Rumour – God of War games being bundled onto Blu-ray, GoW III demo added as well

I take it these would be rejigged PS3-specific versions rather than emulated PS2 ones, then? Which would a pretty good deal.

That would be the assumption, yes.

There’s a kerfuffle going on at NeoGaf about John Koller ruling out BC for good. So this is interesting. Perhaps it points to PS2 games being sold via PSN more clearly than before? Can’t think how this could happen without some form of BC.

“Thats all well and good, but whats to stop you from buying both games for the PS2?”

That they don’t work on PS3s?

However, if true, colour me very interested. The God of War trilogy on the PS3 would be a major selling point for me. I’d be damned tempted to grab a PS3 for them games alone… on top of Uncharted.

“Can’t think how this could happen without some form of BC.”

Sony’s project, Sony’s code. They could just knock together some quick and dirty PS3 ports rather than emulating.

Sold!!

And I previously own both versions but having them both and a demo for the third as long as it is maybe 30$ I will go for it most def especially with this vacant fall season as far as games go.

GoW 1 / 2 inclusion in a special edition was a question asked in a Sony survey a while back. Not really surprised if it had a positive response.

Having only played GOW1 and missed out completely on GOW2, I would consider this a must-have purchase. In fact, these 2 games are the reason I’ve always hoped for a return of BC to the PS3. So, if true, I’m smiling.

Panipal – Can you link me to that story on Koller?

I read about the no, never, ever BC yesterday too – http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/08/sony-answers-our-questions-about-the-new-playstation-3.ars

Yeah. It was posted in a couple of the comments sections here.

We must have been swamped because I dont think we seen it.

Apologies.

On it now, thanks guys.

I can’t imagine why you might have been swamped these last few days

Thats sound like a good offer, since I never completed the first game and have never even touched the second. Also good for the people who don’t have a Backwards compatible PS3.

I think Sony want GoW3 to be a system seller, but people who never owned a PS2, thus never played Gow1 or 2 would be less likely to buy a system for the 3rd instalment of a series, even if that game is a killer app, but you make GoW1+2 available on the PS3 and maybe those people become more tempted.

Beaten by spikeymike. But then he can probably access NeoGaf at work and I can’t.

Is GoW3 really going to be a system seller? I can’t see it selling that well to existing PS3 owners let alone be the game which finally persuades a lot of PS2 owners to make the jump. What numbers did GoW2 do?

*lots*

God of War was immensly successful.
As for system seller, it’ll probably be the cause of me buying a PS3.

Both God of War games sold about 2.5 million. They weren’t particularly big for PS2 games, mostly because outside of the US / UK no-one was interested in them.

Hmm, looks like GoW2 did about 2.5m. It launched to around 100m PS2 owners; now there are probably over 120m of them out there. (Pro rata that would be about 400-500k for PS3, which suddenly doesn’t look so impressive.)

Snap!

One thing though, the userbase / sales don’t scale linearly. There will always be a hardcore of gamers who buy all the big titles.

“Is GoW3 really going to be a system seller?”

If they put enough hype behind it, why not?

GoW has a cult status now, if only 2.5 million out of 100m played the game then 97.7 million people missed out the 1st time round, and with enough hype coupled with the high recommendation of the hardcore set then it may be enough.

I don’t think the average gamer pays any attention to what the hardcore hype. If they did there would be at least 20 titles I could name which would be megahits rather than titles which sold poorly to averagely.

Don’t underestimate what cult status can do for a franchise, look at Half Life, do you think HL2 would have sold quite as many units across as many platforms if the original HL had been lacklustre? Doubt it, the noise made by existing fans can make the following titles more prominent, we’re already seeing it for GoW3, it gets talked about, and that’s what picks up peoples interest.

As I clearly said before, Sony want this to be a system seller and they’re trying to manoeuvre it into our faces, “look at me, I’m the sequel to those highly regarded games, but I’m BETTER – BUY ME BUY ME BUY ME”.

I can name a ton of cult sequels that did just as badly (or worse) than the original. That said, I’m not going to because cult games have pretty hardcore fanboys.

I’ll just say this. There’s a huge difference between what we often see as a hyped game as hardcore gamers and what it actually sells. HUGE.

You’re absolutely right though. It’ll come down to marketing in the end. Virtually everything does.

Sony – and particularly SCE – don’t like marketing or advertising. They see it as coarse and vulgar.