What are the bombs that shaped the industry?

[Deleted member 13798]

Always felt like the reception and flop of the order 1886 was the final nail in the coffin for traditionally linear games in the SP space. Leading to either wide linear titles or open worlds. Ofc traditional linear games that had already been announced came out later, but The Order in particular felt like the end of that particular market trend.

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i'm not sure I agree completely though I see where you're coming from. I think the trends were already moving more towards that in general for quite a while from last gen to now.

I don't think the problems with The Order and how it was received were directly related to it being linear either but I wouldn't trust publishers and the purseholders to necessarily understand that. The problem was it was so linear to the point of being on rails honestly, it recycled a major boss fight verbatim at least once, possibly twice (I don't recall), it was comically short (I beat it in around 5 hours without rushing the first time) and had a couple of guns that you couldn't use out of very specific encounters which only had like maybe 20 to 30 enemies in them so it never felt like you got to play around with the combat. It was a very bizarrely designed game in many ways that was pretty thin on depth and content. That it was pushed as a high profile exclusive made it all the more odd that it came out the way it did. Beautiful art design and visuals though.

 

[Maledict]

Just a friendly reminder that Nintendo did not save the video games industry. It probably saved the USA games industry, but the crash did not affect the rest of the world in the same way. Europe merrily went down a different oath of home computers instead and was fine.

 

[mclem]

Calling it a bomb is probably a bit of an overstatement (although to be fair, I don't have sales numbers to hand to check!), but the reception of Assassin's Creed Unity did seem to lead to a change in philosophy at Ubisoft, and a step back from annualisation; we still got Syndicate the following year (which presumably was already deep in development when Unity's issues became apparent), but subsequently there was a clear change in approach to production schedules.

 

[Vitet]

I think the PS3 incurred bigger losses than the total profits of the PS1 and PS2. So yeah, lots of mistakes were made with that thing.

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Sony made more money from the PS3 era than they ever did with PS1 and PS2.

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I'm confused.

 

[LiK]

FF: Spirits Within.

Caused Square to merge with Enix. Pretty major bomb.

 

[electroshockwave]

I'm confused.

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Maybe more revenue, less profits?

 

[Eoin]

I am curious do people really think the PS3 and X1 are failures?

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PS3 was very much a multi-staged console. At a minimum I'd say three stages - the first stage (abject failure) starting at launch, the second stage (revision) that encompassed most of the major redesigns and price drops up to (at least) the release of the slim model and the "It only does everything" campaign, and the final stage (success) from approximately the launch of PlayStation Plus in 2010 to the PS4's release.

So if we look at the PS3's life cycle as a whole, I'd say in the end it was a success, but for years, it definitely was a failure, it definitely was a financial disaster, and it definitely reshaped the industry. The PS3 itself was shaped by that failure - the machine Sony were selling in 2012 was conceptually very different to the machine they launched in 2006.

Superman 64 became a benchmark for bad game design

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That's true, but I'm not sure it shaped the industry. There were still plenty of bad games, including poor licensed games, after Superman 64.

Vanilla FFVIX and No Man's Sky became the examples of long-term repair for games

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No Man's Sky didn't bomb though. It was successful right from the start. I know what you mean, but it still wasn't a bomb.

Shenmue is probably a contender for this thread. Just like with ET I don't think its accurate to blame that for the death of Sega and the Dreamcast, but it was billed as the savior of Sega by DC magazines and fans before its release and it didn't really make the impact it was supposed to (even though it was pretty forward thinking and was the first open world console game I played).

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Shenmue is an interesting case, since it did bomb financially and it did also shape the industry, but I don't think that those two facts about it are really related. The Dreamcast was doomed anyway, and Shenmue's influence on the industry came despite its financial failure, not as a result of it.

 

[Legacy]

I mean ET is the only example you really need... sunk Atari and most of the rest of the industry along with them. Took Nintendo and SMB to restart the industry.

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This.

SEGA Saturn. Wii U. Gamecube. Playstation 3. 3DO. Jaguar. Atari 5600/7800. Xbox One.

All failures that completely reshaped the landscape of the industry.

As far as single game failures go? Rarely does the failure of one game have a profound impact on the fate of a developer, usually its a series of failures that has a real impact.

I suppose Bionic Commando PS360 might count here, as it was a big reason why Capcom did a 180 on their plans for western developer outsourcing; but even then, its failure in isolation was not the only catalyst, as it was flanked by other failures like Dark Void, Spyborgs and Lost Planet 3.

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Imagine thinking Xbox One and Gamecube being conisdered bombs that shaped the industry...

 

[Maledict]

I mean ET is the only example you really need... sunk Atari and most of the rest of the industry along with them. Took Nintendo and SMB to restart the industry.

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as above / it sunk the games industry in America, which Nintendo saved. The rest of the world went down a very different path.

 

[Yuntu]

I think you can probably meet this halfway. Neither of them were failures at all. But they were both wake up calls to the platform holders that they're doing something wrong and they need to do some work to right the ship.

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I think thats the thinking I would agree the most with.

 

[deathsaber]

In the end PS3 wasn't a failure, but early on- they maybe single handedly allowed MS its solid market position as a competitor that it still enjoys today.

Xbox was such a distant afterthought in sales next to the PS2. Imagine if Sony didn't dawdle and got a better PS3 product out, closer to the Xbox 360 launch that wasn't $599b but close in price to the 360- they could have stomped that brand out. Instead they let the 360 sit on the market without a competitor for a year, and were also basically near non-existent 2006 through 2008, with a clunky overpriced console, and early exclusives that were largely not mindblowing at all compared to software the 360 was getting (like Oblivion, Mass Effect, Halo 3, Gears, etc). Things only really turned around with the slim console coming around 2009 and Sony's first party development starting to really gel and putting out killer games only available on PS3.

So MS had a good 3-4 years as the best HD console choice on the market, and took a TON of marketshare as gamers adopted the platform. Yes, ps3 came back, with a lot of people adopting it later in the cycle with the finally affordable slim console and the mindblowing first party software that started showing up, and it ultimately caught up to the 360 in worldwide sales by the time 2013 came, but leaving the door wide open to MS for those first 3-4 years of the generation changed things.

 

[modiz]

Ghost recon breakpoint is supposedly making Ubisoft completely change their internal structure and game development pipeline so their games could differentiate themselves. But we will have to wait more to see how much it affects their games.

 

[Clive]

The PS3 is one of the biggest disasters in gaming history. Maybe it was a hit for you personally but an absolute disaster financially. There was speculation if Sony would survive it.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

I'm confused.

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I think I was mis-remembering this tweet from Zhuge:

The PS3 is one of the biggest disasters in gaming history. Maybe it was a hit for you personally but an absolute disaster financially. There was speculation if Sony would survive it.

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Without adding it up it looks like they're slightly in the black overall after the end of the PS3 generation. Although OhMyZach seems to be wrong as well, as they only made a slight profit in 10/11 and 11/12 compared to huge losses the four years prior. Overall the PS3 generation seems to have been a big disaster for them.

 

[Clive]

I think I was mis-remembering this tweet from Zhuge:



Without adding it up it looks like they're slightly in the black overall after the end of the PS3 generation.

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Are you talking about overall PS1-PS3? Because the PS3 gen certainly doesn't look what you describe. They took enormous losses on the PS3.

 

[Josh5890]

E.T obviously comes to mind. That game is the face of the video game crash of the 80's.

PS3 is interesting because it is proof that you can have a terrible, god-awful launch, but still be able to turn things around and have a somewhat successful console launch.

 

[nsilvias]

smt nocturne bombed and out of its ashes came persona 3 as atlus scrambled to find a way to stay afloat. persona 3 led to modern jrpgs as we know it.

 

[Birdseeding]

Daikatana hollowed out the idea of the developer as rock star, and put an end to some of the great excesses of the 90s.

 

[LordBaztion]

I would say the PSN shutdown of 2011 led Sony to give free games with PS+, which was emulated by every other service out there.

 

[Twister]

SEGA Saturn. Wii U. Gamecube. Playstation 3. 3DO. Jaguar. Atari 5600/7800. Xbox One.

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Not sure how the GameCube, PS3, or Xbox One are failures. They didn't sell as much as the competition but made money for the company and have fantastic games and legacies (well the X1 is too new to have much of a legacy, but the other two do)

 

[shauntu]

Black and White
Spore
Epic Mickey 2

 

[Eoin]

I would say the PSN shutdown of 2011 led Sony to give free games with PS+, which was emulated by every other service out there.

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PS Plus launched in 2010 and included games as part of the subscription from day one.

 

[hussien-11]

Skyward Sword > Breath of the Wild.

 

[mikhailguy]

speaking of DONTNOD... wasn't there some story about the failure of Remember Me, souring the developers' ambitions of trying to make "triple A" games and have since decided to focus on smaller, more manageable projects.

 

[Thatguy]

FF7 and all Squaresoft going to Playstation is the biggest. It catapulted Playstation into 1st place because so many followed. When FF went multiplatform Sony was so big by then it didn't matter. So maybe it was the choice to use CDs as the media?

 

[MajesticSoup]

If it weren't for the criticisms that Skyward Sword got, I don't think we would've ever gotten Breath of the Wild. Nintendo was very comfortable with a set formula that was established since Ocarina of Time.

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Skyward sword was the beginning of the botw formula. 'No traditional dungeons' was the same criticism that skyward sword got. It started the whole 'overworld dungeon' design as well.

 

[LordBaztion]

PS Plus launched in 2010 and included games as part of the subscription from day one.

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did it had games from day one? I remeber it only giving discounts (for which it was a service very hard to justify). Then after the shutdown, Sony gave a couple of free games to everyone, after that PS+ started giving 2 games per month
Maybe I'm wrong, I didn't follow much what sony did back then.

 

[Instro]

Not sure how the GameCube, PS3, or Xbox One are failures. They didn't sell as much as the competition but made money for the company and have fantastic games and legacies (well the X1 is too new to have much of a legacy, but the other two do)

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"Well they made some money" is not a particularly meaningful metric. By that logic most things are not failures, because maybe they managed to turn a profit. The reality is each device lead to sweeping changes in corporate leadership, and company direction. The 3DS could be thrown on the failures list as well.

 

[Eoin]

did it had games from day one? I remeber it only giving discounts (for which it was a service very hard to justify). Then after the shutdown, Sony gave a couple of free games to everyone, after that PS+ started giving 2 games per month
Maybe I'm wrong, I didn't follow much what sony did back then.

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Yes, there were monthly games from the start. It was generally one PSN game, one PSOne Classic and two PSP Minis each month (meaning four games playable on PS3, three games playable on PSP).

They used this model (with occasional variations, and with generally increasingly high-profile "PSN" games) until the introduction of the Instant Games Collection in 2012.

 

[msdstc]

The GameCube and PS3 were absolutely not failures.

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the gamecube definitely was more of a failure than ps3. That was the first nintendo console that was very apparent that nintendo was no longer the industry leader or even close. PS3 was a failure that took them from something like 75% marketshare to barely hanging on to 2nd.

 

[AmFreak]

Not sure how the GameCube, PS3, or Xbox One are failures. They didn't sell as much as the competition but made money for the company and have fantastic games and legacies (well the X1 is too new to have much of a legacy, but the other two do)

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PS3 lost money, One is unknown, but surely lost money at certain periods in time (and it's very doubfull that it is profitable overall).

 

[evilmonkey]

what and how?

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Can you imagine a world in which Nintendo hadn't gone bankrupt in 1985?

Crazy to even think about it.

/s

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They probably mean the movie, which lead to Nintendo not licensing any of their IPs to Hollywood for over 25 years.

 

[EloKa]

Nokia N-Gage killing the idea of having a phone that was dedicated to gaming.
Same is true for the Ouya and an android home console.

 

[thefro]

Virtual Boy for Nintendo
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within bombing in theaters leading to Sakaguchi leaving Square

Just a friendly reminder that Nintendo did not save the video games industry. It probably saved the USA games industry, but the crash did not affect the rest of the world in the same way. Europe merrily went down a different oath of home computers instead and was fine.

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Yeah, it was just the console gaming market. It probably would have been similar to Europe with more home computer based games. Arcades were certainly still viable as well even if they peaked.

 

[msdstc]

PlayStation 3 and Xbox One were not failures. PS3 outsold the Xbox 360, and Sony made more money from the PS3 era than they ever did with PS1 and PS2. Xbox One also wasnt a failure and Microsoft has had it most successful Xbox revenue with it.

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Can you cite that ps3 number? We're talking profit not revenue here. I don't believe what you said is true at all, they took huge losses on the ps3 and damaged their brand quite a bit during the time.

 

[msdstc]

Virtual Boy for Nintendo
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within bombing in theaters leading to Sakaguchi leaving Square



Yeah, it was just the console gaming market. It probably would have been similar to Europe with more home computer based games. Arcades were certainly still viable as well even if they peaked.

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I don't really think virtual boy bombing changed much of anything at all. Nintendo was still an absolute powerhouse before and after that thing.

 

[LuigiMario]

Not sure how the GameCube, PS3, or Xbox One are failures. They didn't sell as much as the competition but made money for the company and have fantastic games and legacies (well the X1 is too new to have much of a legacy, but the other two do)

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GameCube sold horribly, a dip of over 10 million from an already low N64. Had some great games and even some that sold well, but much like Wii U later it had a huge problem where no one played them. It had a huge branding issue in the US as a kids console and undid all the work NoA did during the N64 transitioning towards an older audience with games from Rare and sports games. Remember GameCube was supposed to course correct the errors of N64, with optical media, less esoteric hardware, and a controller that lined up more with it's contemporaries. Third parties also basically abandoned the platform by 2003, despite it being rock solid hardware more than capable of handling the latest games, simply due to how poorly it sold. Gamecube's library is only marginally larger than the Dreamcast, despite having nearly twice the time on the market and significantly more overall sales, simply because it wasn't a platform with targeting for a lot of studios.

The win of the GameCube was the hardware was so good, it was able to be modified and slightly enhanced to create the wildly successful Wii, but overall the system was just a big flop despite early potential.

 

[Reinhard]

PS3 is the 5th best-selling console of all-time. Yes, they sold it at a loss. Yes, it had a slow start. No, it's not a failure.

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On cost for PS3 components alone Sony was losing $300 per console sold, add in manufacturing and shipping plus R&D costs (very high, not off the shelf parts), and Sony was losing a ton per console sold at launch and the first few years. The console was also super hard to develop for since the CPU was so proprietary and not having good dev tools, which really limited the appeal (many Japanese devs focused on portable consoles instead, western devs focused more on the Xbox 360 versions) . Also, prior to PS3, Sony was completely dominating the industry but Xbox 360 completely changed that, especially with Sony losing badly in North America. The combination of all 3 meant that the PS3 was a massive failure during the first half of the PS3 generation and really made Sony shift course. Sony made sure their next console was low cost to make from being off the shelf parts, very easy to develop for, and was very pro consumer instead of "Arrogant Sony".

 

[msdstc]

The PS3 is one of the biggest disasters in gaming history. Maybe it was a hit for you personally but an absolute disaster financially. There was speculation if Sony would survive it.

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mmm yeah that speculation of "sony surviving it" was hyperbole. Sony was dying, but it wasn't really the playstation division sinking them. Sony was a lot more than the playstation division at the time, althoug hit has absoultely become one of their major pillars. Sony prior to that downturn was an industry leader in a lot of the electronic fields, but they fell way behind during that stretch. Sony pictures was absolutely bleeding money, the vaio division was bleeding money, their smart phone division was bleeding money, they were drowning at the time. The idea that it was the playstation division dragging them down is false.

 

[zombiejames]

If the PS3 was a failure, then let's talk about the Wii bubble.

 

[defaltoption]

Fallout 76 is the most embarrassing game launch in the last 5 years at least i have to inagine everyone took notice especially since it was Bethesda who before that could do almost no wrong

Battlefront 2 and the lootbox issues of course. These days nobody wants to touch that word.

 

[crimzonflame]

If PS3 is a failure so are SNES and N64 then.

 

[Chopchop]

Usually genres get shelved after a good game still fails to sell well.

Freespace 2 was a fantastic game but basically killed the space sim genre for years because if a game like that couldn't sell well, what could?

Same goes for games like Mankind Divided and Dishonored 2. Both games were good and had a ton of love put into them, but didn't sell well.

I don't think they were bombs, but they did make people decide to move away from those genres for a while.

 

[Kaguya]

I am curious do people really think the PS3 and X1 are failures? Because putting them on the level of those others seems kinda weird to me.

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While themselves overall aren't failures, there are a lot of failures to learn from with those two, and those failures indeed did shape the industry more so than the others... WiiU, which failure's led to the Switch the Saturn which paved the way for Sega's exit compare I guess.

 

[flatearthpandas]

Wii U doesn't really seem to fit. had no effect on the industry as a whole but also really no effect on Nintendo. Switch is doubling down on the concept, not pivoting

 

[ObbyDent]

In what goddamn world is the PS3 a failure

 

[msdstc]

If the PS3 was a failure, then let's talk about the Wii bubble.

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lol wtf? You mean the console that propelled nintendo back to 1st? The console that was sold at a profit from day 1 and made massive amounts of money for nintendo? Give me a break.

If PS3 is a failure so are SNES and N64 then.

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wtf?!?! HOW. SNES was a market leader, N64 lost that marketshare but was still a powerhouse, both of those consoles turned big profits. Ps3 bled money hard, and it lost sony it's massive stranglehold on marketshare. PS3 directly shaped the landscape today. They bounced back extremely strong with ps4, but god damn if sony came out with ps3 strong during the RROD debacle? Xbox simply might have ceased to exist. It's been known for years that the shareholders really dislike the xbox division and there have been rumors time and time again of a spin off or sell off of the division. If sony launched simultaneously and affordably xbox would have been sunk.

 

[blacktout]

If the PS3 was a failure, then let's talk about the Wii bubble.

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If PS3 is a failure so are SNES and N64 then.

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Technically, this topic isn't about failures, it's about bombs. The distinction, I think, is that a bomb is a product that performs (dramatically) poorly at the time of release. So I guess I'd argue that the PS3 was a bomb, but not a failure, in that it definitely underperformed initial expectations, but ultimately ended up performing just fine and did no long term damage to the Playstation brand. I'm not sure if it counts as a "bomb that shaped the industry," though I suppose it showed the importance of launching at a competitive price.

I don't think anyone could reasonably argue that the Wii was a bomb, though some (not me) might argue that it was ultimately a failure, since Nintendo wasn't able to turn its initial success into a sustainable business strategy.

N64 and Gamecube are neither bombs nor industry-defining failures, imho. They're more like modest successes that were hugely creatively important and reasonably profitable but overshadowed by the insane success of the first two Playstations.

SNES is just a straight-up, unequivocal success, regardless of whether you look at its influence on gaming or its sales relative to its competition.

 

[SnootchieBootchies]

Skyward sword was the beginning of the botw formula. 'No traditional dungeons' was the same criticism that skyward sword got. It started the whole 'overworld dungeon' design as well.

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I think the criticism was because the world wasn't very open and there was a lot of backtracking. That's why I think they decided to first give you freedom in how to approach the dungeons in A Link Between Worlds and then said "fuck it", you can go anywhere you want right at the beginning in BOTW.

 

[Thera]

It didn't really bomb, so it is probably not a good exemple, but when No Man's Sky launched, the words "procedurally generated" was ban by any PR talk for at least a year.
I don't think there was that many exemple. When small dev had a game which bomb, they closed the studio. When big ones had game which bombed, they stopped the IP.
Lately, we had Ubisoft who gave more time to make AC franchise after Syndicate. And also Ubi with "not meeting expectations" with Ghost Recon Breakpoint which ended up delaying all future games to make them cross gen and probably something else ?