German gamers - are German tastes in gaming different from US tastes?

[lord of the mark]

Re: Re: Re: Re: German gamers - are German tastes in gaming different from US tastes?

Originally posted by Asher

Not valid, graphics are better on the 360 virtually across the board. There are sites such as EUROgamer that compare all the time, 99% of the time favouring the 360 on graphics/tech basis.


These are valid but they in no way describe why they would outsell the 360 so widely, and why this would NOT be the case in the UK, for instance.


Why would any of B or C be stronger in Germany than the UK? Discuss that rationally.

1. Maybe the future games are more to German tastes?
2. Maybe Germans are more taken with the idea of COMBINING the BD player with a gaming console?
3. Maybe those are factors that appeal in the UK (as in the US), but the 360exclusives already offset them in the US and UK, but are less appealling in Germany.

and no I cant say WHY those would be the case - but I think asking people who know the markets will provide more insight than sales figures

[lord of the mark]

Re: Re: Re: Re: German gamers - are German tastes in gaming different from US tastes?

Originally posted by Asher

Well, I obviously don't live there (nor would I ever), but several of my brothers friends have done co-op terms in the southern US and many worked for import manufacturers, and there were definitely barbs thrown that way especially in the more rural areas (not supporting American companies).

I think if you also statistically look at it, Japanese cars are statistically more popular in some regions of North America than others. I know in Canada (Calgary and Toronto) I saw way more Japanese cars than in California.

Your bros friends must have gone deep into the countryside. AFAICT Japanese cars sell like hotcakes in southern metro areas - its the Midwest where theres more of a bias in favor of US cars. that Canada is more favorable is hardly surprising, and absolutely irrelevant to your point about the South.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Asher

While the 360 is louder than the PS3 (noticably), the PS3 gets much hotter to the touch.

So maybe the Euros are more concerned about noise than heat?

Why would people buy it over the PS3? Here's an idea: it has a lot more games and a lot better games, and in the case of overlap it has the best version of those games. If you want a game console, there's really no reason to go for the PS3 over the 360 unless the only game you play is Gran Turismo (IMO, Forza is better) or Final Fantasy.

so then again, why would ANYONE buy it - yet it sells in the US, and not just as a BD player.

This is utter bull****. The 360 sales (and Xbox in general) were always far lower in non-English Europe than other parts of the world. This has nothing to do with reliability and it's a trend that pre-dated the reliability issues with the initial 360s. It's -- I think -- supreme arrogance on your part to assume Europeans are better educated on such issues. Do you think potential US buyers don't know about it? It's been everywhere from the evening news to gaming websites to the New York Times to the Wall-Street Journals to daddy's local business section to the kids at school. People know, they just want to play games.

You know Germany does have a reputation as being sticklers for product quality. Its argued they lost WW2 in part cause of that (they were too persnickety, and gave up mass production advantages)

[Asher]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
so lets see of the 4 euros whove posted thus far, one didnt address the q directly (proteus) and the others all disagreed with Asher.

Are you reading the same thread?

Locutus backed up what I was saying with his knowledge and attitude towards the 360. It's misinformed and did degenerate into a not-so-subtle tirade against Americans. Sir Ralph also said it's undeniable that it is there.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Asher

Are you reading the same thread?

Locutus backed up what I was saying with his knowledge and attitude towards the 360. It's misinformed and did degenerate into a not-so-subtle tirade against Americans. Sir Ralph also said it's undeniable that it is there.

Locutus denied its antiamerican, and said its about aspects of the product. Sir Ralph said its mainly silly happy and doesnt involve boycotts of products like games.

Loc and Sir Ralph, if Ive mischarecterized your posts, please call me on it.

[Asher]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Locutus denied its antiamerican, and said its about aspects of the product. Sir Ralph said its mainly silly happy and doesnt involve boycotts of products like games.

Loc and Sir Ralph, if Ive mischarecterized your posts, please call me on it.

It doesn't have to be an overt (and it ISN'T) "I refuse to buy anything American". It's a cultural phenomenon there.

Locutus is the perfect example. He refuses to say it has anything to do with it being American, and then goes on to say how Americans don't do research about their products and pay for things they shouldn't. Then he goes on his baseless claims that the PS3 is more powerful than the 360, which isn't based in reality either and is also obviously not the case when looking at games. He is making some kind of value judgment here on something that is not concrete, because the concrete disagrees.

His whole rant about reliability is also nonsense, as the 360's sales were very low in non-English Europe long before that became a problem, ditto with the Xbox (1).

There's some kind of cultural force in non-English Europe that I think Locutus personifies excellently. He will not overly admit to bias against American products (something I find shocking you'd think people are apt to admit their biases), but when you actually read what he writes you can see the inherent bias against Americans in his posts -- why is it unreasonable to assume this can influence his choice in choosing between a Japanese and American product?

I will say this one more time because I don't think you comprehend. I'm not saying there's an organized, widespread anti-American boycott in Germany and other non-English European countries. I think there's a subtle contempt for America and American corporations that exists that can influence the purchasing patterns of its citizens. This is perfectly illustrated by Locutus and Sir Ralph's posts.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
As for Settlers (which was mentioned in the initial posting) and the Anno-Series.

Well, settlers is a game that was made in germany, so, like most of the games that were produced in germany it is most popular here.
And same goes for other games like Die Gillde (known as "Europa 1400" outside of germany) Gothic (I-III), as well as Anno 1507, 1608 and 1701, which are germans products as well (and sold very well in Germany).

It is just like with music.
Although US stars might be popular in germany as well, we also have our own local stars, that, in germany, might be as popular as these US stars, but aren´t as popular outside of germany.

A good but not perfect example. Many of the games you mention were and still are very popular outside Germany. Both Settlers and Gothic were very popular in Slovenia and other countries in Europe.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Asher


It doesn't have to be an overt (and it ISN'T) "I refuse to buy anything American". It's a cultural phenomenon there.

Locutus is the perfect example. He refuses to say it has anything to do with it being American, and then goes on to say how Americans don't do research about their products and pay for things they shouldn't.

I think much of that is in response to your own tone and words.

Also hes being put on the spot to explain US market behavior, which of course hes not in position to do. I was not asking for Euros to explain the differential between the markets, but merely to confirm or deny the existence of the market forces you assert. He denied it.

Thats all im loioking for what the Euros actually say, not what their words can be spun into.

[Asher]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


I think much of that is in response to your own tone and words.

Also hes being put on the spot to explain US market behavior, which of course hes not in position to do. I was not asking for Euros to explain the differential between the markets, but merely to confirm or deny the existence of the market forces you assert. He denied it.

Thats all im loioking for what the Euros actually say, not what their words can be spun into.

Their words convey the subtle contempt for Americans (and feelings of cultural superiority in many ways) that I contend exist. This is why I find it so absurd for you to simply ask people from other countries if they have subtle biases, most people are not capable of such introspection and certainly not if it reflects them to be anything but pragmatic.

Read Locutus's post again. He condemns Americans rather overtly, and when he isn't doing that he's working on false assumptions on the capacity of the American product. Where do those false assumptions come from, they clearly aren't coming from fact or reality. This is the only time I've EVER seen anyone claim that the Xbox 1 was "inferior in every way" to the PS2 when the opposite is undeniably true. He's not capable of objectively determining the capacity of a product, why on earth would you ask him to introspectively analyze his culture?

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Asher


It doesn't have to be an overt (and it ISN'T) "I refuse to buy anything American". It's a cultural phenomenon there.

Locutus is the perfect example. He refuses to say it has anything to do with it being American, and then goes on to say how Americans don't do research about their products and pay for things they shouldn't. Then he goes on his baseless claims that the PS3 is more powerful than the 360, which isn't based in reality either and is also obviously not the case when looking at games. He is making some kind of value judgment here on something that is not concrete, because the concrete disagrees.

His whole rant about reliability is also nonsense, as the 360's sales were very low in non-English Europe long before that became a problem, ditto with the Xbox (1).

There's some kind of cultural force in non-English Europe that I think Locutus personifies excellently. He will not overly admit to bias against American products (something I find shocking you'd think people are apt to admit their biases), but when you actually read what he writes you can see the inherent bias against Americans in his posts -- why is it unreasonable to assume this can influence his choice in choosing between a Japanese and American product?

I will say this one more time because I don't think you comprehend. I'm not saying there's an organized, widespread anti-American boycott in Germany and other non-English European countries. I think there's a subtle contempt for America and American corporations that exists that can influence the purchasing patterns of its citizens. This is perfectly illustrated by Locutus and Sir Ralph's posts.

Ok, the begining of this post is loony, the end not so much. Untill I read this thread I was quite in favor of Xbox360. But your whole approach to this thread has made me want to go out and buy a PS3...

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Asher


Their words convey the subtle contempt for Americans (and feelings of cultural superiority in many ways) that I contend exist. This is why I find it so absurd for you to simply ask people from other countries if they have subtle biases, most people are not capable of such introspection and certainly not if it reflects them to be anything but pragmatic.

Read Locutus's post again. He condemns Americans rather overtly, and when he isn't doing that he's working on false assumptions on the capacity of the American product. Where do those false assumptions come from, they clearly aren't coming from fact or reality. This is the only time I've EVER seen anyone claim that the Xbox 1 was "inferior in every way" to the PS2 when the opposite is undeniably true. He's not capable of objectively determining the capacity of a product, why on earth would you ask him to introspectively analyze his culture?

Question: Are you capable of that kind of introspection?

Need I remind you that your attitude has been far more anit-European than Locutuses supposed anti-American rethoric.


I mean I acknowledge I have a slight anti-American bias, and I trying to overcome it (you guys never do seem to do anything that could help me with that ) and I can quite cleary say which of my positions are determined by that. In the case of consols, I have been very mcuh pro-Xbox because I was quite unhappy with the utter supremacy of PS2. Similar reasons led me to purchased Zune instead of the iPod.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
Question: Are you capable of that kind of introspection?

I like to think so. But I simply don't buy products based on the country of origin, I don't care. I have a Japanese car, American TV, all three consoles, an American CPU/GPU, etc.

I don't drive a European car because, objectively, the only affordable European car are Volkswagons which have terrible reliability problems and cost a pretty penny to fix. I admit I chuckled a bit when LOTM said Germans have an obsession with quality/reliable products -- he's never driven a VW or looked at BMW reliability charts compared to its contemporaries.

Need I remind you that your attitude has been far more anit-European than Locutuses supposed anti-American rethoric.

I find Europeans, in general, tend to be less informed about technology and more inclined to buy into branding and groupthink. I don't know why, I'm no sociology major, but I think this thread illustrates that nicely.

The European Union is an embarrassment to the world. That's just objectively speaking, their competition committee or whatever they call it actively hurts the consumer for no apparent reason other than they can.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Asher

The European Union is an embarrassment to the world. That's just objectively speaking, their competition committee or whatever they call it actively hurts the consumer for no apparent reason other than they can.

The United States of America is an embarrassment to the world. That's just objectively speaking, their human rights record has shown steady deterioration.



We can play this game all night Asher, but if you don’t calm down I’m afraid you’ll loose all credibility.
And lets not talk start talking about who has the bigger consumer rights list. You'll lose.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
The United States of America is an embarrassment to the world. That's just objectively speaking, their human rights record has shown steady deterioration.

No arguments from me.

And lets not talk start talking about who has the bigger consumer rights list. You'll lose.

You act like this is a good thing. Total cost of ownership is higher for game consoles in Europe than the US and Canada and the reason is all of your "consumer rights" laws. Not sure why you think this is a good thing, in the end.

How much does the PS3 or XB360 cost in Germany vs Canada, for instance?

And I am calm, this is how I talk all the time...

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Asher
You act like this is a good thing. Total cost of ownership is higher for game consoles in Europe than the US and Canada and the reason is all of your "consumer rights" laws. Not sure why you think this is a good thing, in the end.

How much does the PS3 or XB360 cost in Germany vs Canada, for instance?

And I am calm, this is how I talk all the time...

Sorry, I'm still quite new to poly, don't know you well enough yet Asher.


You are right the same electronic products are cheaper in Canada. But that's the choice we make. Its a trade off between regulation and cost. We just have our tax sliders set higher.


Anyhow buying stuff, even consols (despite the silly region system) in the US now even cheaper thanks to the weak dollar.