Support NeoGAF

[Plague Doctor]

I did not know that Bloodborne vs. Splatoon is a thing.

I mean both games kind of have the same theme, sorta...

Spoiler

Are you a kid or Squid?

 

[Jigorath]

Yesterday, Persona 5.
Today, Bloodborne.
Tomorrow, the WORLD!

It'll get that 90% digital attachment AND 1% of China.

 

[slavesnyder]

That's one of the benefits of doing this. "Of course you need this! You don't want an OLD PS4, do you? Get a shiny new one, like all the cool people have."

It's like console marketing 101.

So, you need to sell the VR helmet in 2 options also:
With brick for standard Ps4 owners
Without brick for Ps4Slim+ owners

A little complicated, but I can see where your 101 goes.

 

[igordennis]

I mean both games kind of have the same theme, sorta...

Spoiler

Are you a kid or Squid?

Heh

 

[joecanada]

I can't tell if the Bloodborne crowd are Missionaries spreading the gospel of good games or the most insecure people on the planet desperately seeking approval.



That's one of the benefits of doing this. "Of course you need this! You don't want an OLD PS4, do you? Get a shiny new one, like all the cool people have."

It's like console marketing 101.

I don't think that's a good idea. For how long did we hear people thinking wiiu was a Wii +?

Better to sell all the vr stuff separate. The amount of ads you'd have to run just to explain would be millions upon millions

 

[CosmicQueso]

So, you need to sell the VR helmet in 2 options also:
With brick for standard Ps4 owners
Without brick for Ps4Slim+ owners

A little complicated, but I can see where your 101 goes.

Nah, just make the VR version of the PS4 a premium version that includes the headset too. They'd sell tons of them to the high end early adopters.

Anyways, we already went down this road over the weekend where I was called everything from a loon to a "so it's a slim... no shit they'd do that".

 

[slavesnyder]

Nah, just make the VR version of the PS4 a premium version that includes the headset too.

Well that's what I call premium.

Previously you had the idea that the premium also plays the games better, even without VR (framerate or anything).
So if customers want to play their games optimised but are not interested in VR - it's their problem?

Also, people loved their PS3slim. I don't think it's good to take this away, especially if a slim could bring COGs/BOM down, and for that offering the potential for further price drops.

Or you replace standard Ps4 by slim Ps4 (without power boost) but have the "supermodel" with VR bundled also.
So many options.

Anyways, we already went down this road over the weekend where I was called everything from a loon to a "so it's a slim... no shit they'd do that".

They were confused (or searched for a fight) over the "slim", ignoring the real theme of the discussion (new3ds-approach).
no reason to avoid a second round of discussing now when it gets "interesting". I guess the concept is a bit clearer now since uglybox-in-the-middle showed up.

 

[Boombloxer]

Nah, just make the VR version of the PS4 a premium version that includes the headset too. They'd sell tons of them to the high end early adopters.

Anyways, we already went down this road over the weekend where I was called everything from a loon to a "so it's a slim... no shit they'd do that".

This was a strange line of thought, no one knew or thought they advertise a hardware revision. Baffling.

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

Splatoon vs Bloodborne

Splatoon = 2.42 million as sept 30
Bloodborne = 2 million September 15

LTD

UD ~ 275
B2 ~ 182


I'll update LTD for major 2015 games next month.

Damn. Bayonetta 2 is probably <350k WW.

 

[CosmicQueso]

Previously you had the idea that the premium also plays the games better, even without VR (framerate or anything).

Not what I was saying at all. Never said anything of the sort.

I said include a hybrid hard drive, which would improve the load times. Because hybrid drives improve load times.

I never said anything about "playing the games better".

 

[DorkyMohr]

I mean both games kind of have the same theme, sorta...

Spoiler

Are you a kid or Squid?

Wow, nicely done.

 

[serversurfer]

Apparently not.

Someone tell me again how a new version of the PS4 with this add on processing box for VR built in isn't a good (inevitable) idea?

First, when they say "processing the VR graphics," they mean undoing the barrel distortion so the image looks nice on a TV. The only real "processing" the breakout box does is for the 3D audio. That doesn't really make the graphics better per se, but it does free up a fair bit of time on the GPU, which can then be reclaimed for rendering, other compute jobs, etc.

Anyway, they won't move that stuff in to the PS4 because it's a bad idea. Let's say moving the guts of the breakout box in to the PS4 adds $5 to the latter's BOM. Eliminating the breakout box might only save $10 of BOM on the headset end. So that's a total savings of $5, which adds up, but still ain't much in the grand scheme of things.

So what does that $5 savings buy you? Tons of fragmentation and consumer confusion. So you've effectively created a PS4 and a PS4+, and the latter has the VR-specific stuff built in. So if you're pricing your hardware at cost to drive adoption, we're gonna charge $5 more for the PS4+ than we do for the PS4? And we're gonna continue building PS4s? Maybe we should just discontinue the basic model. But now we're spending an extra $5 on every PS4 we sell, whether it's gonna be used for VR or not, is saving $5 on every VR package really a savings if it means losing $5 on every conventional-use console sold? And that's just fragmentation on the console side; you'll also need a PSVR and PSVR+. That's a lot of bullshit just to maybe save a couple of dollars but probably not.

Nah, just make the VR version of the PS4 a premium version that includes the headset too. They'd sell tons of them to the high end early adopters.

That seems just as pointless, really. Little is gained by moving the DSPs currently in the breakout box, and much is lost. This would be a good argument for the PS5, assuming VR takes off.

Anyways, we already went down this road over the weekend where I was called everything from a loon to a "so it's a slim... no shit they'd do that".

Most of your other suggestions like hybrid and UHD drives were pretty reasonable. Integrating the breakout box makes sense at first blush, but it's certainly not something they'd wanna do mid-way through a generation.

 

[CosmicQueso]

Most of your other suggestions like a hybrid and UHD drives were pretty reasonable. Integrating the breakout box makes sense at first blush, but it's certainly not something they'd wanna do mid-way through a generation.

Cool. Let's revisit during E3 2017.

 

[slavesnyder]

Not what I was saying at all. Never said anything of the sort.

I said include a hybrid hard drive, which would improve the load times. Because hybrid drives improve load times.

I never said anything about "playing the games better".

Okay, not sure if my memory tricked me or I just did not understand you right away.
Hybrid hard drives... You know words...

 

[00ich]

First, when they say "processing the VR graphics," they mean undoing the barrel distortion so the image looks nice on a TV. The only real "processing" the breakout box does is for the 3D audio. That doesn't really make the graphics better per se, but it does free up a fair bit of time on the GPU, which can then be reclaimed for rendering, other compute jobs, etc.

The box can double the framerate through reprojection, a frame doubling algorithm.
http://www.roadtovr.com/sony-confirms-new-90hz-display-mode-for-playstation-vr-formerly-morpheus/

John Carmack talked about this some time ago. From what I understand the final image and the Z Buffer are used to warp the image according to a new headset position between properly calculated frames. Because you can see this intermediate image only for ~8ms the error in only warping the image instead of a complete rendering are supposed to be unnoticeable.

Killer feature for a PS4+ could be to make this framerate doubling available for every 30fps game.

Edit: nope it can't interpolate frames...

 

[The Mad Draklor]

I remember when it was Splatoon vs Persona 5 in the Media Create thread.

Wait, that seriously happened?

 

[igordennis]

Cool. Let's revisit during E3 2017.

You seem quite sure, time for a bet with chobel?

 

[slavesnyder]

The box can double the framerate through reprojection, a frame doubling algorithm.
http://www.roadtovr.com/sony-confirms-new-90hz-display-mode-for-playstation-vr-formerly-morpheus/

John Carmack talked about this some time ago. From what I understand the final image and the Z Buffer are used to warp the image according to a new headset position between properly calculated frames. Because you can see this intermediate image only for ~8ms the error in only warping the image instead of a complete rendering are supposed to be unnoticeable.

Killer feature for a PS4+ could be to make this framerate doubling available for every 30fps game.

From what I understood the box is plugged between PS4 and VR, while TV is still plugged to good old PS4 directly.
so the enhanced signal will not end on the TV but only in the Headset.

 

[CosmicQueso]

You seem quite sure, time for a bet with chobel?

Biggest no brainer in the history of console marketing (assuming PSVR does well).

 

[RexNovis]

Yeah for like a month. It's not like the game didn't sell well on it's own. 2m WW so far.

It wasn't even a full month. It was ~2 weeks.

Though you do still have the potential for customer confusion -- "I have which version now? Do I need to buy the box or don't I?"

This is exactly why I'm a bit doubtful that it will happen. Sure it could happen but I doubt Sony is itching to complicate their VR sku plans anytime soon.

I mean both games kind of have the same theme, sorta...

Spoiler

Are you a kid or Squid?

Bahahahahahah this was brilliant. Hardiest laugh I've had in a while. Thanks for that. Well done sir.

 

[Darth Smurf X]

Someone give this guy a loose tag!

I second this.

 

[00ich]

From what I understood the box is plugged between PS4 and VR, while TV is still plugged to good old PS4 directly.
so the enhanced signal will not end on the TV but only in the Headset.

If they release a PS4 with built in VR box, that should be fixable.

 

[serversurfer]

Cool. Let's revisit during E3 2017.

Now I may be even less convinced! lol I described the fragmentation issues this would create, and if you wait 12+ months after PSVR launches to make the change, you just have that much more fragmented hardware out in the wild. Out of curiosity, what kind of attach rates are you expecting for PSVR? I'm just wondering how many users will need to use a feature before you feel it's justified increasing the BOM on every unit by $5 or whatever.

The box can double the framerate through reprojection, a frame doubling algorithm.
http://www.roadtovr.com/sony-confirms-new-90hz-display-mode-for-playstation-vr-formerly-morpheus/

The breakout box doesn't do the reprojection. That's done on the GPU.

Killer feature for a PS4+ could be to make this framerate doubling available for every 30fps game.

That's not really how it works. The technique is only useful for VR, and you need a native frame rate of at least 60 fps. PSVR supports 60 fps reprojected to 120 Hz, 90 fps displayed at 90 Hz with or without reprojection, or 120 fps displayed at 120 Hz with or without reprojection. That RoadToVR article actually gets the available modes wrong; reprojection can still be used with 90 and 120 fps games — just with matching output rates — contrary to what RtVR claim.

 

[RexNovis]

Nah, just make the VR version of the PS4 a premium version that includes the headset too. They'd sell tons of them to the high end early adopters.

Oh yea ok that makes more sense. No idea why that didn't occur to me but yea I could see that happening.

 

[igordennis]

Biggest no brainer in the history of console marketing (assuming PSVR does well).

VR is still unproven in the market, what are you expecting it to do? Something like Sony said of 2.5m in a year (iirc)?

NPD will track it right?

 

[mejin]

Biggest no brainer in the history of console marketing (assuming PSVR does well).

spill the beans, Cosmic.

 

[igordennis]

spill the beans, Cosmic.

You should know by now cosmic is not really the insider type

 

[CosmicQueso]

Now I may be even less convinced!

You only care about a COGs increase if you can't offset with a price increase.

Slims and Elite versions of hardware haven't fragmented the market.

But whatever man, I'm not going down this road with you again. You're right. Whatever position you have, I agree with it.

VR is still unproven in the market, what are you expecting it to do?

Without knowing production qtys and price? no idea.

NPD will track it right?

Sure. Probably tracked in the Accessories feed, but do not know.

spill the beans, Cosmic.

I'm only speculating. I know nothing that hasn't been made public.

 

[PanicFreak]

Before November NPD we had the narrative floating around that Microsoft did not want to get marketing rights for COD and Battlefront because they had their own big FPS in Halo.
Do you still thing this was the reason both went to Playstation?
If so...

I think that there is some sort of bidding process that is involved in these arrangements. Call of Duty probably became too expensive for Microsoft to continue to be the marketing partner on a yearly basis. I've heard that Activision actually recieved a portion of the Xbox Live fees during the 360 era. With respect to Battlefront, it seems like Sony and Disney struck a larger larger co-marketing deal included Disney Infinity 3.0 and Battlefront. I don't don't think EA was involved in that. That's my read on the situation.

I think Microsoft will pay for marketing rights to TitanFall 2 and Mass Effect because of how closely those two franchises are tied to Xbox.

 

[00ich]

The breakout box doesn't do the reprojection. That's done on the GPU.
.

Oh, my bad. It only convert from 120hz down to 60hz for the TV. That's a bit disappointing.

 

[slavesnyder]

Now I may be even less convinced! lol I described the fragmentation issues this would create, and if you wait 12+ months after PSVR launches to make the change, you just have that much more fragmented hardware out in the wild. Out of curiosity, what kind of attach rates are you expecting for PSVR? I'm just wondering how many users will need to use a feature before you feel it's justified increasing the BOM on every unit by $5 or whatever.

They would not increase the BOM by 5$ and eat it, but take 100$ more for the plus version, including some extra stuff (hybrid something) and a fancy design with red lightline instead of the blue one. BOM might be even 20$ more, but the idea is to have something the "real" fans would buy.
The idea was that you either have
the standard PS4 we know and the box and the VRset
or the plus version, no extra box and the VRset.
And the plus version is soooo sexy.

About attach rate for VR: if they do it right there will be quite some countries where more VR are sold than XboxOnes.

 

[Blanquito]

That's one of the benefits of doing this. "Of course you need this! You don't want an OLD PS4, do you? Get a shiny new one, like all the cool people have."

It's like console marketing 101.

Sorry, when I said box I mean the breakout box. I can see something like:

Breakout Box *Required for PSVR

*required for models CAH20062, CAH20061**

** to find your PS4 model, look at the bottom of the unit for the sticker

Confusing to consumers.

 

[CosmicQueso]

Sorry, when I said box I mean the breakout box. I can see something like:

Confusing to consumers.

Sure. Would probably force them to selling this new version exclusively with a headset. Then the confusion would be solved, right?

 

[slavesnyder]

I think that there is some sort of bidding process that is involved in these arrangements.

It has to be. Those games should be stalked by the biz dev teams. I would love to know how this goes in detail.

I think Microsoft will pay for marketing rights to TitanFall 2 and Mass Effect because of how closely those two franchises are tied to Xbox.

These are absolutely 2 to watch. Not so sure about Xbox deals. They are not in a good position, especially worldwide.

 

[Blanquito]

Sure. Would probably force them to selling this new version exclusively with a headset. Then the confusion would be solved, right?

Ah, that makes sense. This PS4+breakout is only sold with the headset. Everyone else has to buy the headset+breakout combo pack.

 

[Ryng_tolu]

Any chance we can get actual retail LTD figures for Splatoon and Bloodborne?

Splatoon is close to 1 million in the US if are interesting.

It was at 600,000 by end of August. Since that, we don't know how much sold in Sep / Oct, but we know it sold 245,000 in November. And withouth digital ( note: Splatoon digital sales are usually 17% of total sales in US, and 18% in Japan).

So, we have a MINIMUM of 845,000 by end of November. Those numbers don't include Digital sales of November, and don't include October or September.

If we had October, September, and digital November sales, Splatoon is definitive over 950,000.
I think is barely under 1 million, but really just barely. ( or maybe even more, there no source for say that).
Anyway, there are still December sales. I guess another 350k/400k in December ( including bundle + digital).
So, by end of 2015, we will most likely see Splatoon at 1.35 / 1.40 million lifetime in the US.

That's even bigger than my old 1.20 million prediction! ( Back in August 2015)


About BloodBorne... well, we know was at 473,000 by end of April, and retail only.
Hard to know the numbers, so i don't talk about BloodBorne, but it definitively sold amazing.


Nice sales for both.

 

[Mory Dunz]

I did not know that Bloodborne vs. Splatoon is a thing.

It became one once bloodborne started looosing

Spoiler

An insider just stated the fact. Then people did what they may.

Wait, that seriously happened?

before P5 was delayed, there was discussion about what console game (or something) would sell the most this year. Splatoon was early in its legs I feel, (maybe like 200-300k) so predictations were being made. DQH seemed like it would be passed, so P5 was next in line. So that's how that started.

 

[slavesnyder]

It became one once bloodborne started looosing

Spoiler

An insider just stated the fact. Then people did what they may.

Well, both games have the infamous oo in their name. So it's fair to see who looses.

 

[RexNovis]

Splatoon is close to 1 million in the US if are interesting.

It was at 600,000 by end of August. Since that, we don't know how much sold in Sep / Oct, but we know it sold 245,000 in November. And withouth digital ( note: Splatoon digital sales are usually 17% of total sales in US, and 18% in Japan).

So, we have a MINIMUM of 845,000 by end of November. Those numbers don't include Digital sales of November, and don't include October or September.

If we had October, September, and digital November sales, Splatoon is definitive over 950,000.
I think is barely under 1 million, but really just barely. ( or maybe even more, there no source for say that).
Anyway, there are still December sales. I guess another 350k/400k in December ( including bundle + digital).
So, by end of 2015, we will most likely see Splatoon at 1.35 / 1.40 million lifetime in the US.

That's even bigger than my old 1.20 million prediction! ( Back in August 2015)


About BloodBorne... well, we know was at 473,000 by end of April, and retail only.
Hard to know the numbers, so i don't talk about BloodBorne, but it definitively sold amazing.


Nice sales for both.

Cheers Ryng. Personally, I'd be pretty disappointed if Bloodborne hasn't broken 1 million in the states. I figured it had done that within a few months of release. That just seems really low to me. Do we have any sales figures for Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 2 at retail? I'd be curious to see if Bloodborne is in line with or a departure from previous sales in the genre.

 

[Ryng_tolu]

Poor Bayonetta. An amazing game which just can't sell as well as it deserve.
Is not even because the Wii U, since the game has so far sold better than the PS3 and the 360 version of the first Bayonetta.

Btw, if we combined the total sales of Bayonetta 360 + PS3, that's bigger than Bayonetta 2 on Wii U.

https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/676960855259488257

Cheers Ryng. Personally, I'd be pretty disappointed if Bloodborne hasn't broken 1 million in the states. I figured it had done that within a few months of release. That just seems really low to me. Do we have any sales figures for Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 2 at retail? I'd be curious to see if Bloodborne is in line with or a departure from previous sales in the genre.

Dark souls 2 sold < 350,000 the firsts 4 weeks in the US 360+PS3 combined.
BloodBorne sold 389,000 in two weeks. That's impressive.

 

[igordennis]

Cheers Ryng. Personally, I'd be pretty disappointed if Bloodborne hasn't broken 1 million in the states. I figured it had done that within a few months of release. That just seems really low to me. Do we have any sales figures for Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 2 at retail? I'd be curious to see if Bloodborne is in line with or a departure from previous sales in the genre.

I dont think we ever got ltd for souls game in the US but my first instinct is that none of them (maybe DS1?) would have broken the 1 million mark.

 

[RayearthRob]

Poor Bayonetta. An amazing game which just can't sell as well as it deserve.
Is not even because the Wii U, since the game has so far sold better than the PS3 and the 360 version of the first Bayonetta.

Btw, if we combined the total sales of Bayonetta 360 + PS3, that's bigger than Bayonetta 2 on Wii U.

https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/676960855259488257

Can't open twitter at work.

Did he say how much bayo 2 sold?

 

[Ryng_tolu]

Can't open twitter at work.

Did he say how much bayo 2 sold?

Cream already posted it sold 182k.

Bayonetta 2 sales
October 2014 - 68,000
November 2014 - 95,000
December 2014 - 135,000
March 2015 - 157,000
November 2015 - 182,000

 

[Ryng_tolu]

Call of Duty sales trend in the US at retail:

*Note: digital sales are increased in the recent years.

 

[EGM1966]

I did not know that Bloodborne vs. Splatoon is a thing.

It's finally time for PAL dumbbellguy.gif to hit NPD charts I guess.

It's the oddest comparison though.

 

[anexanhume]

More Bloodborne datas

https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/677271472897966080

PS4 exclusive and new IP 'Bloodborne' sold more in 2 months than PS3 exclusive and new IP 'Demon's Souls' sold in 2 years. US sales.

 

[RayearthRob]

Cream already posted it sold 182k.

Bayonetta 2 sales
October 2014 - 68,000
November 2014 - 95,000
December 2014 - 135,000
March 2015 - 157,000
November 2015 - 182,000

Ohh, thanks!!

 

[serversurfer]

They would not increase the BOM by 5$ and eat it, but take 100$ more for the plus version, including some extra stuff (hybrid something) and a fancy design with red lightline instead of the blue one. BOM might be even 20$ more, but the idea is to have something the "real" fans would buy.
The idea was that you either have
the standard PS4 we know and the box and the VRset
or the plus version, no extra box and the VRset.
And the plus version is soon sexy.

Well, I'm not really opposed to the idea of a premium model per se. If you wanna bump the hard drive and wrap it in fancy plastic and charge an extra $100 or whatever, that's fine. I just question the wisdom of fragmenting the hardware by critical functionality, like whether or not your headset is gonna work.

About attach rate for VR: if they do it right there will be quite some countries where more VR are sold than XboxOnes.

Sorry, I wasn't talking about total sales. I mean, what fraction of PS4s will actually be used for PSVR? 10%? 20%? Unless it's like half or more, then it seems like giving that hardware to everyone is a bit of a waste. Why not include it with the headset — the device that actually needs it — and call it a day?

Sure. Would probably force them to selling this new version exclusively with a headset. Then the confusion would be solved, right?

Not my confusion! lol Why would they spool up a third assembly line for the PS4+ and a fourth for the PSVR+, if they're only ever going to be sold to people who purchase them as a bundle? Wouldn't that be a comparatively small number of people? If even you get a lot of people coming in looking to get both together, why couldn't you just bundle the standard hardware? I still don't really understand the point of special models at all. What's the big win in doing so? =/

 

[Raist]

More Bloodborne datas

https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/677271472897966080

That's really not saying much.

 

[anexanhume]

That's really not saying much.

No, it isn't. It's more of an interesting perspective on From's rise to prominence.