[quote name='hostyl1']Except you've forgotten one major group: the large percentage of PS2 owners who have not yet bought a newer system. It has long been speculated that many of these gamers are sitting the fence, waiting for games like MGS4, FF13, God of War, etc., to come out b4 going 'next-gen'. [/quote]
Nope. I included the people who don't have either.
Japan is notoriously cold to systems made in the west. OG Xbox didn't make a dent at all, and the 360 has a fraction of the userbase the PS3 already has over there. They also seem to love gadgets quite a bit, so the bluray player is better received over there.
Plus do you honestly believe it's a "huge group sitting on the fence?" Japanese gamers are pretty quick on the uptake, and definitely prepare for big titles. I don't buy that argument at all. Sony rolled out FF13 footage eons ago, and more people took notice then than are taking notice now. I credit MS with fighting tooth-and-nail in that territory, but they've got a lot more to contend with than simply bringing some games over to their side.
Plus, on Microsoft's side, they want *software* to be moving as much, if not more than hardware. Especially 3rd party software as that is almost pure profit to MS. If FF13 does 800K+ like Lost Oddesy did, believe me, MS would be *very* happy, even if there was no accompanying hardware sales spike.
Not in Japan. They want hardware moving over there because Sony and Nintendo enjoy a good portion of their worldwide sales in that region. They've already tried to appeal to that set with a variety of RPGs. Mistwalker comes to mind with Blue Dragon, but it didn't set a fire. I don't know how Lost Odyssey did, or even if it has been released over there.
Point being
in Japan they need a bigger userbase, and frankly, I don't see this changing anything at all over there. I mean it'll move some systems, sure, but it isn't going to change the market there.
And since GTA4 pretty much failed to move a lot of systems, I don't see it doing it
here either.
Again, it's big for 360-only owners. But this whole "where is your god now Sony" attitude is hilariously overblown.