Wednesday, August 02, 2006

No Atari titles for PS3 until 2007, CEO calls console´s appeal ´selective´



Atari CEO Bruno Bonnell has announced in an interview with Games Industry that its company will not be publishing any PS3 games until 2007. He doesn´t sound pessimistic about the console´s future, but he doesn´t believe in its mass appeal at the launch price. Here´s what he had to say:
I don't think there is a risk there [that the PS3] will fail. I think that by deciding to put the PS3 at this price, Sony has chosen to really differentiate itself from the other consoles, and the fact that you have Blu-ray, and the fact that it's HD compatible - all this is driving me to think that Sony is picking up the high-end of the market, the hardcore, passionate fans.

There will be a time they can reduce the price and access more people, but clearly that's a technical choice that Sony has made to be selective on the field at stage one.


Let´s decipher what he really is saying. He agrees that Wii will outsell PS3 (that´s the upshot of the last sentence), but he genuinely doesn´t seem to think that the PS3 will fail.

At any rate, let´s remember that Atari is not the heavyweight they used to be and their support matters far less than it did five years ago. Bonnell is desperately trying to get the company back on its feet when he says:
Very often people look at the share price, or the financial situation of the company, to reach a conclusion about the quality of the products we're releasing. I think those two are fairly separate.
Well, only fairly. Because selling a license like ´Driver´ and a studio like ´Shiny´ may get you out of financial woes - but obviously does impact upon quality.

EDIT Kotaku reported yesterday that developer SNK Playmore may hold off their first PS3 release until 2009. The studio is famous for the ´SNK versus´ and ´Metal Slug´ series, the last of which is coming to Wii as a launch title. Here´s their reasoning:
My first impression is that it's expensive. The PlayStation 2 is good enough. It's small and cheap. For us, for manufacturers, we have to invest in a new system, and the PlayStation 3 is a risk. There won't be enough consoles at launch. Few consoles mean few software sales. We need to wait three or four years. Maybe 2009-2010 is a good time to release a game for the PS3.
This is, of course, a bigger blow to Sony than Atari holding off their first PS3 title for maybe as little as two months and might curtail the Japanese demand for PS3.


Source: Games Industry
Thanks to: Some Guy, Babble, CaptainN

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dont forget SNK.
This will really hurt the PS3.
I must confess that the Wii does get more interessting after reading your blog. What's next? Maybe Square will also do the same? Like the good old days!

-=CaptainN=-

Falafelkid said...

Thanks for the comments, Babble and CaptainN. Will update soon.

Mind you, Square will be the last developer to pull their PlayStation support, I fear...

Anonymous said...

I would hate to say it but the thing that surprises me more then Atari holding of on PS3 until 2007 is the fact that Mortal Kombat is coming to Wii. I know this sounds odd, I’m not a big Mortal Kombat fan but it wasn’t too long ago Ed Boon (Mortal Kombat's Co-creator) said something along the lines of: “ don’t know how you could get a fighting game to work on the console, given that with the Wii controller you don't have immediate access to a whole bunch of buttons."

Perhaps he found a way? Or perhaps they are going to use the classic controller?

Any thoughts on this?

Anonymous said...

Ok, sure, square is developing the next FF installment for the PS3, but what about Dragon Quest? We will have a Dragon Quest game for launch for the Wii !! This is really big news, although it is not a DQ 9 , but who knows, there are also rumors that DQ 9 is also coming for the Wii.
And Dragon Quest is SquareEnix!
Dragon Quest is more important than any FF game in japan ! The launch of DQ 9 for the Wii would mean, like handing over the leadership for BigN!

-=CaptainN=-

Anonymous said...

My biggest DREAM is :

To see a game from Hironobu Sakaguchi for the Wii !
I hope that mistwalker will release some games for the Wii, especially traditional japanese RPG's like Blue Dragon.
And Fal , i have a question about the CODEFREE Story, do you have some facts about this rumor ? Will the Wii be codefree ? (Please let it be!)

-=CaptainN=-

Falafelkid said...

Hi CaptainN.

Fal , i have a question about the CODEFREE Story, do you have some facts about this rumor ?

Sorry, I don´t. I haven´t spoken to any Nintendo execs since E3. But I sure hope so too. Maybe I can ask about this at GC.

Thanks again for the heads-up on the SDK story.

Anonymous said...

Hey guys did you see what games have been cancelled for PS3. I think if it isn't change the PS3 will be a huge failure.
http://www.technophilia.org/2006/07/list-of-cancelled-ps3-games.html

Anonymous said...

Hey fal, great stuff I'm an avid reader and supporter of your unbiased, clear cut journalism,(enough sucking up) anyhow on the 3rd party support, this seems to be sounding exactly as the support the BIG "N" was projected to receive last year and the beginning of this year prior to
E3-06, And what was everyone saying, oh Sony FTW again nintendo no support. The thing with this is that SoNY doesnt consistently release quality titles if at all. But Nintendo can and does. So this is pretty serious, being many companies are in the red and trying to turn the numbers to black, but initial PS3 support will only hurt, being that offer the initial "Fanboyish" support will really show the truth behind the mainstream and the Hardcore which are the majority. Oh and stolen consoles dont count towards systems sales.

Rafael N
VA, USA

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