If I were in charge of the PlayStation division of Sony, I’d be feeling pretty good about myself right now. According to Gamasutra, more and more consumers seem to be buying up the hotly anticipated sequels to Assassin’s Creed and Modern Warfare on the PS3 as opposed to the X-Box 360.
Gamasutra’s article focuses on something called “franchise lineage”, which for us laymen is “gamer intent to purchase sequels to successful games”. The direction of the lineage seems to be changing for Assassin’s Creed 2, which shows the biggest shift. According to GamePlan Insights, the company that ran the research, fifteen percent of those who own the X-Box version plan to buy it on PS3 while only seven percent of PS3 Assassin’s Creed owners are purchasing Assassin’s Creed II on the X-Box.
While Assassin’s Creed II seems to be in the forefront of this movement, the report also indicated that Modern Warfare 2 shows a varying trend as well. The big question is this, though: why is the X-Box 360 losing sequel sales to its competitor?
It could be speculated that the new marketing push for Sony’s PS3, coming of the exceptional sales of the Slim model, is really striking a cord with the consumer, prompting more of those sitting on the fence to snap up the console. Other reasons may be that, in the case of MW2, access to multiplayer without paying a fee could be an important feature.
Personally, I feel that Sony’s efforts to change their public face these past few months have been kind of remarkable. The new commercials are actually pretty humorous, and the “It Only Does Everything” slogan is very effective.
Now for the “ask the audience” portion of the article, so have your responses ready! What systems are you buying these two hot Fall titles for, and why do you think the franchise lineage for these two titles is undergoing a change?
Source: Gamasutra
I was planning to get a ps3 with my new 46″ but decided to stick with PC… even though MW2 won’t support dedicated servers is a mighty blow.
I feel that it’s too much trouble to relearn all of the controls again when you’re already so damn good at the first console you picked. The people who voted certainly don’t empathize with my reason as they feel to switch consoles. I can see the reason why more people are switching to PS3…: though there are more people playing on the 360, the PS3 offers free online play and better visuals. These two points have been Sony’s main selling point for their product for a while… and now it’s the same price as the 360 Elite.
And I must agree with you on Sony’s new advert direction. Did you see the ‘Mon Tage’ one? It’s pretty hilarious; not that the others aren’t already. I feel that Kevin Butler, (the new ad guy), is my new hero, (though he’s actually fictional… I googled.)
As someone who’s console experience ends at SNES and N64, I may be best suited to answer “The big question is this, though: why is the X-Box 360 losing sequel sales to its competitor?”
People are realizing 3 things.
A. Why pay for internets twice?
B. People are moving from DVD to Blue Ray – new price point+ future proofing
C. PS controllers are far more comfortable and excellent. Yes, excellence is a reasonable answer.
I have a simple answer: 120 million people bought a PS2.
About 20 million bought an Xbox.
People are pretty loyal when it comes to their consoles.
The price was the only thing stopping the PS3’s growth. Now that it isn’t such a factor, Sony might start kicking ass again.
Unless they screw it up.
Great article, Mitch.
PS3 All the way. I’ve yet to really take Microsoft seriously since inception. Though admittedly that’s because I don’t appreciate the games, not because I wouldn’t consider their console if they had a game I wanted.
For the record, I have neither console, so I can’t say which game I’d buy if I had both or if it would even matter to me.
Yeah I really think it’s because more people own PS3’s than they have earlier in this generation. There’s more reason for people to buy it on the console they play more, and if that’s the PS3, now that Sony is catching up, that totally makes sense.
TBH I have no idea! Though Anthony’s Thoerom (kinda like Pythagoras’ Thoerom, but more interesting) makes sense. This can only be a good thing as now Sony have these new customers they’ll have to keep them on their good side so maybe they’ll have the incentive to give us MOAR STUFZ like a party-esque system plz? lol
I dont have xbox live Gold cause it costs money. So i kinda wish i had a ps3 so i could play my games to their full extent.
What?! I just bought a 360! I guess it figures that the moment I buy something everyone jumps ship 🙁
So…does this mean people will play Bayonetta 2 on the PS3?
PC for both, even though MW2 won’t have dedicated servers.
The price was probably the initial problem with the PS3. Now that there’s a cheaper version, which I think (this is in no way based on facts) still has better stats than the XBOX360, it only makes sense to buy games on that version. Not to mention that PSN is free, and XBL is not.