Like a washed up superstar, Grand Theft Auto IV continues to drop in NPD figures. This Axl Rose of video games came on strong and sputtered out into oblivion with barely a notice, leaving the spotlight and all hype behind it. This drastic fall may hurt any negotiations “behind closed doors” with Electronic Arts and their constant attempts to take over Take-Two.
Prior to the release of GTA IV we, in our gaming podcast, predicted a huge launch would up the anti against the bids on Take-Two from EA but things didn’t work out exactly as we expected. Although the game has sold 8.5-million units, it might not add any new bargaining power to the back door negotiations.
A game company is only as good as their games. A hit title which dies out quick helps financially guide the future of the company; technically the future isn’t so bright. With the title quickly falling off the top game sales charts we may never see it hit record sales figures to match that of smaller titles. Having one hot title every four years that “breaks records” for a week isn’t a strong weapon against a low bid from a larger publisher.
While EA may not have any record setting “one week” sales titles yet, they do have a consistently strong set of titles which stick on the charts for months with newer titles arriving to take their spot when they fade. The same can be said for a few other notable publishers, Activision and Ubisoft. To survive in the hot game industry, especially with market downturns, one must have a cycle of great games to publish throughout the year consistently year-over-year in order to provide evidence of their financial stability.
Assuming the bid won’t raise for GTA IV, where does that leave Take-Two? Perhaps Take-Two is better off under the umbrella of Electronic Arts after all. The waters are getting more hostile in the industry as companies compete for gamers attention with 100-million dollar titles and casual games and game consoles (read: Wii) start to build a whole new none-gamer-style momentum.
Is Take-Two better off under the EA brand?
Almost missed this episode.
@Microsoft’s decision to reverse its online policies
Dunno about it. I think it’s a bit too late. Just like a commented to a youtuber, similar hardware, smaller price – I think PS4 is better placed.
And due to using similar hardware, I expect the game libraries to be similar.
If you ask me, it’ll be the price and the exclusives that will make the difference.
@EA’s Soderlund states next-gen consoles should have come a year earlier
… idiot.
Hardware takes time and resources to develop. It’s not like you can set up a day one patch for a piece of hardware. Oops, the CPU bus should have been 256 bits wide, well, no worries, we’ll ship a day one motherboard replacement …
@Fish claims Fez 2 won’t come to Xbox One due to anti-indie policy
mmm not sure about it being a fit. I think that Team Meat was also a bit angry at the new consoles. So …
Thing is, while something to be praised, making such a stand can cause them some financial grief. I mean the devs built some communities on the platforms they released their games. Switching the platform could mean a smaller community, possibly a smaller market.
@Better late than never
It’s never late to have a new generation of consoles. If it came a year earlier, it would most likely be more expensive. Or less refined. Still, I can barely wait for the PS4. The Microsoft swing did nothing to change my mind.
I still will be getting a PS4. Probably will import it because of the atrocious Europe and UK price markups. I know there are taxes involved but we have to pay almost as much in pounds as you pay in dollars.
@Premium games
At the beginning of the previous generation here in UK games cost almost £60. But it quickly fell to £40 which was the price of premium games last generation. No one in UK is going to pay more than £40 for a game. Especially now that the consoles are region free.
@Betrayal
I agree with Alien. I know that Microsoft won’t turn back on their new promises as it would be financial suicide. But I hear a lot of people saying that they don’t trust Xbox anymore and won’t buy the Xbone. I think Microsoft shot itself in the foot pretty bad. That and the price. Here in UK the price differential is pretty bad(£429 vs £349) It will make a lot of difference here in UK.
@Star Wars Battlefield
Battlefront was a blatant rip off of Battlefield and now seeing DICE have the development is quite strange. I am just glad the game is being developed by someone. I loved the first 2 games and the Lord of the Rings: Conquest atrocity which came out some years ago was a poor representation of the series.
@There is something Fishy about the Microsoft East Indie Trading Company
I quite enjoy indie games on Xbox 360. Recently played White Noise (multiplayer rip off of Slender) which cost as much as a can of coke and gave me more fun than most premium games. I would love to see greater support for Indie games in the next generation. A note on Fish rant, if Microsoft policies are so anti-Indie than how did those thousands of games made it to the Indie channel?
@being impressed
None really. I mean, the games are good but none of them struck me as particularly amazing. Probably because I don’t tend to watch much trailers and just wait for the games. If I was to choose one then I enjoyed the Battlefield 4 gameplay. Looking forward to bringing down skyscrapers and reducing maps to rubble. And 64 player console battles. The game itself looked just like Battlefield 3 thou.
@loosing a game disk on a territory of your own bedroom
I think the problem here is not that Alpha Protocol disk was easy to loose because its tangible but because you are a scatterbrain. A digital copy won’t fix that.