N4G.com : User : Talvish : Comments

430 days 4 hours ago

Quote data is for 6 months, not year

This report is for the last quarter (Q2) with data for the first 6 months (the first two quarters combined), and comparative data from the previous year.

In the latest 6 month window you see 61% of sales for Europe ... so seeing more money out of Europe isn't entirely surpising given the strength of the Playstation brand in Europe.

Looking at the data, the PS3 has been pretty good for Ubisoft (for 6 months this year and comparative 6 months [same months] last year).

What is interesting is that the Q2 numbers are even at 20% between the 360 and PS3 (with 65% of sales for Europe). It shows the PS3 gained and additional 2% over the comparative quarter last year, but the Xbox gained an additional 6%. That means Q1 results must have heavily favoured the PS3 but the 360 gained ground to even things out. View

464 days 23 hours ago

@Dong

While you cannot buy movies on the 360 you can buy TV shows. Those TV shows can be download any number of times on any number of 360s.

However, to be able to play it you must either:

a) be on the originating console that downloaded the content though you can be any user

OR

b) be on any console but must be logged into Live.

As a note: If you rent a movie and delete it, you can keep downloading it during the rental period. View

475 days 5 hours ago

Amazon is included

@rhood.

Unless this has changed since, Amazon is now included. Basically last year Amazon and Toysrus swapped on NPD.

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wi... View

477 days 1 hour ago

Personally I think MS needs to do both.

Having some well established titles is good for the bottom-line and adds some solid game brand recognition, assuming the right company is purchased.

Buying an indy developer with a good record of innovation adds a nice breath of fresh air with less risk to the bottom-line. View

477 days 1 hour ago

Mistwalker

@DJ

Mistwalker took money in from MS so it is highly likely MS owns some portion of them ... how much is unclear. So while Mistwalker isn't a first party MS likely carries some influence.

Also, from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik... View

518 days 22 hours ago

@ beoulve

What am I trying to spin? I personally don't care where EA gets its money from. It's good for the entire industry that more money is being spent and it is good for EA if they can see increased sales off the current-gen consoles, particularly the PS3/360, since those are the consoles I'm personally more interested in.

I'm not going to try to debate if I know more or less than other people, I don't know you or cahill, so I'm not going to make an assumption.

But I do know how numbers are reported and how numbers show up on books, I deal with every quarter myself (the accountants do the work, I sign the paperwork). And I know that you cannot look at these numbers and make assumptions that the PS3 folks are spending more on EA games than 360 customers are.

Only point that is important is understanding that when a company recognizes revenue and when customers spend the money are two different things. If you want to see if PS3 is really beating the 360, if that is important to you, simpy watch the next few quarters. The trends are much harder to debate. View

518 days 22 hours ago

This is my response to cahill from a private message he sent...

I'm familiar with what GAAP is ... I deal with it in my business.

Read my last update to the original message. The misleading part is that the PS3 is killing the 360 in sales. It did lead, by GAAP rules, for recognized revenue for the quarter.

But when the customer SPENT the money is very very different. Things will show up in different quarters depending on a variety of circumstances.

To get a more accurate picture you need to either know how Sony and MS deal with EA OR, if you cannot do that, take the last year in consideration since it tend to shore up differences in how EA works with MS/Sony. That of course isn't accurate. But as more quarters are reported you can at least start trending it.

Like I said, the part that is misleading is assuming that PS3 is killing the 360. View

518 days 22 hours ago

@Ju

Not necessarily. If the revenues for this quarter are recognizing money consumers spend in previous quarters you need to go back to those previous quarters and compare how MS/Sony are working with EA. View

518 days 22 hours ago

@cahill

I hope you are not including me in that comment. See my response on the previous page.

To reconcile this fairly so that it is understand when the customer paid you need to understand how MS and Sony pay EA for the microtransactions/Live-PSN game (or how they are able to estimate). When the customer pays and when EA gets the money are two very different things.

MS and Sony, based on what Neo-gaf said, do things differently ... which isnt' a surprise. Every company is different.

Also, let me be clear, I don't say this as a slight against the PS3. The PS3 has seen good growth for EA and that growth is better than the 360. View

518 days 23 hours ago

GAAP is for accountants

Hey cahill,

GAAP is for accountants due to rules that mere mortals like us aren't meant to understand (I own a business and I let the accountants deal with this all the time). When you recognize revenue plays a big role in how your quarters look .

If you want to understand what really sold you have to look deeper at the numbers. The Neogaf post makes a ton of sense. When Sony and Microsoft reconcile EA's portion of the revenue makes a big difference. They are likely to have different structures and that will have a direct impact on how they show up on EA's books.

To give you another example, for some of our clients we get paid within 30 days which regardless of how you do your books, it will generally stay within the quarter. But we have clients that like to do this 90 days out. That means, again depending on how you run your books, it can mean the revenue can appear in the books a full quarter or so beyond when we billed.

Update to cahill: Not sure why you are getting so upset. I'm familiar with GAAP and what it means. I'm also familiar enough to know how it generally works in real business. I'm not saying you don't...but if you want to really understand when consumers spent the dough, you need to understand how Sony/MS report/pay EA. View

518 days 23 hours ago

PS3 is not leading...it has to do with how they report

Read this....

http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

The 360 leads all platforms, but the PS3 has improved a lot.

Update to cahill: You need to calm a bit down. I'm familiar with the differences (again read my posts below). How MS/Sony report/re-imburse EA plays a HUGE role. If they have different practices, and most companies do, then it will have a big impact.

So yes, EA DID recognize more revenue from PS3 than from Xbox 360. I'm not debating that.

What I'm saying is that that does not mean that during the quarter more customers on PS3 spent money on EA games than 360 owners spent on EA games.

When a company recognizes the revenue and when a customer purchases are two different things. View

518 days 23 hours ago

Not a typo...but misleading...

You want to read this:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

360 is leading all platforms still. View

539 days 8 hours ago

MGS4 eventually dropped to 94 on meta-critic.

http://www.metacritic.com/g...

That would put it, according to Metacritic, at the same level as Gears 1 and Halo 3. View

539 days 9 hours ago

At this moment I agree. The article's exercise is largely academic ... though I find it interesting when people bring timeline into consideration (please read all the way through before flaming me out).

It doesn't favour the PS3. We are at the 1 year and 8 month mark (in US/Japan) for the PS3 and the 2 year and 8 month mark for the Xbox 360.

If you extrapolate the numbers, the 360 has 12 games 90 and above, the the PS3 has 5. If it was keeping at the same quality release level it should be closer to 7 (well 7.4).

If you move to an 80 and above, it is 99 games on the 360 versus 56 on the PS3 (where to keep parity it would need to be 61).

A gap exists but the gap is small from a quality releases over relative time.

Sony has already acknownledged that they had issues and they have been working hard to rectify the situation. Given they have more game studios than any other console manufacturer and given that exclusives should be playing a role in what ultimately 'wins' (hate that word) it will be interesting to see what happens over the next one or two years.

As much as I tossed out a bunch of numbers, again that is PURELY academic. I have plenty of games I enjoyed that fall into the below 80 mark range on Metacritic.

Pick the system that has the games you like and if you in a position to do so, get both. View

542 days 20 hours ago

@ Close_Second

It definitely makes sense. When Home was first announced, and even for awhile after, it came off as an advertising platform where gaming was second. I had written within a few days after the initial Home announcement about what I was hoping to see (after the initial annoucement wasn't so hot). This was the article: http://blog.spouting-tech.c...

Sony later admitted they need to be gamer focused and announced that Warhawk and others would be receiving game rooms which is pretty similiar to one of my main suggestions back then. I'm not suggesting they are copying nor that I'm brilliant, but that it is a natural extension to making Home about gamers and socializing.

To me, the idea of using Levels as a 'reward' mechanism is the same notion. View

542 days 22 hours ago

The reason I think it is likely is mainly because they can concentrate on virtual goods which cost next to nothing to make.

Benefits:
- gives yet another reason to get back into Home (which earns Sony advertising cash)
- gives a good reason to buy a PS3 version of the game (which entices game developers to concentrate on PS3 games)
- increases loyalty to Sony since you have virtual goods that decrease chance of abandoning/giving up View

594 days 10 hours ago

This story should be reported

Logic-sunrise makes NO mention of a proper source for this story. See for yourself:

http://www.logic-sunrise.co...

Use google translate if you cannot read French. View

599 days 5 hours ago

Zune vs iPod

I believe you are referring to the Zune versus iPod Classic. The Zune is definitely more capable.

Compared to the iPhone or iPod Touch, the Zune isn't as capable hardware-wise. Though I am curious how well games will really play when you only have touch screen and accelerometers. I find the touch screen is not entirely accurate and doesn't register touch all the time.

Anyhow, I like that these devices are getting more capabilites and that SDKs are available to take advantage. It is a huge win for gaming. View

599 days 5 hours ago

Other countries

Yup, looks like they are finally doing that though. As of mid-June you can purchase the hardware player (and have a marketplace) in Canada.

Software player you can use anywhere, you just dont' get access to the marketplace. View

599 days 5 hours ago

Software player is nice

I can't speak for the hardware, since I don't own a Zune, but I do run the latest Zune 2.5 software player and I really like it. It does a good job allowing you to browse through your collection, handles large collections better than iTunes and I like the social aspects. By social aspects, I mean letting you seeing what your friends are playing, trying the music yourself, getting details on the artists, related artists, related bands, etc.

For those with a Live Gamertag, you already have an 'account'.

Anyhow, I recommend giving it a try. It is a free download. View