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Final Fantasy IX marks Squaresoft’s latest epic game. Its development team’s size is only matched by that of Shenmue’s team, and Squaresoft even employed Psychologists to make the game as emotional as possible. Even the size of the team in charge of writing the game’s story line competes in numbers against some development houses. All this culminates in a brilliant game that has taken years of work and, more importantly, cost a packet to make.
Squaresoft calculated that in order to break even the company would need to sell about 1.6 million copies- not a great amount when compared to the success of prior games in the series. No doubt the game has already made a huge profit on the Playstation format. However, on the PS2 there is a distinct lack of software sales. Many games do not sell more than 500,000 copies- the best games only selling about 600,000. This will mean that, unless this trend of poor software sales is brought to an end, many publishers may find that their profits are severely hampered- with some losing money.
Of course, some people will argue that the poor sales are a result of poor games- once good games come out the format will prosper. However, this increase in sales will need marketing drives for games- something that small publishers can simply not afford. Even the biggest publishers will find reduced profits, and this may mean that in future some may reconsider their takes on the N-Cube and X-box.
One thing remains clear at this stage though. Many companies have put so much money into PS2 development that they can’t pull out now. But, as some are now seeing, the X-box seems to have everything the original Playstation had, and Microsoft’s newly formed Japanese arm claims that the company has support from big names in the industry. Roll on Autumn 2001.
Rav
Squaresoft calculated that in order to break even the company would need to sell about 1.6 million copies- not a great amount when compared to the success of prior games in the series. No doubt the game has already made a huge profit on the Playstation format. However, on the PS2 there is a distinct lack of software sales. Many games do not sell more than 500,000 copies- the best games only selling about 600,000. This will mean that, unless this trend of poor software sales is brought to an end, many publishers may find that their profits are severely hampered- with some losing money.
Of course, some people will argue that the poor sales are a result of poor games- once good games come out the format will prosper. However, this increase in sales will need marketing drives for games- something that small publishers can simply not afford. Even the biggest publishers will find reduced profits, and this may mean that in future some may reconsider their takes on the N-Cube and X-box.
One thing remains clear at this stage though. Many companies have put so much money into PS2 development that they can’t pull out now. But, as some are now seeing, the X-box seems to have everything the original Playstation had, and Microsoft’s newly formed Japanese arm claims that the company has support from big names in the industry. Roll on Autumn 2001.
Rav
Final Fantasy IX marks Squaresoft’s latest epic game. Its development team’s size is only matched by that of Shenmue’s team, and Squaresoft even employed Psychologists to make the game as emotional as possible. Even the size of the team in charge of writing the game’s story line competes in numbers against some development houses. All this culminates in a brilliant game that has taken years of work and, more importantly, cost a packet to make.
Squaresoft calculated that in order to break even the company would need to sell about 1.6 million copies- not a great amount when compared to the success of prior games in the series. No doubt the game has already made a huge profit on the Playstation format. However, on the PS2 there is a distinct lack of software sales. Many games do not sell more than 500,000 copies- the best games only selling about 600,000. This will mean that, unless this trend of poor software sales is brought to an end, many publishers may find that their profits are severely hampered- with some losing money.
Of course, some people will argue that the poor sales are a result of poor games- once good games come out the format will prosper. However, this increase in sales will need marketing drives for games- something that small publishers can simply not afford. Even the biggest publishers will find reduced profits, and this may mean that in future some may reconsider their takes on the N-Cube and X-box.
One thing remains clear at this stage though. Many companies have put so much money into PS2 development that they can’t pull out now. But, as some are now seeing, the X-box seems to have everything the original Playstation had, and Microsoft’s newly formed Japanese arm claims that the company has support from big names in the industry. Roll on Autumn 2001.
Rav
Squaresoft calculated that in order to break even the company would need to sell about 1.6 million copies- not a great amount when compared to the success of prior games in the series. No doubt the game has already made a huge profit on the Playstation format. However, on the PS2 there is a distinct lack of software sales. Many games do not sell more than 500,000 copies- the best games only selling about 600,000. This will mean that, unless this trend of poor software sales is brought to an end, many publishers may find that their profits are severely hampered- with some losing money.
Of course, some people will argue that the poor sales are a result of poor games- once good games come out the format will prosper. However, this increase in sales will need marketing drives for games- something that small publishers can simply not afford. Even the biggest publishers will find reduced profits, and this may mean that in future some may reconsider their takes on the N-Cube and X-box.
One thing remains clear at this stage though. Many companies have put so much money into PS2 development that they can’t pull out now. But, as some are now seeing, the X-box seems to have everything the original Playstation had, and Microsoft’s newly formed Japanese arm claims that the company has support from big names in the industry. Roll on Autumn 2001.
Rav