Where did Sony go wrong with PS All Stars Battle Royale?

It seems Sony did all the right things with Playstation All Stars Battle Royale. Most gamers claim its a rip off of Super Smash Brothers. But there is nothing wrong with emulating success. The question is, could Sony have done anything different with the game to make it stand out more? Will Playstation All Stars Battle Royale have the lasting appeal Super Smash Brothers has?

[Hingle_Mcringleberry]

The playstation part

[dgonza40]

no, i think it being playstation is the reason it had any legs in the sales department.

Where they REALLY messed up was the marketing. This game is great for the casual as well as hardcore demographic. Everything else about it is fine, and i love the game and it's really a lot of fun if you spend more than half an hour with it.

Hopefully the new marketing team Sony went with knows how to market games better.

[PirateThom]

Not having Sony Santa Monica developing it.

[dgonza40]

The game is great. If it really needs the Sony Santa Monica name for certain people to purchase it, then i'd be severely disappointed because it means a lot of young blood 2nd-party developers will have no chance making PS3 exclusives.

[PirateThom]

It isn't that, it's the fact the SSM concept trailer had more going for it.

[ErazorDJ]

''the game has only sold 140,000 copies worldwide''

FALSE

this game has sold 430.000 copies in ps3 and 140.000 copies in PsVita, total 570.000 copies.

[HarryMasonHerpderp]

Not to mention digital sales too.
Some people actually liked this game.
Me included.
The way the media portrays it though is as if everyone hated it and it was a complete failure. Which is not true.

[Kratoscar2008]

Its still low tough.

In any case Sony failed to get good characters, i mean Big Daddy? New Dante? Where is Gabe Logan? Where is Crash? Where is Spyro? Where is Snake?

It failed to be a dream match.

[HarryMasonHerpderp]

It did need Spyro,Crash,Cloud and Snake.
It needed more modes and a better arcade mode too.
What we ended up getting though isn't half bad and they managed to do their own thing and make a pretty good brawler.

[zebramocha]

@Harry didn't superbot say,they couldn't get hold of certain characters for the game.

[Tonester925]

SuperBot stated countless times that it was up to the IP holder. Ninja Theory wanted "New Dante" in. Omar Kendall said that they looked at almost every character that's ever been on a playstation game to make it into PASBR. It was out of their control unless they wanted to fork over a lot of money. Sony wouldn't have liked that. Gamers need to realize that's its more to making a game then MAKING THE GAME. Especially one like this.

[Kratoscar2008]

@Harry

Yeas it was good but you know its selling point was being a dream match, is like Nintendo made brawl and ignored characters like Fox or Olimar, while they are not insanely popular they are still part of what makes Nintendo.

@zebramocha
Yes they did and is a shame really.

@Tonester925

This is thr problem, Sony wanted to make a game to compete to SSB rather than making their own unique tribute to the story of Playstation wich it should had been, Big Daddy as iconic as he is he did NOTHING for the story of Playstation while Gabe Logan broke his back making the three awesome Syphon Filter games and those were my favorite action game of the PS1 so that for me sucks balls.

[showtimefolks]

You know besides the hate from Nintendo fanboys Sony did a lot right for their 1st entry into a brawler/fighter.

IMO what did this game so bad was the advertisement, I mean no gameplay what so ever. That's been the problem for Sony in this gen even when they do advertise they dont do it right

Now I am very hopeful this new advertisement firm will fix a lot of that

[dgonza40]

lol, i should've gone further down to read your comment because i wrote the exact same thing in reply to the first comment on this article.

Hopefully we see another entry in the series, and hopefully SSM can improve on the foundation SuperBot laid down

[Anon1974]

Remember when all those sites were falling over themselves to declare LittleBigPlanet a flop? I wonder how many of those sites printed retractions after the game ended up being a consistent seller and moved something like 5 million copies.

At any rate, what are they basing this article on? Numbers from VGChartz? And not even the right numbers from VGChartz? Yeah, fail article fails.

[maniacmayhem]

So are you saying that PSAS was a success?

[Anon1974]

How the hell should I know? If I said it was or wasn't, I'd just be guessing, like this article. Besides. I have no idea what the metric for game success is. It would depend on any number of factors and who knows what their expectations were. I think if, at the end of the day, you can afford to pay all your employees and you've made money, that's a success. This studio was created out of nothing and this was the small, startup studio's first game. They may not be working with Sony exclusively any more, but they haven't closed their doors. That says something right there.

However, if they're forced to close up shop because they didn't make enough to continue, obviously the game didn't succeed. Again, we really don't know at this stage. Personally, I could care less. I didn't buy the game. It just didn't appeal to me, but I hate when articles like this spout off about something they really know nothing about. Articles like this are meaningless, because you need at least some basic facts on which to base your opinion on. This article started with zero facts.

But at least the author has the balls to put his name on his work. So many articles these days, the authors just spew nonsense and don't even bother to stand behind their own comments. I think, as a rule, if the author of an article can't be bothered to use his real name and state his background in a basic "About Us" that they should just be considered nameless blogs and rejected.

[maniacmayhem]

I'm just asking because it seems to be common knowledge now that PSAS was not a success in what Sony had hoped for.

So why bash the article for stating that PSAS was not a success and what they think they could have done better? You're dismissing it only because he quoted vgchartz?

The article actually states what could have separated PSAS from SSB even more with added features, modes and gameplay ideas.

"They may not be working with Sony exclusively any more, but they haven't closed their doors. That says something right there."

It does say a lot, if the game was a success then why would Sony severe ties and move further development in house? You don't contract a company and then drop them if the product they made is successful and making you money. And especially after one game.

Superbot may have not closed shop but they had to do some serious cut backs and lay offs because of the severed tie.

I guess what I'm trying to say is stop trying to defend the obvious. The game didn't do well, it happens.

[Shadow Flare]

Not making Kaz Harai a playable character

[Kaizin514]

I could see it now. His level 2 special "Riiiiidge Raaceeerr" and a bunch of sports cars come and annihilate his foes with his level 3 special being a historical representation of a giant crab which, for the hell of it, he can control.

[Shadow Flare]

Courtesy of Unlimax

Kaz's Level 1 attack

http://i.imgur.com/WNN03W7....

Kaz's Level 2 attack

http://i.imgur.com/LI668hg....

Kaz's Level 3 attack

http://i.minus.com/ibv4NFbg...

Kaz has a Level 4 attack that he saves for special occasions

http://i.minus.com/i59yXniS...

[BlackTar187]

Shadow flare 100% win good job first one had me LOL'ing for sure

[FunAndGun]

I died when he tossed out the Move controllers! LOL

[kenshiro100]

That was hilarious Flare.

[OhReginald]

honestly the reason why PSASBR sucked is because it IS NOT A Super smash bro clone like people hoped for.

[FlameBaitGod]

Don't know y you got disagrees, its the truth. People where hoping it would be the same mechanics. Same happened to UT3, they changed the mechanics from UT2004 and that game bombed so bad. I'm not saying the game is bad but it would of sold a lot more if they had just copied the mechanics. If the new cod took perks off, took aim assist off and made it harder to kill people by giving them more hp, you think it would sell the same ?

[Dread]

sorry bro but it was a clone.

nothing wrong with that in my opinion, but lets not deny the fact. It is creepy to c all the sony fanboys deny that sony copies things. All companies do it, just accept it and lets move on.

[zebramocha]

Why?because it's a fighter,ssb is nothing new concept wise,character mash up,marcel vs capcom,dynamic battlefield,out foxies,now this one is kinda tricky,there was a game called thrill kill meant for the psx that was a four play simultaneous fighter but was cancelled in 1998 a year before ssb.

[dgonza40]

I think it being a SSB clone would turn me off to getting it.

If you're going to try a brawler-type fighting game, dont rip-off another series blow for blow. Do something different to where i can buy both and still have them feel different from each other.

[My_Name_BTW_Is_Dante]

By giving it to a new company like Superbot. You don't give things like this to newly created companies regardless of experience. You test them first with a new IP.

[neoMAXMLC]

PS All Stars WAS a new IP though.

[FunAndGun]

isn't this a new IP?

You did a circle in three sentences.

[My_Name_BTW_Is_Dante]

A new IP as in something of their own. Not using characters and such from other companies.

[Ness619]

This article again?

[ZeroX9876]

characters....
I'm a big fan of the game, I platinumed it first day (was easy tough) and I like the available characters,

BUT
the classic all stars, the characters that made the road to success playstation's on to this day isn't there.

MediEvil's Sir daniel was a nice addition, but where's the japanese characters?
isn't Sony a japanese roots company to begin with?
I'm sure hoping there's more classic characters coming out. go back to PS1 era, maybe some PS2, just not PS3. even Dante is based on the PS3 version instead of the well known PS2 version.

The main reason why Sony didn't put characters like spyro,crash,cloud, etc. is probably because companies like activision and Square either refused to give them or the price they were asking for was way too high to invest in a new IP. We can't forget that square enix already have a fighting title with FF characters, so maybe they felt like it was direct competition.

Maybe it was the super/no health system, I liked the super system, but it seems that not everyone was fond of it.

I'm sure hoping they're planning a sequel for PS4 and with more characters and a better menu system. the game seems to have sold quite well for a new IP.

I'm on a business trip right now, so I didn't had the chance to try emmett and Kat, how are they?

[sarshelyam]

I don't think they failed. What failed are the expectations by the majority who condemn them.

[Knight_Crawler]

Atcually I blame it on the Sony diehard that hype a Sony exclusive game to kingdom come but when it relased they do not purcase it.

[BLKxSEPTEMBER]

BINGO!!!! I have always said that same thing.

[NeoTribe]

You consider a few fools on game forums make up the masses. I think the majority of its sales are from these diehard fanboys. Your mainstream sony consumers wernt interested in this game. Happens.

[ddurand1]

nothing about the game was appealing?

[Gratisfaction]

No Crash Bandicoot...

[JBSleek]

Marketing. Sony is committing homicide when it comes to exclusives. Put a damn commercial once in a while.

Example. Twisted Metal could of easily sold 5 million if people actually knew about it.

Sony should be a shame of themselves what they do to their own. You bet if Xbox has something coming out we know about it. Also the general public knows about it. Word of mouth only gets you so far.

Sony you need to market and market well none of the weird crap where babies crying and the tears are then back in the eyes.

Marketing, marketing, marketing.

[TemplarDante]

Needed.. .
More Characters
Better and well known final boss
Better name....

[ThatArtGuy]

The game mechanics themselves are solid. It's a fun game and has a great deal of strategy involved. People who play the game and like it are passionate about it. The game is consistently in the top five on GameFAQs and even the message board beats out newer games on release. The only thing this game really was missing (other than Crash, etc.) was polish. The game needed a lot more of it, and being a first time studio they unfortunately missed this important part.

[Nicaragua]

I enjoyed it and there are plenty of people online playing it so i dont see the problem.

Just whiney little turds trying to make a doom article out of everything.

[Riderz1337]

It's simple: The Roster.

[GreatTeacherOnizuka]

lets face it.
Playstation cast is not as popular as sony thinks.
simple as that.....

no character in there like pikachu... and no one has a falcon punch

[Sizzon]

Easy:

Should of got more well known Playstation characters such as: Crash, Spyro, Snake, Cloud, Gabe Logan and Dart etc. Not stupid and unnecessary characters such as New Dante and Big Daddy that has nothing to do with Playstation history to begin with. The original Dante however does, but that was up to Capcom.

and Marketing, Sony's marketing for games such as Starhawk, Twisted Metal and this game PSABR have been terrible. In the marketing part, Sony needs to do a lot better, as a Playstation fan since the PS1 myself I want games but I also want them to sell and to know that the online community is there. Too bad you can't say that about most of the PS3 games with multiplayer, yes variety but also small communities...

When you go on the Xbox to play Halo or Gears of War you don't need to ask if it's people still playing it online, like you would for a game like Killzone 3 on the PS3. Because the community is there for Halo and Gears of War, and those do and did amazing in sales.

So Sony step your game up in the marketing part.

Btw can't wait for God of War: Ascension, The Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls this year! :)

[TuxedoMoon]

These are my problems with the game, but I'm sure some it did contribute to why this game wasn't a big hit:

Marketing-
Have you seen the (US Realistic )commercial for this game? Who is their target audience? Adults? this has been a problem with Sony's marketing. Some games...like this one...shouldn't be marketed and presented as the "Adult" smash bros. Why? BECAUSE IT'S NOT AN ADULT ALTERNATIVE! Was there even gameplay fotage in those commercials? As Far as I've seen, this was the only real commercial for the game. Casual gamers or however you want to label them account for a huge majority of game sales. This game's crappy marketting failed to get their attention.

Gameplay-
2012 was filled with fighters and this one was underwhelming. Hitting other characters felt so weak and the gameplay gimmick was a huge turn off for me and a lot of other people. Getting hit didn't really mean anything as long as you avoid the final special attack, which most people just pick the characters with the better special attack...especially spamming Kratos and Dante. I love Dissidia, which has a similar system, but this game...it just felt slow, floaty...and reminded me a lot of Brawl when I think about it. Gameplay wise, it tried to do too many things at once and didnt excel in anything.

Characters-
Letting non gamers try this game out really made me see how weak the roster was. They didn't know who these characters were! Aside from Kratos and maybe sack boy, they couldn't name where the other characters were from. The thing with Nintendo is that they have mascot characters that a lot of people recognize. Pikachu, Mario, and Link being the main ones. Sony's game had...Kratos? Sack boy? Good/evil Cole? And that final boss...wow was that stupid. The rival cut scenes were cool, though. The lack of Japanese characters like Wander was a turn off for me especially. Sony is a Japanese company...you'd think they'd have more Japanese characters...Legend of Dragoon? Wild Arms?

And problably thing worse thing of all...
-THIS GAME FAILS TO CELEBRATE SONY!

Yes, smash bros is a party/fighting game, but both Melee and Brawl started the tradition of celebrating the nintendo brand by packing the game with a ton of content. From trophies with history to tons of music and Remixed music. When a new smash bros comes out, it's a literal parade of excitement. Sony All stars felt more like a small backyard BBQ. Everything was just so standard! The music was rediculously bland, the levels were boring, and watching people fight is pretty dull. It just feels like cat and mouse with the specials rather than a fight to the death. The game just failed to celebrate sony...no history..not a lot of unlockables...Then again it's hard to compete with a company who's been around for what? 30+ years? Especially when Brawl had Mario vs Sonic.

This game really needed more polish, recognizable characters like Crash, Cloud, and Spyro, and simply more stuff. If this game does get a sequel, hopefully they try to actually Celebrate the Sony brand.

[jakmckratos]

Hmm let me see

-Roster that boasted 20+ characters that only had 20, and really 19 2/3 when you realize the Coles are ridiculously similar. Really too short of a list when you consider even Brawl had 35+

- Silly character choices(especially 3rd party) when much better options are availible(Fat Princess, Heihachi, Big Daddy, Raiden?? How about Snake, Crash, Cloud and Dart from Legend of Dragoon??)

-Overpowered characters and moves(Im looking at you Kratos and Raiden as well as Radecs side triangle)

- THE most pathetic story mode Ive ever played. You're telling me you brought back Sir Dan and Parappa to literally have 3 lines of dialogue with only ONE other character. I don't care how goofy you could've made it..I wanted to see cutscenes with Kratos yelling at everyone and Drake making a snippy remark about it. It should've featured a co=op mode and enemies/extra settings from Playstation games.Also every fighter could've had an original boss from it's own game.

-Lack of presentational quality..no extra meaningful modes like Smash's trials, polygon fighter horde mode, and the other fun stuff that made Smash fun.

-Lack of dedicated servers in lieu of hosts make PO'd rage quitters make the entire game null and void. Really ruins the integrity of playing the game..not like Raiden and Kratos didn't already do that.

-Levels are silly. THis is more of a personal belief though. They're almost static and rarely feature anything truly significant from a Playstation game. Except the lurker sharks.

-Lastly and most importantly the Supers Kill system really wasn't that cool. Sure it's fun for a while but soon you realize the easier your character's supers are to use the better more annoying they can be to other players (look at Raiden and Ratchet's level 1!!) it really feels like an alternative mode. The first footage of All Stars featured Fat Princess throwing Kratos toward the scene and cracking it.kinda like a more basass Smash Bros. Honestly I wish they just utilized the ring-out feature from Smash bros instead of coming up with what they did. It was alright but I can't take it seriously.

BONUS****

The name is god awful...change it to Title Fight for the sequel. And I truly do hope there is a sequel cuz the combat in this game is really fun. Lose the super system the way it is, add more characters and make a meaningful single player experience.

[PieMonster]

I think it failed because it's not a fun as watching cute little Mario characters duke it out.

[yami930]

I think the 2 things Sony really needed for this games was more advertising and more time for the game. The game is great, I'm playing it almost everyday with friends, with family, it is fun I just think it needs more balancing (mainly when it comes to 2 vs 2) and it could use some improvements on the menus. For the arcade it could be better, but its the first game so I dont mind really, as long as they know now the next game should improve. As for the characters people are requesting so much, yeah it would be nice to see them but it sucks that Sony doesnt own the characters to just throw in, they have to try and make deals for them and the IP owners of the characters have the power to basically tell Superbot and Santa Monica how they want them to be in PS All Stars. For example, for crash, Omar had said they are still in the talks with Activision for getting him in, but I wouldnt be surprised if they throw in the african tribal animal version of Crash that Activision made and not the PS1 crash (just as if Spyro was in, theyd want Skylanders Spyro not PS1 Spyro). I feel the characters will come in time though and as for the current roster the only character that I really dont think belongs is Donte, I feel like if Dante was in the game it could have helped the game because people know him and he is a very popular iconic character (I really would like him in the game he was one of my top characters that I wanted to see, but unfortunately I dont think he will ever appear thanks to Capcom) even Big Daddy can be considered an all star being part of a succesful franchise that has released on PS3 and he is a popular character amongst gaming as well.

[Rynocirator]

I had one problem with it...no unlockable characters. That is where ssb succeeds...otherwise I think the characters are more interesting, and the gameplay is better than ssb. What is the point of having a story/arcade mode if there are no character unlocks?

[Hicken]

Who did it "go wrong" with? I'm enjoying it. My nephews love it.

Do you mean sales? Marketing is most likely. Sony's not been very good at that this gen. If they still had Kevin Butler, we'd definitely have seen a couple of entertaining commercials for it.

That said, the game's seen more than half a million sales(I contributed with a copy just two days ago), excluding digital sales; if sales of past Sony exclusives have told us anything, it's that they burn slowly. I have no doubts that PSAS will go on to see a million or more.

That aside, I'm not particularly disappointed by the lack of in-game content for a new fighting game. The last new fighting IP that I can recall is BlazBlue, which only came with like 12 characters and not much in the way of unlockables, either. And that's my favorite fighting game series EVER.

Could the game have been better in areas? Sure. It's a little boring in parts(the menus that some people have graded down for could be improved, for example' people REALLY want a storyline that makes sense in a crossover brawler?). But it's a solid first outing, and I'd be glad to pick up a sequel that builds on this first entry.

[Nerdmaster]

It should've been like Street Fighter, not Smash Bros.

[GraveLord]

The developer. You can't trust such a huge idea to a bunch of noobs. If handled properly, this could have been the next Smash Bros.

[yewles1]

The biggest problem with PSASBR was it's lack of PlayStation lore.

No characters from games like Jumpimg Flash, Syphon Filter, Wild Arms, Legend of Dragoon, Mark of Kri/Rise of the Kasai, Dark Cloud, Philosoma Arc the Lad, etc.?

NO obligatory homage to Gran Turismo (Sony's BIGGEST franchise)?

No fun battle area with PS Eye usage in homage to PS2 EyeToy?

Getting the WRONG third party support, no Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Yakuza, King's Field, Crash/Spyro, .hack, Ace Combat, Onimusha, ORIGINAL DMC, Dynasty Warriors, etc.?

It needed WAY more to simmer in support.

[dcbronco]

Sony's mistake was listening to fanboy hype. Every time a leak hits about a release the fanboys go crazy. Sony needs to realize that people that irrational couldn't possibly have any money. They go on an on about every coming exclusive and then they don't buy them. Oh, because sales don't matter. Bet Sony thinks they do.

[aDDicteD]

it's a good game but we really need some characters that were in the ps1 and ps2 era that will really define what the title speaks for. hopefully it'll come in the future dlc's that they are planning as well as (crossfinger) that it'll be free even if it's just for 2 weeks or so.

[TheLastGuardian]

PSASBR did not disappoint me, and I, being a longtime PlayStation die-hard, was the target audience. The roster could've been better, but it's still pretty solid. The fun factor is very high and I'm totally addicted. I play it at least a couple hours everyday.