nicksetzer1

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Does Battlefront Really give Sony the edge over Xbox this holiday?

In Case you haven't heard, Sony has obtained the marketing rights for the newest iteration of Star Wars Battlefront. The game is set to release November 17 and will likely be a huge title for the holidays. This has led some to make claims such as the following (in fact, is one of the hottest articles as of today):

"The biggest bit of news from today’s trailer may be that Sony has nailed the marketing rights to the game, which releases November 17th. This means every gamer who sees Battlefront ads leading up to The Force Awakens’s December release, when Star Wars fandom will be at fever pitch, will also see that they can buy the game on PS4."

What doesn't add up is, this game is a multi-platform game, in other words it doesn't require a Sony platform to play. How is it that marketing rights to a single multi-platform game results in these kind of statements? In fact, Their competition has marketing rights to The Division and Call of Duty which are both equally massive titles, (arguably larger) yet you see noone making inversely ignorant claims. Not to mention this belief would assume that exclusive titles have no bearing on console sales. Worse yet, Call of Duty sells almost identically (maybe a 10% increase) on both Playstation and Xbox platforms despite marketing attempts, what makes this different?

Secondly, The game has hardly reared it's head, with no glimpse of actual gameplay yet. This makes the determination that this is going to eclipse all other exclusive games and marketing deals of their competitors even more asinine. To make such bold claims, one would assume there is a basis. Sadly in this case, the basis is nothing more than a name (Star Wars) and nostalgia. (previous Battlefront games)

I can possibly see how some may think that consumers are too stupid to see the Xbox branded boxes in stores and products online for this game, but this next issue really has me baffled. There are still people/sites, that to this day, Will go out of their way to bash Titanfall for "lack of campaign." Strangely these same people/sites are the ones making these unfounded claims. Ironically, they now turn around to claim marketing rights to a multiplayer only game is the savior of the holiday season? Even worse, Titanfall was actually exclusive to Microsoft products which induced consumers to purchase Xbox consoles, Star Wars Battlefront is not. Still many sites and user claimed it was a failure. All of this is expected I suppose, hypocrisy is ripe in the current "games media," albeit often ignored and even praised.

In short, I find it funny that those who, all to recently, took every means to destroy a game of this same merit, (which was actually exclusive) have turned so fully. These same people have now ignored missing campaigns, ignored exclusivity, and still somehow claim a victory? Maybe I am just missing something in translation.

iamnsuperman3322d ago

I think the idea comes from what Destiny did for the PS4. For Sony Destiny was a huge success as it sold a lot of PS4s compared to its competitor. It pushed the PS4 in a critical time

This is like what the 360 had in the last generation as big, blockbuster third party titles were a huge deal for the system. Having exclusive promotion rights made the deal even bigger.

nicksetzer13322d ago (Edited 3322d ago )

I know you are partially playing devils advocate, but that logic only addresses one issue I stated above, and sadly, it's hardly accurate. Destiny had a bigger debut on xbox thanks to an excellently timed "free gam" promotion.

http://www.inquisitr.com/15...

iamnsuperman3322d ago (Edited 3322d ago )

But it sold more console units. Remember these sale reports do not count bundle unit sales when it comes to game sales. There is no way, in the Destiny example, that the PS4 sold significantly more than the One purely down to chance (despite nothing really launching at that time). The Destiny release had something to do with it

This isn't mean discrediting the blog but merely suggesting why users may think the PR deal will do wonders for Sony

nicksetzer13322d ago (Edited 3322d ago )

The PS4 had almost double the install base and sold fewer individual units. That is a fact. You assuming that this difference was made up by "bundles" is just that, an assumption. Even if the difference was accounted for, that still means double the percentage of users bought the game on xbox one. Not to mention destiny has an entire year of exclusivity on all dlc, star wars is marketing, and nothing more.

You're making an argument that is not only wrong, but based on something completely different. Also, it is even likely that destiny sold just as many XB1's as PS4's, people bought xbox one's (in mass) because it was able to be packaged for free.

All that aside, in 2014 Xbox One definitely STILL came out on top for the holiday season. So even if all of your baseless assumptions are correct, it still had almost no effect on the holiday outcome.

freshslicepizza3320d ago

but did destiny outsell the xbox one more than 2-1 in software sales? if it did then yes it proves it worked, if not then it didn't.

star wars battlefront probably won't get the same sales as destiny. for one it does not have a campaign mode which means consumers are not as keen on buying it even though i don't think every game needs a campaign. second of all destiny had more pedigree thanks in large part to bungie being attached to the project and a huge marketing campaign where activision is committed to spending 500 million dollars on the ip.

yes star wars is a great game for sony to attach itself and timing is good with the upcoming movie as well but the ps4 will continue to sell well regardless. so i don't see this marketing deal changing anything but it is beneficial to sony who seems to once again have a less than stellar fall line-up of their own games unless we see some new announcements.

mkis0073320d ago (Edited 3320d ago )

You are making an assumption that there will be no Battlefront bundle for ps4.

I'm not sure if you are intentionally doing it, but you are sliding over the fact that The ps4 somehow sold over 500,000 units the month Destiny launched. This was certainly due to the bundle.

The bigger debut on x1 was single game sales...the game itself sold more ps4's that month.

Regardless of what we think happened the fact remains that the PS4 tripled its sales over the previous month the month that Destiny launched with an exclusive bundle.

Lastly, it is kinda hard to claim that the only thing Sony got is marketing rights when nothing of the sort has been ruled out yet. For all we know Sony could have a special faceplate console planned. Which is extremely likely with something like this. I think this is the best thing Sony could have done for itself with the uncharted delay.

“According to Activision internal estimates, the PS4 system is the #1 platform worldwide for Destiny based on units sold through as of October 4, 2014,”
Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/15...

http://venturebeat.com/2014...

OrangePowerz3320d ago (Edited 3320d ago )

The copies of Destiny that came bundled with the PS4 didn`t count in the sales and that means a huge amount of Destiny copies are missing from the sales unlike the free game promotion. The amount of people who bought the PS4 Destiny bundle is very significant. So Destiny didn`t had a bigger debut on Xbox. You also only look at the US. Rest of the World holiday sales > US holiday sales.

Chevalier3319d ago

They moved 1 million PS4's during a September and they had more sales overall and were pulling Christmas type numbers on consoles sales well early into the fall. After Titanfall failed to move significant amounts of Xbones and did okay for EA it's not surprising they're moving to greener pastures.

Another thing you failed to mention was that MS was giving free copies of Destiny with sales of the Xbone. Those copies were bought and given to Xbone buyers to artificially bump their numbers up. PS4 still sold significantly more overall worldwide.

GoGoGadge73318d ago

Whatever you are smoking... I want it.

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 3318d ago
oasdada3320d ago

I also got the destiny bundle. but traded destiny for driveclub lol

Valenka3321d ago

As long as Battlefront is accessible on both PS4 and Xbox One, I couldn't care less who out-does whom.

BitbyDeath3320d ago

These types of marketing deals aren't aimed at you and I. They are for people that are not in the know.

They are designed to lure people to said platform without the knowledge of other platforms. These are generally parents/grandparents that are looking to buy a new system for their kids/loved ones.

They generally don't investigate, they see an ad on TV saying X game is coming out on Y platform and then go 'well my kid is a big fan', and off they go to the shops.

And as for your COD example, you are talking this gen where Sony has double the user base of MS. Lastgen it was wildly known that COD was primarily sold on Xbox. The marketing made that difference as the games were always sold around Xmas, so you catch a lot of uninformed people who are looking to buy gifts for their loved ones.

nicksetzer13320d ago

"And as for your COD example, you are talking this gen"

No, no I'm not.

BLOPS (<15% difference):
http://www.vgchartz.com/gam...
http://www.vgchartz.com/gam...

BLOPS2:
http://www.vgchartz.com/gam...
http://www.vgchartz.com/gam...

MW3 (<10% difference):
http://www.vgchartz.com/gam...
http://www.vgchartz.com/gam...

Not only that, xbox consoles got DLC early and COD was played by professionals on 360. Star wars literally will ONLY have a commercial with a sony logo, nothing more.

Also, name ANY 3rd party game deal (by itself) that gave a console sales dominance for the entire holiday season, it has never happened. Not to mention the 3 other reasons the argument is flawed that I losted above.

You all have the same argument, " what about idiots, who buy stuff?" Which only addresses one of the issues with believing this will win the holiday. Honestly I doubt battlefront will even be the best selling game this holiday, let alone impact the entire holiday outcome based on a commercial with a sony logo.

Kayant3320d ago

Trying to justify your point with "Loool vgchartz" doesn't help.

"Star wars literally will ONLY have a commercial with a sony logo, nothing more."

Which resulted in - http://abload.de/img/bfps4c... don't underestimate marketing.

"Not only that, xbox consoles got DLC early and COD was played by professionals on 360. Star wars literally will ONLY have a commercial with a sony logo, nothing more." - And you know this because of the magic crystal ball you have when E3 is around the corner and many months of marketing are still left.

These deals are done by both companies because they often work to an extend.

MrBeatdown3320d ago (Edited 3320d ago )

"Strangely these same people/sites are the ones making these unfounded claims."

Thank you for keeping track.

Please share your lists with us. I have a hard time keeping track of opinions from all over the internet for the purpose of identifying hypocrisy, so a resource for those of us who want to know all about these people that say contradictory things would be helpful when we attempt our own internet shaming.

rezzah3320d ago

It is better than having equal to no advertisements. For the uninformed that own no consoles, always seeing "PS4" being associated with the new Battlefront game will cause them to think of it as a PS4 game. Thus, they may purchase a PS4 over the Xbone for the game unless other factors change their mind. An example of another factor is their friends owning the Xbone console, making them ignore seeing "PS4" logo and then wanting to play with friends on the Xbone.

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