Why the PS3 Move is exciting

There’s a small bit of excitement about the PS3 Move motion controller.  People say it’s not as interesting as Microsoft’s Natal, but game devs and users seem excited about its precision.  It will be interesting to see all the ways in which Move gets used in games.  The hack and slash genre should see some benefits, for sure.

But I think it’s also exciting for a reason that one of the Sony execs (I forget which) mentioned: consoles have thus far lacked pointer functionality.  There are games that are made for the PC, like a variety of strategy games, that are never made for consoles mainly because PCs have an accurate mouse pointer, and consoles lack such a pointer.  I hope the Move means some great pointer based strategy games can be released for the PS3.

I for one would love to play Age of Empires on the PS3 — a pipe dream, I know, because Age of Empires is a Microsoft product.  However, in spite of my dislike for Microsoft these days, I think Age of Empires is one of the greatest games ever made.   So hopefully, we will see a lot of strategy games that were not previously possible being made for the PS3!

Poor Bioshock 2 sales

Here’s an interesting article from PC World magazine:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/191385/bioshock_2_cleans_up_xbox_360_overtakes_wii_in_february_game_sales.html

There’s the usual misleading headline (the PS3 actually outsold the 360 worldwide in Feb and has been for several months running; the article only focused on the US but neglected to mention that in the headline).  But the interesting thing about this article is that Bioshock 2 X360 sales are MUCH higher than Bioshock 2 PS3 sales. Almost 4 times the sales on the X360, compared to the PS3.  What could the reason be?

It’s my feeling that people are buying Bioshock 2 based on how much they loved the original Bioshock.  If there are a lot of Bioshock fans on a console, Bioshock 2 will sell well too.  This is a common pattern in videogames; franchise fans tend to be more numerous on one console or another: RE5, FFXIII are other examples.

When it was first released on the X360, there was a general paucity of quality games for this generation of consoles.  Also, the PS3 had not yet hit its stride with even the first Uncharted yet to be released.  So in comparison to everything else that was available at that time, Bioshock was a fantastic game.  The fact that it was exclusive made it all the more attractive to X360 owners.  (This is a standard feature of games on any console this generation.)  Thus began a love story between X360 fans and the Bioshock series.

Fast forward to late 2008, more than a year later, when Bioshock was released for the PS3.  By then, several real high-quality games had been released into the market, and PS3 exclusives like Uncharted had set the bar for both storytelling and production values really, really high.  When Bioshock was released for the PS3, it was a middling-good game.  Fun, but not exceptional.  The graphics were quite poor relatively.  Many better games were available.  So the PS3 crowd didn’t fawn over it or get starry-eyed about it.  So, by releasing it much later on the PS3, studio 2K shot themselves in the foot.  They could have had a second fanbase by releasing it simultaneously on the PS3, but they missed the train and there are few PS3 fans.

There are other reasons too.  Coming off a year-long game famine in 2009, where X360 fans had far fewer good games to play than PS3 fans, the pent-up hunger might be feeding sales to some extent.  2010 has had a good start for X360 owners, with ME2.  OTOH, PS3 owners had a glut of great games in 2009, and are already experiencing another similar flood in 2010.  In March, for example, PS3 owners have 3 huge games: Heavy Rain, FFXIII and GoW 3.  With limited amounts of money in each gamer’s hand, this means we should expect sales for each game to be lower on the PS3 due to all the within-console competition.

Having said all that, it is unfortunate that Bioshock 2 had lower sales.  This may turn out to be a problem: hopefully 2K don’t get the feeling it’s not worthwhile developing on the PS3!

The Real Apocalyps3

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Brutus to Cassius, Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224

A.k.a, strike with the iron is hot, when the moment is right etc. Why is there a dearth of PS3s in this, the biggest month in Sony gaming history? Maybe the biggest month in gaming history — with Heavy Rain, FFXIII and GoW III? Sony are trying their best to lose this race!