I disagree, it's one of the reasons why a game won't sell but lack of advertising, limited prints (on occasion), smaller console sales all contribute to low game sales.
None of which apply to ICO and SoTC. They were both released when the PS2 had sold tens of millions. They also had plenty of exposure, with their (very small) cult like following and Sony going the distance and sending out demo discs to PSU members, posters, coupons, etc.
Games like SoTC didn't sell well because they're in a niche market. A game that relies on exploration alone isn't going to do brilliantly on the market. Add in an RPG system, enemies and exploration and you have a more capable game (such as Monster Hunter). What a lot of these "popular" Sony games (SoTC, Ico, Echochrome, Flow) do is strip down the gameplay to its core components. Which just gives the game a mini, cult like following.
You can make all of the excuses you want. ICO and SoTC had tons of exposure from their small fanbase (word of mouth), reviews, and Sony sending out the demo discs and such.
ICO and SoTC didn't sell well simply because they were bad games.
Well that basically sums up your logic in regard to everything... utterly flawed.
Translation: I lost and now I'm trying to turn this around on you.
Yeah I'm done feeding you.....majority of Insomniac IPs are Sony publish games.
If you had actually read my post, you'd know that I said that Sony owns the rights to games Insomniac develops, so they cannot take those games or characters with them should they choose to leave.
I was simply stating that Insomniac is INDEPENDENT and Ted Price has made it EXTREMELY clear that if they are not happy with Sony that they will go elsewhere.
I thought Metal Gear Solid 4 was amazing. Much better than GTA4 (which I'm a little upset I bought into the hype and spent my money on).
Well, everyone and their brother disagrees with you. GTA4 continues to sell steady and well, while MGS4 sales have already dropped significantly.
I loved the first MGS game. When I got my PS2, MGS2 was one of the first games I tried out. Thankfully, I only rented it. I played something like 6 hours into it and I remember spending nearly half that time watching the game rather than playing. The situation repeated with MGS3. And now everyone, even the hardcore fans, are saying you spend at least half of the game watching rather than playing. On top of that, Konami wouldn't let reviewers discuss the outrageous lengths and amounts of cutscenes.
I'm sorry, but I want to play games. I don't want to watch some glorified half-rate sci-fi CG anime flim when I can't stand anime to begin with.
These other games that you mention aren't that great in my opinion. Gears of War did nothing more than anger me all the time. I kept getting stuck to walls when I didn't want to. I have to hand it to the developers though, that game sure was pretty.
Well, thats your opinion. Fortunately, everyone disagrees with you.
Halo 3, for me at least, is the pinnacle example of a game that sold well, but wasn't that great. The multiplayer just isn't as fun as other games. When my friends get together to play games, we always play Halo online for only one reason - you are allowed to play 4 player split screen online. If Call of Duty 4 had this feature, Halo 3 would be sitting on the shelf collecting dust. There's been many occasions when all of us get together and watch each other play Call of Duty instead of playing Halo because it is so much more fun.
I don't know about you, but I think everyone else over the age of 18 has better things to do than get together and play videogames all day.
Halo 3 had a better story than Call of Duty 4 (which falls apart after the "Shock and Awe" stage), the gameplay was all around better.
Let me ask you, do you believe that sales constitute quality in everything?
It depends on the situation. Videogames cost a lot of money for what little you get out of them. People aren't going to just throw around $50-$60 on something that is crap. Hence the reason good games sell and bad games don't.
Well, if you realistically look at Windows, it is better than OS X. And yes I am using my Mac right now. OS X does look nice and has a couple of nice features. Installing software is generally easier, but more and more software has Windows style installers and uninstallers. With OS X you generally have to spend twice as much on a computer that gives you less hardware than one costing half as much (or even less in the case of the Mac Pro). Windows will run on nearly anything. Windows has features that OS X doesn't, like system wide hardware acceleration for video playback, which means blu-ray discs can play on any low end system with dedicated or integrated graphics that can do bitstream decoding of H.264 video.
Look at my MacBook and HP. Apple replaced my first MacBook with this one last September. It was the middle white MacBook. 2.16GHz C2D, 1GB of RAM, 120GB HDD, "SuperDrive", and Intel GMA 950. After taxes it would cost $1406 in California (which is what my first system cost a few months earlier. A couple of weeks later in October I got the HP I have now. For $900 I had a 2GHz C2D, 2GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, DVD writer, GeForce 8400M GS, full size ExpressCard slot with ExpressCard TV tuner and remote (controls DirecTV, Dish, and digital cable boxes), fingerprint reader, memory card reader, firewire, USB, VGA, HDMI (HDCP certified I might add), S-Video, etc.
Now the difference is even greater. You can head over to HP and get their dv5z. 2.2GHz Turion Ultra (every bit as fast as the Core 2 Duo is now), AMD "Puma" platform with dedicated graphics (and hybrid crossfire mode to take advantage of the integrated GPU, giving the setup better 3D performance than the MacBook Pro), 3GB of RAM, 160 or 250GB HDD depending on the week, 1680x1050 15.4" glass screen, etc for around $1,000. For $200 more you get blu-ray.
So yes, overall, Windows PCs are better than Macs. Don't give me that "malware" crap either. I've been using Windows for more than a decade and a half and I have never had a virus. The only "spyware" you generally get on a regular basis is tracking cookies that you get with Firefox and Safari as well. Don't give me "driver issues" either. The only driver issue I ever had was right after XP came out, I wanted to see if my years old scanner would work. It didn't. Simple as that. Quality hardware does not have driver issues. Besides, I like getting constant driver updates from nvidia that improve my performance. My GeForce 8400M GS pushes UT3 smoother at higher settings now than it did at the games launch thanks to driver updates.
What about the legions of movies that make millions in the box office, but turned out to be absolute crap?
And what makes them crap exactly? Because some holier than thou critic says so? Or because some internet nerds that try to pass themselves as film buff say they're crap?
One thing you and most people on the internet seem to forget is that opinions on forums, such as yours, do not reflect what real people and the real majority feel. If the opinions of internet nerds everywhere actually reflected real world opinion, then Miyamoto would have God-like standing among everyone, everyone would love Nintendo games, every piece of music that isn't made by some "independent artist" in a garage recording music with a cheap microphone and an iBook would be crap, Europeans would hate Americans (quite the opposite, I have many European friends that like American people just hate our government, much the same way they like eachother but hate their governments as well), and we'd all have mobile phones and MP3 players that run Linux. I could go on and on about the ridiculous things that people who post on forums hold true and dear to their heart, but I don't have that much time.
But thankfully, your opinion and many others are in a very very small, yet overly vocal minority.
Anyway, back to movies. Just because you (and other people on the internet) think the movies are crap does not mean they are.
You and countless others seem to forget that people go to the movies or watch movies to be ENTERTAINED.
While you may think something like.. oh, I don't know, the Day After Tomorrow is crap, millions of others found it to be entertaining. And if millions found it entertaining and it made more money than you and your descendants 20 generations from now will ever see combined, then that means it was a good movie and it did what it was supposed to do, entertain people.
Does the fact that McDonalds serves billions mean they have the best food?
Nobody is going to say McDonalds has the best food. However, they are the best in the industry because you can walk in with less than $3.50 and walk out not even 10 minutes later with a full meal.
Do you still play with your POGs?
Pogs are worth a lot of money to the right people. Which means they're still good
Your other points are all spot on. I'm not one of the "indie" mindset that means anything that sells well is mainstream drivel, but to say that anything that doesn't sell massively is no good - that's just incredibly absurd.
Nobody said anything about "massive sales". ICO and SoTC failed to even sell a reasonable amount. If Team ICO was owned by any other company, they would have been disbanded long ago. But Sony keeps them around because they know that they'll attract the people who will pay absurd prices for the PS3.
I dont remember anyone being excited about heavenly sword or lair. There was a lot of skepticism towards those games. Most people could tell that they were just cheap launch quality games, there was nothing special about them at all. LBP on the other hand is being talked about everywhere, its one of the most anticipated games of the year and everyone has loved what theyve played of it so far. It has people who hate Sony even taking notice. LBP is a major GOTY contender, not a piece of crap made to fill in dry spells like HS and Lair.
Wow, you must not have been online at all a year ago.
Before Heavenly Sword and Lair were released, nearly every PS3 owner was foaming at the mouth in rabid anticipation of those two titles. Those two titles alone were hyped up to be the turning point in the "war" that took the steam away from the Xbox360 and finally put the PS3 on top.
I remember going to gaming forums and reading about how excited everyone was for those two titles. How they couldn't wait and how they would both be the first two great games for the PS3.
Then they came out and they were massive failures and disappointments.
Now a year later, people try to downplay them.
I guess Sony's fans like to go back on their word and position much the same way Sony does with their hardware features and promises
As raggedjimmi said, last year it was all about "just wait for this game" on the PS3. And those games happened to be Lair and Heavenly Sword. When one came out and disappointed, it turned to waiting for the next one. Then when that disappointed, everyone turned their attention to Ratchet and Clank. Which is kind of funny because, even though it was successful on the PS2, nobody ever really paid attention to it. But since it was all the PS3 had going for it until MGS4, everyone hyped it up. Then it failed to live up to expectations too, so it turned to "just wait for MGS4!"
The PS3 truly is this generations Nintendo64 and GameCube. With those two consoles you had the fanboys always saying "just wait for this to come out!" Then "it" finally came out and after a couple of weeks it was back to "I can't wait for this to come out!" again. But with the Xbox360 you have an entire library of good recent games, good games on the horizon, and countless good games from the last couple of years.
All you have on the PS3 is endless disappointing exclusives and watered down ports that the PS3 can't run properly because of the horrible architecture.
