe for April, then I'm wrong. But I expect to see plenty of articles before the end of April asking why the PS3 is selling so poorly after launch.
Lair and Heavenly Sword have also moved their release dates to "sometime in 2007." That usually means fall, which means there are basically zero exclusives for the system until at least July. Wait, there's MLB 07: The Show, which could be a great game, but I don't expect a baseball game to sell systems in any quantity.
It's going to be a very lean three months.
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