Sony: We've Captured The Hardcore

Keane Ng

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Sony: We've Captured The Hardcore



Be on the lookout, folks. Sony is out to capture gamers. In fact, according to them they've got all you hardcore types already, and now they're looking to get your mom.

Speaking to VG247 [http://www.vg247.com/2009/04/20/scea-weve-captured-the-hardcore-with-ps3-to-focus-on-casual-later-this-year/], Sony's John Koller made the claim that the PlayStation 3's success thus far shows that the company has successfully tapped into the hardcore audience. "We've captured the hardcore," he said. "The install base we have now tells us that the hardcore's purchased."

Purchased? Frankly, I doubt hardcore gamers approve of being thought of as commodities to be bought, much less things to be captured. What are we, animals? Now that Sony's caught us, are they going to throw us into the pen and parade us around and charge five bucks for a peek?

Regardless of whatever Koller exactly means or if he could've chosen a better word, he seems confident in his claims, and is now looking to "capture" another audience: the ever-elusive and fantastically lucrative beast known as "the casual gamer."

"We're moving on now to continue to support [hardcore gamers] with a tremendous line-up of games, but also look at softer brands that maybe we had with PS2 franchises we're bringing over to PS3, or new IP," Koller said, pointing to a "a line-up of very strong family-friendly titles that we're looking at for PS3 in our continuing effort to appeal to that casual consumer."

Any hints on what that could mean? Koller vaguely says to "think of some of the latter-half PS2 franchises." Latter-half PS2 franchises that appeal to casual gamers, eh? Anyone got any ideas?


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rougeknife

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On behalf of all Tribals everywhere:
Sony, my cock, suck it. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtnIKvnuKlI]

Hardcore my arse.
 

Sewblon

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I own all 3 consoles and have been gaming for most of my life and I don't like Sony at the moment. They can't attract casual gamers, the PS2 is on its last legs and the PS3 is to expensive and cumbersome for casual gamers to even consider it.
 

fix-the-spade

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Sony sound increasingly desperate with every press release, just how much money did the TV and MP3 player departments blow last year?

Besides Killzone, Devil May Cry and Ratchet, what PS2 originating franchises have they put on the PS3 so far?
 

Bediz

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In Sony's mind, "Willing to spend a lot of money" = "Hardcore"

Chalk them up with Jack Thompson on the list of people who just don't get it and likely never will. They may get a few brief moments of clarity, but even the sun shines on a dog's ass some days.
 

Onyx Oblivion

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I actually think the DS has captured the hardcore gamers. A lot of the gimmicks are done now, and many great games have been released in the last month alone.
 

Lord_Jaroh

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fix-the-spade said:
Sony sound increasingly desperate with every press release, just how much money did the TV and MP3 player departments blow last year?

Besides Killzone, Devil May Cry and Ratchet, what PS2 originating franchises have they put on the PS3 so far?
Um, Metal Gear Solid IV. Disgaea 3. Grand Theft Auto IV. Armored Core 4. Soul Calibur IV. Final Fantasy XIII is soon. Gran Turismo V will be shortly as well. God of War III is coming. And this is just off the top of my head...
 

Darkong

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So, they claim they've captured the smallest segment of the market, whereas in the last two generations they had the largest segments (the core and casual gamers), and this is a cause for celebration? Good god, why do Sony continue to make themselves look like idiots with every interview?
 

fix-the-spade

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Lord_Jaroh said:
Um, Metal Gear Solid IV. Disgaea 3. Grand Theft Auto IV. Armored Core 4. Soul Calibur IV. Final Fantasy XIII is soon. Gran Turismo V will be shortly as well. God of War III is coming. And this is just off the top of my head...
Forgot about Disgea.
But besides that, none of those games are PS2 franchises.

GTA, Armoured Core, Soul Calibur, Gran Turismo all started on the PS1.
Final Fantasy is one year older than me (1987)!
Metal Gear comes from the MSX...
To me that's a problem, Sony is reliant on several old franchises, but unlike Nintendo (reliant on even older franchises) they don't really generate the same rabid loyalty. The one that does (Final Fantasy, and then some) is no longer exclusive. Even more importantly none of them are first party titles (well, arguably Armoured Core and GT), which means it costs Sony to keep them Playstation specific, which for several of those they have failed to do.

It's a major problem when you don't have control over your main selling points.
 

Bediz

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Indigo_Dingo said:
Actually, they get it, you don't. The have captured all of us, and you can't escape it. Two words, dude - Team Ico. You cannot not play their next game and still be considered hardcore, you simply cannot do it. Of course, the Pub Fund thing isn't likely to hurt.

As for the casual gamers, all these things have a rudimentary balance issue. A casual gamer is looking at the benefit they get from an object with a single function - see the success of the Iphone. So, they need something so unbelievably cute that it actively forces people to buy the Ps3.
I agree with your second point about casual gamers, but I don't understand the first point. How does playing a game affect your "hardcore" status? It's almost as if you're suggesting that certain actions (for example playing Nintendogs) can speak for a lack of hardcore-ness, but wouldn't playing such games mean you are only that much more hardcore because you want to give EVERYTHING a shot?
 

black lincon

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Is it just me or does everything that gets said by Sony sound more and more like, "Ya well, FUCK YOU!"

It seems like the basic strategy has become claim that they're the best and maybe everyone will agree with them because their being so bold in their statements.
 

Ben66

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Again with the useless 'hardcore' and 'casual' labels.

How about trying to capture the market of 'everyone' by making games designed for everyone? Easy accessiblity while still challenging and easy to play in short bursts, yet containing a lot of depth, difficulty and replayability? In theory you'd be profiting more from both groups at once instead of catering to one or the other.

Sony's really having a tough time right now, due to just how they designed their Space Odyssey-esque monolith to be difficult to design games for. And even then, like fix-the-spade said, Sony's relying too much on previous franchises. So in reality they don't have many hardcore PS3 fans, just PS1 ans PS2 fans who've made the jump to PS3 to still play their favorite franchises.
 

Eldritch Warlord

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Indigo_Dingo said:
Actually, they get it, you don't. The have captured all of us, and you can't escape it. Two words, dude - Team Ico. You cannot not play their next game and still be considered hardcore, you simply cannot do it. Of course, the Pub Fund thing isn't likely to hurt.
Indigo, I've never played a Team Ico game. What the frack does this make me?
 

Jumplion

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Ben66 said:
And even then, like fix-the-spade said, Sony's relying too much on previous franchises. So in reality they don't have many hardcore PS3 fans, just PS1 ans PS2 fans who've made the jump to PS3 to still play their favorite franchises.
LittleBigPlanet is a past franchise? Resistance is a PS2 franchise? InFamous, Heavy Rain, Fat Princess, Uncharted, and Valkyria Chronicles are all past franchises?

I'll agree that Sony has relied on past franchises such as Metal Gear Solid and Ratchet and Clank, but I'm just challenging this viewpoint because quite frankly Sony has a good mix of past and new franchises/games that people don't give credit to them for.

But as for the article, do we really expect anything less from them? I usually read this off as Sony just being enthusiastic about their company and not letting the whole economy and whatnot bog them down. After all, everyone has to be enthusiastic about their own company, right?