Comments on: Will Killzone 2 spur PS3 sales?

One criticism of the PS3 has been there just aren't enough enticing exclusive titles to make you want to buy the system. Well, Sony now has one with Killzone 2, which is getting rave reviews. But will it move boxes?

[smpte11]

The facts are: Sony does not have a good marketing plan for the PS3, they don't have enough exclusive titles that have to potential to draw customers and simply, the console is just plain too expensive.

Take the Wii (the clear winner in terms on sales for that generation): they had the best marketing campain of all. Simple. Effective. Well targeted. The message was simpe: everyone can have fun. It appealed to mothers, fathers, children, grand mothers, teens. Everyone. And it is agressively priced. Proof? Again, check the sales.

The Xbox 360 (second leader...lets all face it): Higher price tag. Yeah, true. But again, it is a console that has targeted a clear audience: teens and late teens. Another effective strategy in marketing is to focus on a definite audience that you are being sure its going to buy your product. Apple succeeds with 5 to 10% of the market, which they are sure they are going to buy their product, and they try to appeal to other audiences. It may seems like a very broad parallel (and it is), but thats how it works.

The PS3: as far as I'm concerned, I cannot really find a definite niche for this product. Its an awesome Blu-Ray player plus a very (insanely?) capable gaming machine. How come its not selling. A big problem with Sony is convergence. Sony is an immense corporation: it has a movie division, a gaming one, a computer one, etc. Let say you're a gamer: you want to buy a console to play games. Are you really interested in the Blu-Ray drive? Maybe, but you definatly are more into games, so why pay for the Blu-ray drive? The inverse is also possible. This may seems a bit extreme, but people are brought down by that. Now you bought one. Congratulation! But you are one of the majority who does not posses an HDTV. Can you read the Blu-Rays? Can you play games in hight definition? No! You need the Bravia HDTV (that's what Sony wants). I you don't even have the surround system (cause your gaming console can play game in 5.1 surround sound right?). So now, do you really need the Blu-Ray...or the wi-fi (assuming you have a router at home). Can you really enjoy the full potential of the console? You could say so about the other companies (which is true, they sell a product to make money, they will try to sell you other stuff to make more). But Microsoft does not produce HDTVs, just like Nintendo. Making a convergence product is really bad marketing, cause you don't appeal fully to all audiences. Even more when the product is badly priced.

Which brings me down to the actual game. Killzone looks awesome. Really. And I'm gonna try it for sure. But simple question: does it have the marketing potential like...lets say...Halo 3? Mario? Not really. Does the most recognizable character of the game (the Helgasts, which by the way, are not original AT ALL...see the anime Jin-Roh) has as much public appeal thant Master Cheif or that Plumber everyone knows about? Surely they don't. Killzone 2 is a great game, but not as marketable as other quality blockbusters!

I know some arguments may seems weak, but try to go over the process of bringing a product to the market, you'll see Sony failed blatently with the PS3 (unlike the father and grand father).

That said, I really look forward to play Killzone. But I won't buy a PS3 for this game.

Sadly for Sony, I think the system seller opportunity was Little Big Planet. That was a great game, and if they had coordinated it with a price cut they would have moved a lot of systems. What's killing the PS3 now is that BluRay players are now cheaper than the PS3, which isn't going to change since Sony is basically fighting against itself (one division wants to sell as many BluRay disks as possible while another division wants to sell as many PS3s as possible for as much as possible).

I own a PS3 and a 360, and considered buying KillZone 2 but decided to just rent it from GameFly instead. The Sony online experience is just not as good as the 360 experience. Little things like I can't go online with a friend split-screen on PS3 while we both have Bluetooth headsets (the 360 lets me have up to 4 wireless headsets) which is my favorite way to play. The matchmaking on PS3 games is very inconsistent and I'm usually mismatched one way or the other, while the 360 is outstanding at pairing me up with similarly skilled players. It's little things like that which make the 360 games more long-lasting. Even the mighty Little Big Planet I mentioned earlier, which was supposed to be Sony's "killer" online experience is just laggy as hell with 4 people online and I have fiber optic Internet. Very sad compared to the consistently great online play I get on my 360.

So, I'll play KillZone 2 because I have a PS3 already and I can rent it. I'll then return it and go back to playing 360 games online. Would I have bought a PS3 just for KillZone 2? No way. They'll have another shot with God of War III though. THAT should be a system seller (IF they lower the price to under $300).

[brettak81]

you're all kidding yourselves. system specs or blu-rays or game libraries or exclusive titles or processign power don't sell consoles. people buy consoles that are affordable and can afford. it's that simple. ps3 isn't affordable right now for most. the wii is. do you see the idea?

[pghcraig1]

The below info is wrong. You need to buy the HD-DVD drive for $50 to get that function.

The Xbox 360 upscales DVDs to 1080p High Definition and makes them look amazing. It can also playback the sadly defeated HD DVD format, but buying those movies is still worth it, considering you can grab them for as low as $2 on ebay, and they look and sound just like Blu Ray movies. There are many to own considering above 500 titles were released before HD DVD lost.

[pooyan69]

Bundle KZ2 with the PS3 model of their choice and drop the pricw by $100 and sales would increase across the board.
Otherwise you will witness the same type of sales increase the PS3 enjoyed when another hyped promise game hit the PS3: MGS4...
And console sales barely moved for the PS3 above its normal selling rate per month.
The PS3 needs a price cut. Nothing else will help it move consoles other then this

[not2worried]

Drop the price.....

[Shibusuke]

I would just like to point out that a "Halo" effect is actually, in the academic sense, a term that describes positive spillover effects within a product category (e.g., "Halo is awesome, so other X-Box games are awesome"). So while the Halo effect exists (and the term did not originate with Halo the game!), that's not quite what it means. Though to be perfectly honest, I know exactly what you meant and think that it's completely legitimate :P

[LOGANslade]

The PS3 is a great system and I personaly think its worth the money. I bought mine when they were $400 and I like it way better than the Xbox 360. My friend has a 360 and I play have played his but Im glad I went with the PS3 instead of the 360. Killzone 2 is not a good enough game to make PS3 sales go up though. It might help a little bit but not enough to get Sony where they want to be with their sales. If they would make the price mabey $50-75 higher than the 360, the sales would be way highr. But as for the price of them right now, its not looking good.

[windbender]

PS3, with its integral Blu-Ray player and wealth of other features, is worth every nickle - I own two, along with a 360 Elite. I was absolutely married to PC gaming until the PS3/Resistance came along. Couldn't justify plunking down the bucks for a 360, just to play Halo2 and I certainly wasn't about to enter Vista-hell just to play it on my PC. Eventually, Gears and Halo3 combined with the failure of HDDVD to produce a drop in price that made it less offensive.

As for gameplay - Killzone2 is beautiful, but it's not superior to Gears2. They are both truly outstanding.

[ramsinghani4]

well here is my assessment of both the consoles

1)price

well i bought my 360(refurbished) about 7 months ago for 200$ with a 20 gb hard drive, 100$ for my wifi adapter, plus 50$ for warranty (given the high rate of failure), along with that a 1 year xbox life gold subscription for 50$, so in the end i ended up shelling about 400$ on a xbox 360.

well i just recently bought a used PlayStation 3 with a 40 gb hard drive for about 360$ with inbuilt wifi, free one year warranty and no subscriptions(free online play)

and when you take the blu-ray drive into consideration then the odds significantly favor play station 3 (given that a good blu-ray player can cost anywhere between two to three hundred dollars.)

well price wise play station 3 is a way better console.

2)Quality and design

well when it comes to quality and design of the console, play station 3 wins hands down given the high rate of failure when it comes to xbox 360. i have heard that Microsoft has tweaked the new system and has had significant success when it comes to dealing with this problem however the console still has major issues which have been neglected in the face of the ring of death.
well my x box 360 gave up in a couple of weeks, i had to go back and switch my console at game stop and the employee suggested me to buy warranty in case i have further problems after my 30 day period. that also shows how much faith the employees of game stop have when it comes to reliability of x box 360 console.

3)game's availability
well when it comes to games, xbox360 has a pretty big arsenal but we also have to take into consideration the fact that play station 3 was launched a year after x box 360 and the console is yet to reach its pinnacle and most of the game i play are available on both the consoles and when it comes to exclusive content the only few standout exclusives for x box 360 are halo3 and gear of war(1 & 2)
well PlayStation 3 has also managed to pull out few big exclusives like metal gear solid4, littlebigplanet and recently kill zone 2(the reason why i bought this console)

4)accessories and gadget
well i like the play station 3 dual shock 3 controller better then the 360 controller(the latter being bulky but it depends on person to person)and i also love the wireless keyboard makes surfing so easy on PlayStation 3. well so both consoles are pretty even when it comes to accessories but when you put the ultimate psp gadget in the picture then all odds fall in favor of the playstation 3.

4)leagcy
well i am a big fan of Microsoft and my favorite strategy game is the age of empires 3 made by ensemble studio owned by Microsoft but in recent times the company is pushing to hard to in every direction sacrificing the quality of its products(for example the security glitches in the new internet explorer) whereas i don't own many products by Sony and cant make any assumptions but Sony has definitely been committed to its old consoles like PlayStation 2 and psp and they are not as greedy as Microsoft at least when it comes to online play lol.

anyways i own both consoles and that is my opinion, on technical grounds both consoles are capable of running extreme graphics with play station 3 having a slight advantage....personally i would stick play station 3 any day instead of 360.

[NedleyVargar]

I have a problem when people try to compare PS3 with an Xbox 360 and every addon they can think of. I have nephews who save there money from doing yard work. They can't save up enough to get a PS3, it was much easier to get $199 for an Xbox 360. Add the $30 60GB Hard Drive and they're good to go. Every house in my area has Cat5 jacks in the houses, so who needs WiFi that can fade in and out depending on interference. PS3 has a lot of start value, but 360 has the most variable value, which appeals to more market strata.

As for Blu-ray. I have seen it and it's just as good as the HD DVD I bought (cries). My problem with it, and the problem I had with HD DVD, is that I don't want to spend $30 on a movie I can only watch in one room. I have 8 TV's with DVD in my house, my laptop, my car DVD, my portable DVD. I can't play a Blu-ray on any of those. With HD DVD my son will ask to watch Shrek the 3rd in his room, "sorry buddy that's in HD DVD." It's just so limiting.

I will go Blu-ray, when they decide to make them $15-$20 and include a copy of the DVD with it, or the players are $50 bucks and I can start to upgrade them around the house.

[callum82]

Umm, not to state the obvious, but why wasn't Metal Gear Solid 4 mentioned as an exclusive for the PS3 that virtually everyone agreed was one of the BEST games of 2008 (and many said was the absolute best)???

[W1gglesnarf]

killzone2 is okay.. and god stop writing these stupid articles, there is never any real facts just crazed fan garbage.

[tjjm69]

Well, I'm not a Huge gamer or anything, but i'd like to at least give my opinion on my system. I own the 60gb PS3 which I consider to be the best PS3 system by far. The capabilities of this system are much more than just for games. Umm for those of you that don't know the PS3 also streams netflix accounts along with a HULU interface,and ESPN. A Playon account will give you this. Through the playon account any movie I add to my instant queue moves directly to my PS3, also the HULU interface streams thousands of movies and shows that I watch instantly. Wildboys, family guy, rocky 4, office, all seemingly stream right through my PS3. Another great interface is TVersity which allows me to wirelessly stream anything (Video, Pics,Music, Porn) right to this great machine. Another awesome feature I've taken avantage of is adding a terabyte external HD to the system, then adding my entire DVD collection (450 dvds) in DivX format to this drive which turns my PS3 into a Movie Jukebox. Adding an A-Z folder selection filled with movies is the effin bomb. You cannot beat this. I am very impressed with games. PSHome may be cool once it evolves. Did I mention Blu-Ray. Don't knock PS3 because you can't afford it, I definitely KNOW it beats the Xbox360 by far.I also own a Wii, besides the BAGS game i downloaded (which f'n rules) I rarely turn the thing on. PS3 rocks and if you don't agree then I guess you're a jackass, because the capabilties this gives as a "gaming system" far surpass those of a X360.

[billg1969]

Yes, as a matter of fact. I have been on the fence about buying a PS3 or standalone Blu-ray player. After watching the promo and game play vids of Killzone 2, it pushed me over the edget to go with the PS3!

[chuck_nasty]

Let me preface this by saying I am NOT slamming the Xbox.
I do not like FPS's, I am terrible at them since I am not fast enough and they make me ill with the screen view (yes, I am old). I don't like playing alone and despise playing online as I get tired of getting killed so quickly and worse getting tea-bagged by a 12 year-old whipper-snapper. The reason I own a PS3 and not an Xbox is because the Xbox exclusives seem to be FPS's overwhelmingly. I will not buy KZ2 and I pray that the PS3 keeps the number of FPS's to a limited and polished few to appeal to people that have more agile thumbs and a stronger stomach than I do but maintains a strong and diverse group of exclusives like LBP, Uncharted2, GoW3 and MGS4.
I guess my point is that I am happy people like KZ2 but I live in dread of the PS3 tweaking its library to mimic the Xbox and having all games of the future be FPS's with a strong on-line aspect. I think the current situation works well as people can choose there system based on game preference.

selam

[daggerborn]

Why are so many people arguing about how the 360 is more expensive after you buy optional accessories? Okay so maybe that is true to some degree but what you have to remember is that these things are options. The only thing the 360 really doesn't have is Blu-Ray Support. I have both but I can see the value in having optional add-ons instead of forcing you to take them. When you buy a PS3 the pricetag you pay is forced because of all the technology that you might not even need. Not everyone cares about having wi-fi or a blu-ray player or even having a bigger hard drive. Every one of the options available for the 360 is option anyway and purely optional. There is some value in giving consumers options though instead of making them bound to the price tag because of hardware they might not even need or want.

[osolumbr]

So what about MGS4? The best looking game out there? Best story? What the heck. Do you all agree. Or have you even played it? Google it!

[osolumbr]

http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/adventure/metalgearsolid4/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;read-review

All about MGS4