At the end of the month I like to take a look at what the industry is talking about and see where I'm going against the flow. These are opinion that seem to be prevalent in the industry with both fans and insiders, but I just can't seem to get my head around, important questions that are not being asked, or opinions that seem to run counter to what everyone else is saying.
I can’t understand how the @ID parity clause is so misunderstood (or seen as a bad thing at all)
Read the following pitch and see if you can find any flaw with it
“Here is the deal; I’ll give you a free dev kit. I will pay for your middleware. I will provide free tech support for both. I will wave all publishing fees. Pretty good, ah? This allows a small startup that can’t afford the risk of console publishing to develop a game virtually risk free, opening up that market to 100s of strong, innovative dev teams that would otherwise have to bank all their hopes on being noticed on page 97 of Steam's Green Light program. It seems like it’s almost too good to be true that a major corporation would just give away free stuff … and it is. There is small price to be paid; the game you are making, using support I am paying for on a system I am paying for which I am going to pay to list and publish needs to come out on my system. I know, seems like a no brainer right? Without that, given the ease at which you can port a game between next gen consoles and the PC, people could abuse the program by getting me to pay for them to develop a game for another system. But I know … limiting your game to only one system takes away a huge market, so I won’t even do that. All we want you to do is put it out on our system FIRST, or at the same time as any other systems.
I understand this might not be for everyone. As such, this is a completely opt in program. If you would rather go the traditional path and pay me for a dev kit and publishing like you would on any other console, that’s fine too. In that case, you can come to my system whenever you want. It’s completely up to you”
No? Me nither. But when Microsoft made that deal the WHOLE OF THE INTERNET freaked the hell out, and are still bringing up the “parity clause” as the reason behind game delays from major publishers, games that are already on PC not coming to Xbox, and for why the last Radio Head album sucked. There is ignorance, and that’s OK. Cecil from straight dope and I make it our mission to fight ignorance in all forms, so it keeps me going. But then there is WILLFUL ignorance. Just flat out ignoring the material you’re commenting on. That has to stop.
I think minimalist and retro indie games on console are really not a big deal (and a rip off)
Indie has become a meaningless word, so it’s important to start with a definition. An “Independent” game is a game without a publisher, which are generally considered freer to experiment because the developers don’t have to answer to a second party who is cutting the checks. They are a pretty wonderful thing to be honest, and without them the industry would be in serious risk of stagnation. But let’s not confuse indie games with low budget games, and confine what I’m saying to apply specifically to minimalist games (Tomas was Alone) or retro graphics games (Spelunky). Both Sony and Microsoft have invested very heavily in this type of game, with MS confirming that 75 games are in development for the Xbox One and Sony porting just about every indie game ever made to the PS4 (and then some). To fanboy’s it’s the best thing ever when a game comes to the system they define their life by, and a pointless waste of next gen tech when it goes to other guys ... and I hate to say it ... in this case, the fan boys are half right.
Let’s call a spade a spade; a console is a discounted PC with a better OS for gaming. If you could buy a PC that didn't need manually driver updates, didn't crash, and played Titanfall at 1080p/30FPS for $400, we simply wouldn't need them. I personally find a lot of advantages in console gaming, but the PC will always win on one important point; distribution. You can buy PC games anywhere, from anyone. Not only do you have steam sales, but you have steam sale re-sellers and the humble bundle to make sure that building a games catalog on PC is quick, easy, and inexpensive. On the console side, you have a single distributor, and sales (when they come) are often gated behind a $60 a year subscription. For triple A titles, it’s not that bad a deal; the extra money you have to pay to have a computer that runs them doesn't lead to any long term savings. But what about indie games?
You already have a PC that can play Indie games, because you’re reading this. Even if you’re reading it on your cell phone, then you likely have a cell phone that can play most indie games. They are designed to be accessible by everyone (as they bank on volume sales) and don’t use assets that require a lot of horsepower. This also makes them pretty stable; even on grandma’s computer with drivers from the 1990s and 14 different search bars, your indie game is going to run smoothly and not crash. So at this point you have a choice ... you can buy indie games on PC for prices like 7 for $1 (Humble Bundle) or you can pay $14.99 for them on console. I’ve heard the argument that “I don’t mind paying full price because I support the developer” ... and for that may I direct you to the Humble Store. Where Sony and MS both take at least 30% of the sale price, Humble Store only takes 10%. If you want to support your developers, you should be getting all your games there. Or ... buy from the developer directly. It takes a bit of leg work, but then they get 100% of the price (not to mention how much better off they would be if they didn't have to port it to console in the first place)
All and all, I know there are some valid reasons to play indie games on a console, but I think they are minor when compared to the huge cost saving of playing them on PC. I’m always the advocate of perspective, and if Sony put out a Vita game that cost $1 but if you wanted to play it outside your house you had to pay $14 more, everyone would say that was stupid. Yet when game that is $1 on steam is $15 on vita, the same people say it’s worth $14 it to play it on a portable.
I really want to know what’s going on in Japan
5 months later, we seems to still talk about relative sales numbers like they mean something. Fine, I can handle that ... fanaticism is a real thing we just have to deal with. But can we please start talking about sales numbers as an absolute as well? In particular, I don’t really have the time or money to hop on a plane and head to Japan to figure out what’s going on, and would very much appreciate it if a news organization could do that for me.
I was shocked when Sony told us they would be pushing back the launch of the PS4 in Japan, but I figured it was due to the obviously higher than expected pre-order numbers in the US and limited stock. It’s not the nicest thing to do, but moving stock from the market you dominate to the market you want to dominate and have a real chance of doing so make sense. And it worked! The PS4 was a fantastic success and the bestselling home console of all time.
Imagine my shock then, when I learned that some of the biggest names of Japanese gaming development wanted nothing to do with it. While Sony was bragging about 200+ developers making games for the PS4 the fact that none of them were Japanese went more or less unreported. When Atlus said they had no games in development for PS4, Persona was going to be a PS3 exclusive, and NIS soft wasn't going to put out a PS4 game until 2016 ... again, it wasn't enough to take us away from the Xbox vs Sony troll wars. What did it matter? The PS4 wasn't even out in Japan, and given how much everyone loved it in the west, when it released there it would set records and everything would change!
Except that didn't even close to happen. With only 560,000 units moved at the time of this writing* the PS4 is hardly a breakout hit. Worse, it’s being consistently outsold by the Vita, a system that is rarely considered successful. The most common argument you hear is that “it’s nothing ... the CRAZY Japanese are just slow up upgrade”, which like most things on the internet has no basis in fact. The PS3 sold 615,000 units in the same time period at its launch despite the PS2 being nothing short of a religious symbol and the Wii U, universally accepted to be the bench mark of a failed console, outsold the PS4’s current total in its first month alone (with 633,000 units). The PS4 is tanking by the standards of its worldwide launch and, in retrospect, it looks like Sony and game developers knew it was going to happen. Why didn't we? If the Japanese game market has shifted so dramatically from the west, you would think this would be more important to write about then if a game is coming to the Xbox One in 720p.
It’s not just the PlayStation that is seeing disappointing sales. We hear so much about Nintendo “slashing sales expectations” on the Wii U and the 3DS that it’s easy to overlook the fact that the 3DS is outselling its targets in NA and EU by a wide margin. This means that not only is the 3DS missing sales projections in Japan, it’s missing them by so much that they even strong sales in other markets can't make up for it. Game sales are also wonky, with the weekly top selling list reading like the barging bin of an anime convention. Yokai Watch and Hatsune Miku-Project DIVA-F outsell Metal Gear and Final Fantasy. DO NOT GOOGLE Hatsune Miku. Trust me.
Rounding off the craziness, Microsoft announced a slew Japanese of game developers that will be supporting them with “launch window” titles for the Xbox one in September, including heavy weights like Atlus (the same Atlus, you may recall, that isn’t making games for the PS4) and level 5. This, despite the fact that it’s a near certainty that it’s not going to have sales anywhere close to the PS4 or Wii U. In fact the only positive thing I can say about the Xbox One’s chances in Japan is that it won’t sell worse than the 360, but only because that would require people to fly to the US, buy Xbox Ones, and RETURN THEM IN JAPAN on launch day. So clearly these are US focused titles, for the US market … developed then ported to what used to be native Japan. I don’t get it … and it bothers me that no one seems to want to know. Speaking of far away places we know nothing about ...
I think China matters in a big way. Just not to us.
This is already longer then I want it to be, and this topic is going to require a lot of context. As such … it’s getting it’s own article! Follow me or keep an eye out for this to come next week.
Edit: May 8th - This article is finished and you can find it here http://www.ign.com/blogs/headpirate/?p=278
Did I miss anything? What did YOU notice this month that everyone else seemed to miss? Let me know in the comments!
*This number is from an average of several different reporting sources and could be off by 50,000 or so in either direction. Without paying for a full out NPD report, it’s the best I can do.
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