411 Games Fact or Fiction 03.16.10: February NPDs, PlayStation Move, On-Live, SOCOM 4

Posted by Mark Salmela on 03.16.2010

Will you be picking up God of War 3 today? Do we need SOCOM 4? Are you excited for PlayStation Move? Are the February NPD numbers surprising? Does Fable 3 have unrealistic expectations? 411's Joshua Richey and Josh Boykin debate these topics and more in the latest edition of 411 Games Fact or Fiction!



Come one, come all, it's another glorious edition of Fact or Fiction Games. I'm your host Mark Salmela, and I was disappointed by this year's GDC. Sure PlayStation Move was at least interesting, but where was Microsoft? Where was Cliffy B and his trusty chainsaw? I was expecting Gears 3 along with maybe one other big debut at the show besides what we got. Oh well, only 3 more months until E3.

This week we've got Mr. Leveled Up himself Joshua Richey vs one of 411Game's newcomers Josh Boykin. I had to rearrange the questions at the last minute since I had no idea February 2010 NPD numbers were being released. That damn NPD snuck up on me. I got rushed! With that said, let's get it on!


1.) With things such as Heavy Rain making the top ten, BioShock 2 for PS3 being absent, and Dante's Inferno selling better on PS3 than 360 you are surprised by the February 2010 NPD numbers.



Josh Boykin - Fiction: Game ratings don't necessarily correlate to game sales, and people have been expecting Heavy Rain for a good long time now. Regardless of the mixed reviews, it's still gonna sell. As far as BioShock is concerned, it's a big title, but I imagine most of its market-share is on the 360…and Dante…well, I just don't know. 360 owners spent their money on Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2 in January, so maybe they just don't want to shell out more cash for a middle-of-the-road title?

Joshua Richey - Fact: I'm actually very surprised by these numbers. Heavy Rain isn't a game that I expected to sell very well; at least not at first. I suppose there was some curiosity from gamers, but, yeah, that good start is definitely shocking for a game such as that one. I'm even more surprised by Dante's Inferno selling better on the PS3 than the 360. Dante's Inferno was kind of marketed unofficially as a God of War-like game that 360 owners could play. You take that and the fact that God of War III was being released just a month later, I think that many of us expected it to sell far more copies on the 360.

Score: 0 for 1 - Don't forget the 360 outsold the Wii. That is very surprising in my opinion. Although in the Wii's defense it appears the Wii was in short supply.



2.) Charging $15 just to have On-Live, then charging money again to rent or buy each game is a mistake.



Josh Boykin - Fact: Does Netflix or GameTap charge per purchase? No, they just have different levels of accounts for different types of users. Perhaps a system that would have tiers of available games would make more sense: $15 a month for old titles, $20 for newer ones, and $25 for the full catalog? Still more expensive than buying the games yourself, but consider you don't have to worry about maintaining hardware or hard drive space, you can play Crysis while keeping all your porn legally purchased music and family reunion pictures in one place.

Joshua Richey - Fact: On-Live has already got more than its fair share of skeptics. If I'm them, I want to make an immediate impact and get as many people using my service as possible. They could have made said impact by lowering the cost, waving one of the costs, or having a tier system like Boykin suggested. Sure they would have lost money, but you've got to take losses like that on the chin if you want to be successful over the long-haul. After a while, after you've got a nice install base, that's when you start to raise your price points, because then you're customers will no longer be skeptical be more inclined to pay. But maybe that makes too much sense.

Score: 1 for 2 - I agree it's ridiculous to charge people just to have the service. That's like paying to be allowed inside of a store to shop for clothes. If the clothes aren't free why are you paying to go in the store?



3.) Battlefield Bad Company 2 releasing its free DLC map pack the same day as Modern Warfare 2 releasing its map pack for $10 is a brilliant move.



Josh Boykin - Fiction: It doesn't much matter when they release their free DLC, ‘cause people aren't going to go out and buy the game just so they can download DLC. MW2's been out for months now, and anyone who's going to buy Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is going to do it regardless of whether it's on the same day as MW2's pack or 3 weeks later. If they were to do regularly-scheduled free map releases, that'd be another story…

Joshua Richey - Fact: I own both Modern Warfare 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2. I play them both online a lot. I'm getting tired of playing the same maps over-and-over and would love new maps for both. Now if both games are going to release their maps on the same day, I'm probably not going to pick them both up at first. I'm more inclined to download one and play the hell out of it immediately. Now if I'm given the choice between new free maps for B:BC2 or new $10 maps for MW2, I'm going to go with Bad Company 2. I should also probably add that I'm a much bigger fan of Battlefield than I am of Modern Warfare, so that also has a lot to do with it. It's still a smart move by Dice or EA, whoever made it.

Score: 1 for 3 - I think it's a great move. EA is banking on Joe Casual hearing this story sometime in the next two weeks and saying to himself "yeah, why would I pay for more maps when this other game is giving them away for free?" I think it's a brilliant move that gets people talking about Bad Company 2 and not Modern Warfare 2.






4.) You're excited for PlayStation Move.



Joshua Richey - Fiction: I'm as far from excited as one could possibly get. I don't want nor need motion controls on my PS3. That's what my Wii is for. I hate to sound like a Negative Nancy, but the demos that Sony showed off at GDC didn't impress either. So, no, I'm not excited about the Playstation Move in any way.

Josh Boykin - Fiction: I watched the Sony spot at the Game Developers Conference and was not impressed. A Wiimote with a light bulb on the end? The sex-toy jokes have already been made, though I hear there's no vibration…sorry, ladies. Regardless, we all know it's a Wii-rip-off; even the commentators at GDC kept calling the damned thing a Wiimote. And the "Playstation Move Subcontroller?" Why not come up with another catchy martial-arts-related term, like Nintendo did with the nun chuck? You could call it the Katana, or the Sai, or the Playstation Move Sub-Nun chuck, since we're doing all this ripping-off anyway.

Score: 2 for 4 - I hate motion controls, period. That said, I'll probably buy Move anyways. Same goes for Natal. I'm a hypocrite.



5.) There's no need for SOCOM 4, especially after SOCOM: Confrontation and MAG on PS3.



Joshua Richey - Fiction: This is a bit tricky. A lot of the die-hard SOCOM players are playing MAG, so by releasing a new SOCOM game, they're hurting their other game. But the reason I'm going fiction on this is because SOCOM 4 looks a lot better than the other games, and it was announced that they'll still support the other games even after SOCOM 4 is released.

Josh Boykin - Fiction: I don't know a whole lot about the SOCOM fanbase, since I'm one of the people who played it for 20 minutes and moved on. But if they're able to do something that appeals to more players and draws in a fanbase, more power to them. It's not like people can return their copies of MAG to get SOCOM, so as long as those MAG players are enticed to buy SOCOM 4 anyway, Sony should be doing just fine.

Score: 3 for 5 - Is there really that big of a SOCOM fan base anymore? MAG didn't sell well at all and neither did SOCOM Confrontation. What makes people think SOCOM 4 is a highly anticipated game?



6.) Peter Molyneux said at GDC that Fable 3 will have to sell at least 5 million copies. That's an unrealistic expectation.



Joshua Richey - Fact: C'mon! This is Peter Molyneux we're talking about here. He's the king of unrealistic expectations. Remember when he said that the first Fable would be the greatest RPG of all-time? The guy is brilliant, but he's constantly setting the bar too high. Fable II sold roughly 3.5 million copies, so unless Fable III has some Earth-shattering feature that they've not unveiled yet, Fable III will do about the same at best.

Josh Boykin - Fact: Wait, he wants to sell 5 MILLION COPIES of the game that he claimed was going to "piss people off?" Last I checked, I've never felt encouraged to shell out $60 on a game that its developer claims is going to incite anger within me. Let's also not forget that neither Fable, nor Fable II turned out to be as good as we'd expected, or what they'd been blown up to be. 5 million copies…don't make me laugh.

Score: 4 for 6 - I think Joshua said it best. If Fable 2 only managed to sell around 3.5 million copies, I don't picture Fable 3 doing that much better.



Bonus question #7.) You will be picking up God of War 3 today.



Joshua Richey - Fact: I wasn't at first. I really didn't enjoy the demo as much as I was expecting, and the game itself doesn't look like it brings anything new to the table that the other games didn't. But the glowing reviews that it's receiving and the fact that this is the final chapter in the God of War saga for Kratos means that I'll be in line to grab my copy.

Josh Boykin - Fiction: I don't own a PS3. And if I did, I'd be too busy playing Final Fantasy XIII, like I am for my 360. Suck it, Kratos.

Mark Salmela - Fact: Kratos shall kill, everyone.

Score: 4 for 7



8.) Josh Boykin will be impaled by the God of War for blaspheming his game.

Josh Boykin - Probably a Fact : …damnit.

Mark Salmela - Fact: Hey man this was your question, not mine.



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Josh and Josh settle with a score of 4 for 7. Do you guys agree? Disagree? Be sure to let your opinions be known below. I'm currently overrun with games to play, so I'm going to keep this to a minimum. I'm chugging along with Megaman 10, Final Fantasy 13, and soon to be God of War 3 and Yakuza 3. Goodbye social life! Cya in 7!