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Re: PS3 Demo Situation
I know that the number of people still following this "PS3 Demo Situation" thread is dwindling with each passing week. Those who own a 360 and have been playing the demo since May 21st or those who purchased the full retail copy for either system have no reason to be hanging out with us forgotten PS3 demo-desiring folk, so I completely understand. However, I feel that it's important enough to share some thoughts on this whole situation, regardless of how few people remain to read them.
This PS3 demo situation is a black eye to 505 Games and, by association, both NaturalMotion and Backbreaker as an up-and-coming franchise. I understand that the developers at NaturalMotion likely have little say in when the demo was meant to be released, but there are signs all around that show the team could've gotten more information if they'd really desired it.
First was the leaked 505 Games customer service email, which stated that the PS3 demo would be out Wednesday, June 9th. People didn't want to believe that, so it was "debunked," and NaturalMotion even started hyping that the demo "should" hit PS3 on Tuesday, May 25th, 2010.
However, all it took for me--just a simple gamer with no inside connections--to find out that the demo would not be released was a message on Twitter to the official @PlayStation account. Within an hour of asking them whether or not the demo would be out on the 25th, I'd received a message saying that it would not be on the store. It seems bizarre to me that a "nobody" in the industry like myself would be able to get more information than the game's developers had at that time, if we are to believe them (and I generally do).
Ever since that day, it's just been a comedy of errors regarding the demo. We hoped it would be out on Tuesday, June 1st, even though that was the day of the retail release. It didn't come out. We hoped that just meant it would be out Tuesday, June 8th (yesterday) in accordance to the 505 Games customer service email, but then the developers came here and said that the demo wouldn't be out until Tuesday, June 15th (next week); a full two weeks after retail release here in the States.
Meanwhile, a few weeks ago the EA Sports team was able to announce that the demos for NCAA Football 11--due for retail release on Tuesday, July 13th--would be out a month in advance of that date on Monday, June 14th for 360 and Tuesday, June 15th for PS3. Then news came out this past Monday that the PS3 demo date had changed.
Unlike the Backbreaker demo, however, the change was a positive one. Now the PS3 demo is apparently going to be hitting the PS3 next Monday, June 14th--the same day as the 360 gets it--despite the fact that the PSN store does not typically update on Monday.
Now, I understand as well as anybody else that EA Sports is a much bigger and more influential company than either 505 Games or NaturalMotion. However, something doesn't smell right here for the Backbreaker demo to continually be blamed on Sony when Sony's message to me all along was that developers/publishers control when content goes live on the PSN store. EA Sports changed their mind about the NCAA Football 11 demo coming out a day later for PS3, and they got that changed. It's been nearly a month for the Backbreaker demo since the 360 demo hit; are we, as gamers and consumers, supposed to believe that 505 Games is asking Sony to release the demo and Sony is just crossing their arms and saying, "No"?
It doesn't make any sense for Sony to want a demo to come out so much later on the PS3.
Unfortunately, this little demo situation has no doubt soured many PS3 owners and hurt the actual sales of the PS3 game compared to initial projections. While the 360 owns the majority of the current-generation football video game market, the PS3 crowd accounted for 45% of the 4.35 million copies sold of Madden NFL 10 last year. Essentially, nearly half of the video game crowd has been affected by the Backbreaker demo delay.
And, to be honest, any window of opportunity that 505 Games, NaturalMotion, and Backbreaker had seems to have closed now. The game was in development for at least three years, and the product put forth has a passionate but very small niche following and got killed critically, with numerous 5/10 and 50% review scores that will eliminate most of the casual market.
At the same time, EA Sports is beginning to integrate real-time physics into its titles beginning with NHL 11 and NBA Elite 11 this fall. If those physics engines work out--and early impressions of NHL 11 suggest that they do--then it would not surprise me at all to see NCAA Football 12 and Madden NFL 12 switching to that physics engine for next year's games. This year's "Locomotion" feature will just serve as a transitional period between the canned animations of old Madden and the physics-based gaming of new Madden.
For that, we all have to be thankful to NaturalMotion and Backbreaker for coming on the market and stimulating these changes at EA Sports; the largest sports video game developer in the world learning a lesson from a small team of developers. It just seems unlikely that, even if a Backbreaker 2 is developed and makes it all the way to retail release, there is a legitimate place for anybody else to share in the lucrative football video game market.
From the very beginning, I was on the fence about Backbreaker. I was interested in trying out the demo, and then seeing from there whether or not a purchase would be justified. Thanks to this whole mess with the PS3 demo, a purchase of the full title is out of the question for me. Sad but true. |
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06-08-2010, 11:01 PM
