Is Smash Bros a concept which won't work as well with non Nintendo characters?

[CM30]

Just been looking at the Sony equivalent to it, and it kind of struck me that to some degree, neither Sony or Microsoft really have characters that are quite as iconic as Nintendo's.

That's not saying the characters in Sony's game are bad, but... none of them are really that well known by non 'hardcore' gamers any more, are they? And in many cases, I'd say fewer people know the characters than the series they're in...

The gameplay could be excellent, it's just I'm not sure the concept itself is really going to catch on with the general public without Nintendo's cast of recognisable characters.

 

[Gelivable]

Well, for many gamers the only Wii game they have is SSBB, so even if it's not as good as Smash Bros. a lot of PS3 gamers would still buy it.

 

[Captain Cutler]

I agree, Sony's characters generally aren't as recognizable. There are a few that are fairly well-known, like Sackboy (perhaps recognizable is more accurate than well-known there), but there aren't too many others. Sony makes me think of Spyro and Crash, but both of those series have died, more or less.

Iconic characters seems to be an issue with most games that take in characters from multiple series (besides Nintendo's). Sega's "All-Stars" games come to mind for me. In the Tennis game and All-Stars Racing, I could recognize a few characters, like those from the Sonic and Super Monkey Ball series, but the rest were totally foreign to me. And I'd have to say that the lack of characters I knew made the games much less appealing; I already had Mario Kart and such, so there wasn't any motivation to buy another company's variation (well, actually, I bought Racing for my phone, but that was a lot cheaper).

Not knowing Sony's games very well, I can't say how much the characters will affect the game or its sales. For all I know, people who play PlayStation games know more of these characters. The game doesn't really interest me, though.

 

[Audacity]

Sony's characters are very different from Nintendos, so despite all the accusations of copying, it's not going to be a very close copy.

Frankly I think it's odd that neither Sony nor Microsoft have really attempted to come up with anything like Nintendo characters. It doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to create a 'Mario', and yet it doesn't happen. Companies used to try that back in the eighties/nineties, and there've been some awful failed attempts. The closest thing by far has been Sonic the Hedgehog.

 

[Yoshi64Mario]

When I think Sony these days, I think of Sly Raccoon, Jak and Daxter, and Ratchet and Clank. Spyro and Crash are also thought of. Sly Raccoon is definitely in there, and I have a PS3. So I'm going to buy this game. It'll be interesting to see how the two games (Brawl and this) compare, I think. And considering I don't call myself a 'hardcore' gamer, those three series I mentioned first are the well-known Sony guys now.

 

[ninjablooper]

I like very few games actually made by Sony. Most games I play on my Sony systems are third party.

 

[CM30]

^I think most people would agree with that point. Games like Call of Duty basically make up about 90% of the games people play on the Playstation 3/Xbox 360 to a practical extent.

 

[ninjablooper]

Not true. There are plenty of other genres then shooter out there on the PS3.

 

[Thexx]

Sony's version seems like it could be a great game. But if Microsoft were to try this, they might as well just make a bunch of original characters for the game, because they don't have many that stick out.