Europa

No Seven I don\'t think its as important as the US in sales terms.  First of all Europeans in general lament over the price of systems.  Is the Xbox really more expensive than it is here in the US?  Secondly, Europe is the last market to get games, consoles, you name it.  Obviously if Europe was such a huge consumer market it wouldn\'t have taken MS pratically 6 months to release the console there.  Also, you get games we have had for months later than the US or Japan.  Granted most of the development happens in Japan and the US is almost always behind Japan in that respect.  

My point is, if Europe was THE major market, wouldn\'t they get products around the same time the US does?  I wish someone had some sales figures for previous systems and we could compare the numbers from the "New World" to the "Old World".  I would be willing to bet that the US at least doubles Europe in sales on any given console.

I hate to say it, but Europe is mere dressing when it comes to meat of sales in the world concerning video games.

LOL

i always said the "reply" button was too close to the "new topic" button

Er no this was meant to be a new topic...  I am discussing Europe not Japan.  Maybe you should think before you reply

ok first thing i want to say about this is

1 reason games take longer to release in Europe if im wrong is because it has to have a pal version that contains more then a few im guessing subtitled languages in it - Europe doesnt speak one language throughout from what i know

2. there are millions of consoles to be sold there - just as many as japan so it does make quite the difference to a company if they are making money or not and by saleing to those millions they make money


just that easy

Can anyone confirm this?  I find it unlikely that a company would make a game in French, English, Italian, Dutch, German, Polish, Norwegian, Spanish, Danish, Swedish etc.  Wouldn\'t they limit it to a few of those?  Where is that Bizz guy from Italy?  I would be interested in hearing what he has to say about this

yea like i said im not sure exactly about that either but it seems to make some since that they would subtitle the games if you ask me

as i do remember someone saying that to get the GTA3 game to have violence you could turn off the german and turn on english or something like that

id hunt it down but its too much to look through in that GTA3 forum

Understood, though I would like to hear from some Europeans on this board (with the exception of seven, who I feel is really an American hiding out abroad :rolleyes: ).

nope, I\'m Swiss, live in Switzerland and am half aussie.

And yes, europe does get their games resynched in different languages..... or at least up until the release of PS2. All big games from PSone (MGS, Tomb Raider and heaps others) were all remade in their languages (German, French, Italian and Spanish). It\'s only now that games are actually kept in english (probably due to time pressure and development time issues). As a result, we don\'t have to wait for months to get our games here. Jak and Daxter features more than one language by the way and still launched in december together with the rest of the world.

I\'ll be right back for more, though.

Ok here is sort of an off/on topic question.  When the PC Engine was released in Europe back in the late 80\'s/early 90\'s did you all get the Japanese versions of games?  Some games are pretty straight forward, but others require a good knowledge of Japanse.  I know this question really doesn\'t matter now, but I am curious to know.  The Turbo Grafx was released soley for North America so everything was translated for us (not to mention some of the worst ports they could of chose).

GigaShadow, the "old world" as you call Europe is indeed very important. Here are some salesfigures you might find more than just interesting:

SCEI announce the achievement of cumulative world wide shipments of
hardware and software:

PlayStation®2: close to 15 million units shipped world wide:

• Japan 5.94 million units (since launch)
• North America 5.15 million units (since launch)
• Europe 3.86 million units (since launch)

PlayStation® (Psone™): over 85 million units shipped world wide:

• Japan 18.79 million units (since launch)
• North America 32.90 million units (since launch)
• Europe 33.75 million units (since launch)

In terms of software for PlayStation®2:

• Japan 226 titles released since launch, and over 450 titles currently in development
• North America 100 titles released since launch, and over 250 currently in development
• Europe 99 titles released since launch, 300 currently in Development

Source

As you see, Europe sold more PSone\'s than North America and Japan. It\'s still behind with PS2 salesnumbers, but that\'s also because we got less shipped units overhere and the price is still higher than what you guys pay overthere. Next you\'ll see that Europe also has more games in development than North America, which is also quite interesting.

Just to name a few European game publishers:
Infogrames (V-Rally), Eidos (Tomb Raider), SCE-Liverpool (Wipeout, F1), Evolution Studios (WRC). I\'m sure there are heaps more, but I just thought I name a few.

Now, why do we get our games last? Simply due to the fact that we use PAL overhere. PAL is quite different and while it runs slower it does have a higher resolution. Another reason is the languages. Europe has many languages that range from German, Italian, French, Spanish onto English and others. While games for PlayStation 2 aren\'t really synched anymore, we still get them with subtitles.

Now GigaShadow, do you still think that Europe isn\'t important?

You forgot one important segment.  Software sold.  Development doesn\'t mean as much as games sold.  These statistics condratict what other Europeans have been posting on these boards...  ie if games are more expensive there, how can they outperform the US in sales?  

Now I am not implying that Europe is poor, but from what I have seen here, it sounds like more than a few complain about pricing.  BTW what is the cost of an Xbox in Europe roughly in US dollars?

That is only for Xbox. PS2 games are the exact same price as PSone games.

If you had followed the link to the source, you would have found this:

PlayStation software shipments world-wide: 744 million
- Japan 251 million
- North America 283 million
- Europe 210 million

As you see, Europe comes in last, but not that much. If you look at the numbers of consoles sold, you will see that the European market has the potential to grow larger than the North American one. 210 against 251 or 283 million isn\'t that much. Just think about how much 210 million software shippments equals cash. No, not Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft can ignore this market. It\'s far to important.

A link that wants me to DL something?  Where did you find this link?  Anyway, it proves my point in that Europe is not critical.  The US and Japan (I admit it) are crucial to the Xbox.  If Japan doesn\'t bite then Europe will be a major factor in its success.  

If you have success in the US and one of those two markets (preferably Japan) you will have success.  Europe is bringing up the rear and with the European death rate outpacing the birth rate I don\'t see Europe growing stronger from a consumer standpoint :rolleyes:

More interesting figures and facts:

• Xbox will start to sell tonight, at 699 CHF, which equals US-$418 - same price as PS2 launched.¨
  
• Xbox software sells at 99 CHF, which equals US-$59 - same price as PS2 software
  
• PS2 sells at the moment for 499 CHF, which equals US-$298.
  

Xbox in Sweden is $470 dollars $70 - game.
PS2 was $432 when it launched.
You can get a PS2 for $287 today and $53 is the price for a PS2 game.