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?
This week we’re on vacation but Don is not, so he took the time to build out a cool mashup of some of the podcasts most memorable “moments.” Of course, most of them are the strangest bloopers and oddities that we had a couple lol’s re-listening to them. Consider this the greatest moments in the last sixty episodes wrapped up in a 4-minute time period. Holy crap.
Hey guys,
I haven’t written in for a while because you failed to speak bad of Vita all these weeks 🙂 the moment I heard Jonah flip flop on what media devices the Vita uses I knew I had to straighten it out (too bad about Jordan). Oh, there’s also work but I guess that’s a minor thing 🙂
The Vita uses cards and is still a great platforms with many great games. I just got the platinum trophy in Velocity 2X, which is just an amazing shoot’em up/platformer game. I wonder if it could break your dislike of the device…
I also haven’t been writing in because I didn’t feel I had much to add on the subject of the recent news items. However, the Windows 10 news is quite interesting. The reason they gave for skipping a number is great. Way to go with consistent naming, Microsoft! I’ve been using Windows since Win95 and they pretty much stick to the pattern of having every second system be terrible, as if they had two dev teams and one of them had no idea what they were doing. I bought a Win8.1 laptop recently (no touch) and I found it very hard to navigate through my apps. The Metro design sucks for mouse-operated devices and it’s not that intuitive for touch either.
Let me end with a little ‘about me’ section so that maybe Paul remembers me next time. We share the first name, after all 🙂 I’m 29, fonished college years ago and I’m trying to do a PhD in electronics/computer science. I also work for a startup which will one day be sold for… ONE MILLION DOLLARS (puts pinky in mouth).
Coming back to tje topic of Vita, my question to you guys. Which handhelds have you owned / do you own and enjoy a lot? Explain why 3DS is better than the Vita without using the words or phrases Link, Zelda, ‘the legend of’, ocarina 🙂
Cheers,
Pawel