NA PS2 - One Last Shot

[Volkai]

Actually, no price point was mentioned in the poll. Price was not a factor in player's voting.

It was not a factor in voting, but it was a factor in drawing conclusions from the results of the poll.

[Alhanelem]

It was not a factor in voting, but it was a factor in drawing conclusions from the results of the poll.

install base is more what the survey is about. I'm sure that 5 of the 20 PS2 users would be willing to bribe SE with extra money to get them to press a disc for them, but number of users *actively playing on the PS2* is what they were looking for- not "how many people would buy the expansion if they pressed a disc for the US."

Also I don't think the small number of people that would throw extra money at SE would be enough make up for the small NA install base.

There's really just no reason to keep playing on a PS2 other than "I can't afford a used xbox or a 10 year old PC."

[Sfchakan]

People always defend the PS2 and try to justify it. The fact is that continued support of it is taking limited development resources away from Square that could be focused elsewhere. Had Square decided to not release a Japanese PS2 edition of Seekers, imagine where else they could have devoted the extra manpower. Mogfarms? Further bug testing? More quests on launch? We'll never know.

This is what continued support for the PS2 is doing. Wasting resources for a very small population of players who should have converted to a new platform by now. Square should have let them continue to play in the Rotz -> Abyssea areas, sure, but to port Seekers to PS2, do some amount of bug testing, and manufacture a Japanese release? Geez, what a waste of time.

[Volkai]

install base is more what the survey is about. I'm sure that 5 of the 20 PS2 users would be willing to bribe SE with extra money to get them to press a disc for them, but number of users *actively playing on the PS2* is what they were looking for- not "how many people would buy the expansion if they pressed a disc for the US."

Also I don't think the small number of people that would throw extra money at SE would be enough make up for the small NA install base.

There's really just no reason to keep playing on a PS2 other than "I can't afford a used xbox or a 10 year old PC."

So what's the problem with putting up a goal and allowing would-be patrons to try to meet it?

[Alhanelem]

So what's the problem with putting up a goal and allowing would-be patrons to try to meet it?

There isn't.
Good luck though, you'll need it.

The whole point of the poll though was to determine the number of people that still played on the PS2- Not the number of people that would buy the expansion. I'm quite sure that the poll took place before the expansion was even announced, but I could be mistaken on that.

But really, why are you clinging so hard to an antiquated platform? This whole debate is like fighting for your playstation 4, Wii U or xbox 720 to work on an old black and white TV with screw connectors. I've never understood this. Noboy cried when microsoft dropped support for Windows 95/98, nobody cried when later versions of Windows no longer supported 16 bit applications. Nobody was upset when publishers stopped releasing movies on VHS. This is no different. Sony is stopping production/sales of the PS2 even in Japan now, but stopped in the US long before that. The next expansion, if there is one, almost certainly wont be sold on the PS2 even in Japan.

If I bought you a used xbox and a copy of the ultimate collection and shipped it to you right now would you use it?

[Ravenmore]

At the standard price, yes. That's the whole point of this - figure out if enough people are willing to pay enough money to make it worth doing.

Let's look at this with some possible numbers
If you need, say, 5,000 people buying it at $30 per person to justify manufacture, that's
total funds required: 5,000 * $30 = $150,000

Let's assume most of that ($100,000) is a nonvariable setup/distribution cost. That means the per-person variable cost is $50,000/5,000 = $10

So, if only 3,000 people are willing to pay, they would need to pay on average $(100,000+(3,000*10)=130,000/3,000=$43.34)

Only 1,000 would make that $110 per person (on average).


So, at $30 per disc, there's not enough PS2 players to justify making it. But there might be enough PS2 players willing to pay enough to justify the cost of manufacture. That's the whole point of this thread in the first place, Fusion.

You also have to take into account the many retailers that are no longer willing to stock or sell new ps2 disc. Now ou could get around this by using the SE store but then SE would have to deal with he mess of shipping each disc over from a warehouse in Japan or expend more money to have a either a warehouse in the states or reline on Amazon to take care of it since gamestop wouldn't even offer it online.

[Volkai]

There isn't.
Good luck though, you'll need it.

The whole point of the poll though was to determine the number of people that still played on the PS2- Not the number of people that would buy the expansion. I'm quite sure that the poll took place before the expansion was even announced, but I could be mistaken on that.

But really, why are you clinging so hard to an antiquated platform? This whole debate is like fighting for your playstation 4, Wii U or xbox 720 to work on an old black and white TV with screw connectors. I've never understood this. Noboy cried when microsoft dropped support for Windows 95/98, nobody cried when later versions of Windows no longer supported 16 bit applications. Nobody was upset when publishers stopped releasing movies on VHS. This is no different. Sony is stopping production/sales of the PS2 even in Japan now, but stopped in the US long before that. The next expansion, if there is one, almost certainly wont be sold on the PS2 even in Japan.

If I bought you a used xbox and a copy of the ultimate collection and shipped it to you right now would you use it?

Me personally? I would either keep the used Xbox in reserve for when my current Xbox dies, or sell it for money. The UC I would probably keep in case my 2008 Collection and current UCSE discs both died.

This isn't about something I need. As I've posted numerous times in numerous places I largely moved to PC around the time if the WotG release, and added Xbox to the platforms I play on not quite a year ago.

But there are players who for whatever reason (not my business why that is) have continued to play on PS2, and this is about finding a solution for their being left behind that is not switching to a different platform - at this point, if you haven't switched from PS2 to PC or XBox you probably never will - and from what I can see, the idea I started this thread with is the one realistic option remaining, the only one that accounts for the realities of manufacturing costs and requires profit margins.

[Volkai]

You also have to take into account the many retailers that are no longer willing to stock or sell new ps2 disc. Now ou could get around this by using the SE store but then SE would have to deal with he mess of shipping each disc over from a warehouse in Japan or expend more money to have a either a warehouse in the states or reline on Amazon to take care of it since gamestop wouldn't even offer it online.

Actually no, this is not something that needs to be taken into account. Because this model is backer-funded, the majority of buyers have already purchased their copy/copies before manufacturing began, and SE can ship them directly - and we know SE has that capability as they already do so with the XBox discs, and the costs of distributing to retail stores are greater than handling it yourself. Any remaining quantity after the backers' copies are sent out would probably go to whichever already-existing warehouse holds SE's remaining copies of the XBox version. Costs for everything but shipping the remaining copies to subsequent buyers are covered by the initial funding.

SE storing and shipping is not a new thing for them, as they already have two versions of physical product they currently warehouse somewhere and sell and ship in NA - XBox expansion and UCSE discs. No reason a PS2 version could not be added to that existing system unless the warehouse physically cannot hold it.

[Volkai]

But really, why are you clinging so hard to an antiquated platform? This whole debate is like fighting for your playstation 4, Wii U or xbox 720 to work on an old black and white TV with screw connectors. I've never understood this. Noboy cried when microsoft dropped support for Windows 95/98, nobody cried when later versions of Windows no longer supported 16 bit applications. Nobody was upset when publishers stopped releasing movies on VHS. This is no different. Sony is stopping production/sales of the PS2 even in Japan now, but stopped in the US long before that. The next expansion, if there is one, almost certainly wont be sold on the PS2 even in Japan.

As for this 'clinging' question.. I'm not clinging. My case for a backer-funded PS2 NA SoA release opportunity is this:
1} There is no technical reason that not releasing this product holds back FFXI
a) For dropping PS2 support to have any impact, it would have to be done in all regions
b) JP PS2 has this product already.

2} Release of this product through a backer-funded method is inherently profitable
a) We acknowledge there is a certain minimum cost for producing a certain minimum number of discs
b) This model sets a minimum amount of money that must go to SE before SE acts in any way beyond setting up a backer goal and method for backers to contribute money
c1)> If the minimum is met, SE profits
c2)> If the minimum is not met, SE spends no money, thus no losses

d) If the minimum is not met, it also definitively and publicly shows that continuing to support the NA PS2 player base is not a profitable venture for SE. Because it shows this publicly, the clamor for continued PS2 support by NA players is likely to become more muted. Here you go, people that want the PS2 to die in a fire, this is your reason to support this.

Actually it's pretty much just those two points. Through this method the only potential loss is for people who, out of spite, want to deny current NA-region PS2 players access to the expansion. This does not cause SE to lose money, this does not hold back FFXI in any way. This does not prevent anyone from changing platforms. There is no good reason I can see for SE not to go ahead with this.

[Volkai]

Poll is at 65 votes, and 38 of them plan to buy multiple copies of the PS2 version.

Really only 65 people that plan to get a PS2version if it's made, and only 2 that would break a $50 backing value? Yeah, that's not likely to succeed.... I really wonder what the minimum amount SE would need is.