Game Publisher Profit & Loss

Via Kotaku, profit and loss margins for the 20 top game publishers. On its face this reflects what might be thought to be common sense; publishers who produce quality make a profit, while publishers that make rubbish pay for it.

It's not quite that simple, of course. The numbers include hardware divisions, so Microsoft shows a large loss representing their ongoing efforts to advance their market share. I seem to recall that Microsoft actually posted their first games division profit last quarter so next year's chart might look very different. Sony, of course, were more focused on launching Blu-Ray than they were on winning the console war this time around so their massive losses are less of a defeat than they are an investment in the company's ongoing future.

EA have recently come out and said they made a mistake by not backing the Wii as the winner in this console generation; their somewhat blinkered focus on the PS3 and 360 hasn't helped them over the last year. Ubisoft, on the other hand, are doing quite well, probably deriving both from their excellent Montreal and Montpellier studios, and from the way they were astoundingly quick to fill the Wii market with shovelware.

Atari, Midway and Sega are all victims of their own poor quality titles. These companies couldn't find quality gaming if you shackled it to their wrist.

My guess on Take 2's dismal performance here is that it's got something to do with their ongoing legal troubles. Take 2 of course includes Rockstar, whose games sell like hotcakes but can't seem to stay out of court. It's probably also worth noting that the chart above caps out before the release of Grand Theft Auto 4 so the profits from that are obviously not included.

Namco, Capcom and Squeenix are all excellent examples of producing good games based on original IP on a regular basis. We like what they make, and we pay them money for it. Everyone's a winner.

Vivendi is of course just another way of saying "Blizzard and Sierra"; most of that profit you see there is World of Warcraft alone. Vivendi's now merged with Activision so it's not unreasonable to expect a monster result next year from the resulting juggernaut.

Konami's interesting in that it feels like it should be down next to Capcom and Namco but instead they're storming the market. It's especially interesting as this chart predates the release of Metal Gear Solid 4. Konami's doing unusually well for a company that's shown such partisan support for this generation's console loser, the PS3. Does anyone have insight as to what's going on here?

Disney comes as a surprise to hardcore gamers; this is mostly just licensed games being made dirt cheap and sold by the truckload. It's a bit depressing that this kind of rubbish is so very profitable. Disney does own a few smaller studios like Lumines creator Q Entertainment, though.

And finally Nintendo tops the chart; they're the only company currently making a profit (and a fairly massive profit at that) on their hardware division, through both the Wii and the DS, but they're also the major developer for both those platforms, and platform-exclusive games like Super Smash Bros Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy spent significant periods of time at the top of sales charts across all consoles. Nintendo was making a profit even during the lame-duck years of the Gamecube, and now that they've actually got quality hardware on the market they're unstoppable.

Flogging A Dead Horse

Sony's unabashed commitment to obsolete and sub-par technology continues. Gamasutra is reporting that Sony Japan are about to launch a new "cinnabar red" PS2, a "metallic blue" PSP, and an EyeToy peripheral for the PS3.

New skins for the PS2 isn't the greatest commitment to the ongoing success of the PS3. And admittedly the PSP is outselling the PS3 by a massive margin, but that thing needs a redesign a lot more than it needs a new SKU.

As for the EyeToy, unless they've improved on the PS2 version a lot, then I really can't see why anyone would possibly want one of these suckers.

Next-Generation PSP On The Way?

I draw your attention to the fact that only one game came out for the PSP this month in Australia (UEFA Euro 2008) and there's only two more games after than until the end of August (Iron Man and FF7: Crisis Core). Over the same period, the PS2, an ostensibly superseded console, has five releases.

I don't think I'm being premature in saying that the PSP is thoroughly into its twilight; these are the sort of release schedules that you expect to see on a system once the next-generation model has been out for 6 months or so.

Sony, for all their vices, aren't terminally stupid. I'd be very surprised if Sony are not almost finished development on their next generation handheld. With rumours flying around about a new-model Nintendo DS, it's worth keeping your ear out for something much more interesting coming from Sony. I'd put money on something lighter, easier to hold, with improved battery life and a vastly streamlined connectivity profile. UMD will be out the door, possibly in favour of non-physical media.

It'll be interesting to see the plan for taking on the Nintendo DS giant.

EDIT: A better source puts the Europe-region PSP releases to August at 16, versus 19 on the PS2. (Compare to 47 on the DS.) It may be that the discrepancy is due to shorter announce-time on releases in Australia. Anyway, even with larger numbers, I'm happy to stand by the rest of my comments above.

ZWOK!

Via Wonderland:

Anyone for some multiplayer online Worms / Scorched Earth gameplay delivered in the form of a Flash applet with simultaneous turn structure? It's called ZWOK! and for some reason it's by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

Check it out here.

Hybrid Gameplay

While the rest of the world wallows in the sty of God of War 2, I’m sloughing my way through the original, and finding that the hype is very much overrated.

The action, it must be said, is superb. God of War takes everything that worked in the Devil May Cry franchise and ratchets it up a fairly meaty notch. Controls are responsive, attacks are spectacular, and enemy executions are blisteringly satisfying.

Where it goes wrong is that it does all this, and then thinks it can be a platformer, too. You’re expected to jump from moving platforms like some kind of rabid monkey, scale vertical walls, rappel along ropes, and tiptoe your way along razor-thin rafters. Mistakes generally result in instant death, and you’ll be doing it all under the view of a camera that changes angles like a schizophrenic Hitchcock. It’s small consolation that some even more intense platforming levels were wisely cut from the game prior to release.

You get used to it. You shrug. Sometimes the fun will stop, and the platforming will begin. This is how life is.

But it’s what turns a potentially perfect game into one which is merely memorable. Hybrid gameplay. The developers wanted their game to be too many things and suffered as a result. After all, what’s an epic Greek adventure without a downfall brought about by hubris?

It makes me wonder whether diluting gameplay purity is perhaps by definition a bad thing. I’m looking at the games I’ve enjoyed the most this year, and there’s no question that they share something in common: Guitar Hero I & II, Ossu Tatake Ouendan, Elite Beat Agents, Excite Truck, Trauma Center, and Disgaea – they all have an unquestionable purity of gameplay. They take a central core concept and iterate it until it bleeds fun. They are definitive. They are archetypal.

There is no question that Disgaea is a turn-based strategy RPG. In fact, there’s no question that it is THE turn-based strategy RPG. It stakes out a space of gaming ground, and it does it better than anyone else. Excite Truck is a game about monster trucks flying through the air, and by golly never have there been more trucks flying through more air.

And that’s what these games do. They don’t need to muck around with minigames, or interludes, or pacing – they just serve up what’s on their stove in steadily increasing quantities until the player has some kind of culinary gaming orgasm.

If you’re making a hardcore action game, why on earth would you waste time on some half-assed platforming when you could be making the slice-and-dice festivities rock just that much harder? If leveling up is your goal, what possible use could there be in fumbling around in the world of dodgy rhythm-based extreme sports? Who wants a wide variety of mediocre instead of a single pinnacle of excellence?

It’s the traditional failing of movie license games, which feel the need to capture every element of a movie experience within a single game. It’s the failing of copycat games, which model themselves after a genre leader with no real ability to exceed the standards laid down by their predecessor. It’s the process by which good software is turned into unappealing crud.

I don’t need your hybrid gameplay. I don’t want my bloody haze of battle to rise while I navigate a platforming puzzle. Leave me to tremble in the ecstasy of non-stop over-the-top violence. I’m sure there must be a game out there like that.

Weren’t we due for another Dynasty Warriors game some time soon?

Ken Kutaragi Retires

Via Gamespot:

Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Ken Kutaragi is retiring June 19. He'll be fondly remembered as the intelligence behind the incredibly successful Playstation and Playstation 2, and not so fondly remembered as the man who shepherded the PSP and Playstation 3 towards their troubled and lackluster careers. He is to be replaced as CEO by Kazuo Hirai.

A Tale Of Two Tabloids

Sorry, I have to go into more detail here. Okay, so the Australian mainstream press decided to cover the Australian PS3 launch last night, right? Apparently the "big event" was held at the Sydney Myer store. The first customer to get their Aussie PS3 from the store was 31-year old Mr Danny Zarka, who from his name I adjudge to be a second-rate galactic despot, possibly slumming at the launch as part of a master plan to subjugate humanity.

Reputable news outlet AAP, always quick to cover a story, apparently interviewed High Warlord Zarka. According to national newspaper The Australian:

"I feel very privileged to be the first to buy a PlayStation 3 here tonight," Mr Zarka said.

Wow. It's like he's just been awarded a shiny, black, overpriced Key To The City. We're told it was given to him personally by Michael Ephraim (Managing Director Sony Computer Entertainment Australia) and Bernie Brooks (Myer CEO). I think possibly the console comes with an honorary knighthood, or suchlike.

But His Ruthlessness, Lord Zarka, apparently had more to say to the plebian masses. The Age reports:

The advertising executive from Pyrmont was shocked because he had arrived after 9pm, yet still found himself at the front of the queue.

"I'm surprised there aren't more people here, I thought the place would be packed," he said.

Which tells a somewhat different story of the event. The Age goes on:

Over 500 retailers around the country threw open their doors as the clock struck 12:00am, expecting the frenzy that accompanied the games console's overseas debuts.

But most stores were virtually deserted, despite the 20,000 pre-orders Sony said it had received.

Even at the official launch event held at Myer's Pitt Street store in Sydney's CBD and attended by Sony's local managing director, Michael Ephraim, media and security outnumbered PS3 fans until at least 11:00pm.

At midnight, about 40 PS3 buyers had arrived to collect their consoles, causing distress for the army of camera crews who turned up expecting to capture launch mayhem.

Desperate producers unashamedly asked the crowd to fake excitement when the cameras were rolling, while a team from 2Day FM let out bogus cheers to convince their radio listeners that a launch extravaganza was underway.

Ouch. Poor Sony. But what's really distressing here is the difference in the articles. If you read The Australian or news.com.au you'll find they both just swallowed the AAP story, that the launch was a roaring success. news.com.au somewhat distressingly tarted it up and passed it off as their own work despite using many of the same phrases. Was someone paid by Sony to make the bad launch look good? This isn't news - it's thinly disguised advertising.

I don't often have reason to give credit to the Age, but I'm glad at least one mainstream news service actually presented the full story here. Possibly when they're just so tired of punching nuns and kicking puppies that they need to take a break, they exhale quality journalism. Stranger things have happened. (Someone let Jhonen Vasquez make children's TV, for one.)

As for those other outlets - shame. I can only hope that after the inevitable bloody revolution, when Dark Lord Zarka calmly and majestically assumes his rightful throne, they'll be first against the wall.

Dragon Quest IX Exclusive To DS

Ever since Sony took a right turn onto Arrogant Lane and started proceeding down the lonely path to Bizarre Business Decision Village, I've been predicting that certain third party developers weren't going to be too excited about accompanying them on their pointless egocentric sidequest. In particular, I've been anticipating that Square-Enix were going to start getting out of bed with the PlayStation 3 to prevent it taking their valuable franchises in new and unprofitable directions.

(Don't make me dig up the posts; I'm tired and I have a head cold.)

So it comes as no surprise to me that Squeenix have announced that the next full-fledged Dragon Quest title (Dragon Quest IX) will be a Nintendo DS exclusive. Actually, it should come as no suprise to anyone that Square's second-best-selling series will be appearing on the world's best-selling console, but there it is.

If you're not Japanese, you might not grasp the significance, but Dragon Quest sells well enough over there to give Square's own Final Fantasy franchise a run for its money. It's effectively like saying Final Fantasy XIV will be coming only to the Wii. It's a big coup for Nintendo and a real kick in the nuts to Sony.

Full story via Gamespot.

UPDATE: Oh, and the Sydney Morning Herald (that bastion of accurate reporting and journalistic integrity) says it'll be taking advantage of the DS wireless to have multiplayer, allowing you to "embark on adventures with real friends" in what my imagination fervently hopes will be a throwback to Secret of Mana.

PSOne Games for PSP require PS3

That's a lot of uses of "PS" in the post-title. Huh.

Anyway, some time ago Sony promised us we'd be able to download and play original Playstation games on the PSP. The word is now in that (as I feared) the games can't be downloaded direct to the PSP - you have to obtain them through the Playstation 3 online service.

That's right, you have to own a Playstation 3 AND a PSP to download and play the games. Oh, and they could cost anywhere from $10 AUD to $30 AUD, depending on how much Sony feels like ripping us off. Plus, if you don't already have a memory stick for the PSP that holds at least 600 meg, you'll need to get one of those too.

If I wasn't enjoying the PSP port of Tales of Eternia so much right now I'd be tempted to call it a useless piece-of-#$!& doorstop. Dagnabbit.

Full story here via Gamespot.

Sony's Dave Karraker vs Gamasutra

Sony's new senior director of corporate communications, Dave Karraker, is talking to Gamasutra. They really take a piece out of him, too, pretty much calling him a liar to his face a couple of times. It's worth reading for the following reasons:

(a) To count how many well-remembered games he name-checks in the opening paragraph.
(b) The admission that he was hired in part due to his strengths in "crisis communications".
(c) The first signs of a turnaround in the PS3, back to it being about gamers, not media consumers.
(d) He describes Ken Kutaragi's comments about the PS3 at TGS as "technically right", and as something that needs to be "interpreted".

All nice to hear. If he's not quite Sony's answer to the Regginator, he's a step in the right direction, and probably something they could do with a lot more of. Which is all by way of warming you up for the bombshell - probably the most important news for Australians:

GS: I know that the PS3 is essentially region free – will the downloadable content also be available worldwide, or region specific?
DK: All of the online stores are region-specific, so that’ll dictate where you can download the games.

Which is to say, the PS3 online marketplace will be subject to the same Gestapo-like censorship, epic localisation delays and inane release decisions which plague our storefront retail market. So that's another thing to not look forward to. I guess my hopes of playing a legal copy of Chrono Cross or the original Parasite Eve have just been rudely dashed once again.

PS3 Backwards Compatibility

[News] [Computer Gaming]

So the PS3 isn't region free as far as backwards compatibility goes, it seems.

In the context of an article about Sony prosecuting companies illegally importing Sony products into the European Union, the following tidbit slipped out:

The company explained the reasoning behind this policy as trying to "protect" European consumers "from being sold hardware that does not conform to strict EU or UK consumer safety standards (due to voltage supply differences etc.), is not (in PS3's case) backwards compatible with either PS1 or PS2 software, will not play European Blu-ray movies or DVDs, and will not be covered by warranty."
- via Gamespot (emphasis added)

Well, that just sucks. So here I am with my plans for importing all those PS1 RPGs that never made it to Australia scuttled. It seems kind of... stupid. Looks like the mod chip market won't be dieing out after all.

Or, y'know, we can just keep hoping that this statement came from a marketing guy with no idea what he's talking about.

Sony's Online "Strategy"

[News] [Computer Gaming]

It's looking like another week of media disasters for Sony. News not only that replacing the batteries inside your PS3 controllers will require returning them to the factory, but also that Sony's online service looks uninspired and uninteresting.

First up, Sony aren't going to be implementing anything like Microsoft's incredibly successful XBox 360 Gamerscores. Sony have reported an intention to have no system for tracking accomplishments over multiple games. Some games may have game-specific achievements or high score tables but these will be up to the developers/publishers to implement and maintain.

I absolutely loved the Gamerscore system, and more than once it's almost motivated me to buy into the whole XBox milieu. It's been one of the most inspired ideas of this generation of consoles and I can't for the life of me understand why Sony wouldn't jump on this particular bandwagon. It's certainly not as if they're worried about being original this time around, what with their controller and all.

Speaking of which, Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg has been quick to jump in and brand the entire Sony online initiative as:
(a) basically the same thing that Sony did for the PS2, and
(b) a knockoff of XBox Live.
I'm not sure that those can both be true at the same time, but whatever.

Most of the news currently surfacing around the Sony online strategy comes from a recent press conference. Definitely the scene stealer at that event was the news that the first 500,000 PS3s would come with a copy of Talladega Nights on Blu-Ray, but amidst that show-stopping revelation were a few bits and pieces of substance.

It seems the PS3 will be having none of this "points" nonsense when it comes to their marketplace. Purchase prices will be in real dollars and cents, so you can get a good appreciation of exactly how overpriced Oblivion horse armour really is.

Downloadable games will be priced at "under" $14.99 US, which is to say that it's probably still cheaper to buy real games second-hand than to use the download service. Some of those games, though, will apparently be made by the likes of God of War developer David Jaffe, so there's probably going to be some pearls in amongst the swine. There'll also be original PlayStation games of the likes of MediEvil and Syphon Filter - one can hope there'll be some really good games in there, too.

Developers can also build the online store directly into games, so that you can buy stuff from within the game user interface. No real word on whether that's going to require an intrusive standardised format much like the PSP save game mechanism, or whether we'll have the store system working completely differently from game to game.

Whatever you do choose to download from the Sony marketplace, you can download to up to five other PS3s without paying additional money. I'm not sure if these downloads will have some sort of lockout so you can only actually play one at a time, but if not I suspect that if I end up with a PS3 I'm going to end up giving five of my friends a bunch of free stuff.

You can also then access what you've downloaded to your PS3 via your PSP (assuming you have one). I'm assuming this is going to occur wirelessly in some fashion. I'm hoping that this isn't the only way for PSP owners to obtain the much touted original PlayStation games for portable play, but with Sony as it is I wouldn't be surprised.

You can also apparently hook up a keyboard to your PS3, to which I can only say thank Jeebers, as the console's internet functionality would otherwise be a tad shallow. No real word on how well this might be supported in games, particularly online ones, but if I know Sony I strongly suspect the answer is "this will be up to the individual developers".

Anyway, it basically boils down to the fact that Sony doesn't seem to have learned anything whatsoever from Microsoft's online success with the XBox 360. There's no real leadership emerging in terms of creating an integrated, well-supported marketplace, and the focus really seems to be more on pushing Sony's film and media agenda than it does on making something that will draw in and hook consumers.

All in all, if you've experienced the wonders of using your PSP as a media center and internet browser, then I think it's safe to say you've already had a taste of what to look forward to with the PS3. You poor suckers.