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PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

When $1B in Online-Game Sales Isn't 26

Posted by simoniker from the pinky-held-to-face dept.
jvm writes "On Curmudgeon Gamer a new analysis article by Kyle Orland examines the recent announcement by the NPD Group that sales of "online-enabled console games" reached $1 billion dollars last year. A rudimentary analysis of the numbers behind the numbers shows that at least a third of those online-enabled games probably aren't being (and probably can't be) played online."
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When $1B in Online-Game Sales Isn't More

When $1B in Online-Game Sales Isn't

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  • Discrepancy between blurb and article (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pluvius ( 734915 ) <pluvius3@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @11:37AM (#8917350) Journal
    The article does say that these online-enabled games aren't being played online (which makes sense), but not that they can't be played online (which doesn't). What it says is that not everyone has the hardware and/or server subscription required to play online.

    Rob

    • Re:Discrepancy between blurb and article (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Metal_Demon ( 694989 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @11:53AM (#8917563)
      Well actually if you look at the X-Box many games are "online-enabled", but can't be played online. They just let you keep track of a score or have a buddy list or some crap like that. So in other words there are in fact games that are online-enabled and can't be played online.

      • Re:Discrepancy between blurb and article (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Not to mention sales of online-enabled PS2 games which wildly exceed the sales of the PS2 modem/broadband connector.
      • That would be an awfully stupid thing to count as "online-enabled," considering how meaningless it is.

        But then again, no one accused marketing firms of intelligence.

        Rob
        • Games that don't connect to Live themselves but use the bundled content and/or stats downloader to support non-realtime updates are "Assisted Download". Games that do connect to the Live service but just to allow friends list presence and cross-game invites are called "Xbox Live Aware". Games that support full online play are "Xbox Live Multiplayer".

          In my personal opinion, and this is only anecdotal because I don't have hard data to back it up, network support is one of those loss-leader things you do for

  • That's Nothing! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by GTRacer ( 234395 )
    People claim 1st Post all the time and the numbers just don't support the claims!

    More seriously, I tried to get an account with NPD so I could see the different sales charts for systems and games. I never got more than a basic top-10 deal. Is there something I'm missing or do you have to be a paying customer/industry insider to get to the real data?

    GTRacer
    - Jaded poser, offline gamer

    • Re:That's Nothing! (Score:4, Informative)

      by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @11:46AM (#8917456) Homepage
      I think that the official NPD reports cost several hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars. I haven't actually investigated myself, but this is what I've been told when I've asked friends (in the game industry) about them.

      That said, there are apparently occasional leaks that allow you to get some of the raw data itself.

  • Almost all of the growth in the online-capable console game category has occurred in the past two years. Sales of these games, which include titles for Sony Corp.'s Playstation 2, Microsoft Corp.'s X-Box and Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s GameCube, have seen the majority of sales in the shooter and sport games super genres, with sport games leading the charge. In 2002, sport games commanded 69 percent of the online-capable video games market, while the shooter genre captured 22 percent. In 2003, sport games claimed 51

  • PSO/GC (Score:5, Informative)

    by whiteSanjuro ( 693864 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @12:17PM (#8917881)
    Phantasy Star Online (Ep 1 & 2) is not the only game for GameCube that has official Internet support. PSO Episode 3 also does.

  • The problem with online games (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mr.Dippy ( 613292 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @01:24PM (#8918891)
    I've given up on online games because it gets tiresome having listen/read l33t speak by some 13 year old. Oh and god help you if your not the shiznit in WarCraft. That 13 year old will cuse you out and threathen to tell all of his script kiddie friends how much suck. When that happens, which does a lot, I log off and go have a beer and then have sex with my girlfriend.
  • I like how the Article is trying to make it look like the gaming companys are lying just becosue it s online enabled never ment you could go online and play it.It just means you can go online and download stuff for the game doesnt always mean go online and play it. The companys and the Article are playing with techincalitys

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