Trends of launch game review scores across generations

by JC Fletcher on Dec 14th 2012 1:30PM

It can be really interesting to look through a bunch of well-organized data even (especially) if there are no easy conclusions to be drawn from it. Gamasutra's gathering of historical Metacritic/Gamerankings review data for home console launch games is just such a collection of interesting, difficult to interpret numbers.

Aggregated looks at review scores for the launches of systems from the PlayStation to the Wii U show that the PS3, Wii, and Wii U's launch games had the widest spread of review scores – a phenomenon we might attribute to the larger number of reviewing press outlets that were present for those launches.

The average review score was highest for GameCube, and lowest for PlayStation. And surprisingly, the Wii U has almost as many US launch games as the most populated platform, the PS2. That's at least one auspicious statistic for the Wii U's launch lineup, even if many of the games in it are ports.

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Square Enix's Mike Fischer on trends and the changing game industry

by Richard Mitchell on Jul 25th 2011 9:00PM

In an interview with Gamasutra, Mike Fischer, recently appointed president of Square Enix's US operations, spoke at great length about the current state of the game industry. Fischer noted that Square Enix is necessarily focused on building games for "gamers," primarily because he believes that the definition of gamer is "very subjective."

As an example, Fischer pointed to television networks canceling soap operas because their primary audience are spending time playing games. "If they're playing more games an hour than a college student, who is the gamer?" he asked.

That said, even though social games are "hot" right now Square Enix won't abandon traditional game development for the sake of a trend that Fischer believes may not last. The company has, according to Fischer, a "strong lineup and strong IP" that gives him "confidence in a long term success" and an opportunity to take part in current trends outside of core games.

Check out Gamasutra for the full interview, which covers Square Enix's strategy going forward and Fischer's thoughts on new IP, the console development cycle and more.

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