Wagner James Au has one of the more interesting speculations right now: The disappointing sales of GTA IV in combination with the fact that it surprisingly didn’t help sell more PS3 and 360s … means that “next gen” games as in “great graphics” have stopped driving console sales and are ceasing to be economically viable. Au further predicts that it will be a long time before the PS3 and 360 will be followed up.
I like historical moments. This also comes on the heels of the Wii outselling the 360 quite quickly after launch. Perhaps things are changing permanently, “better” graphics give diminishing returns, video games will never be the same again?
If 9 million copies at $60 million a piece is considered a failure in the games industry these days, then I guess I’m reconciled with being a failure for the rest of my life.
And 2K sure aren’t acting like it’s a failure either, they’ve doubled their revenues since GTA4 was released and they’re wrangling up EA’s purchase price. If I were in their position, I’d be giving away Ferrari’s to the team members and coating the office furniture in gold.
Uh, that should be $60 a piece, clearly, not 60 million. That WOULD be a pretty crazy price for a game though. Maybe that’ll teach me not to post comments at 2 am.
@Jonas : I think the point is not that GTA IV is a failure, but that the large commercial succes of this game didn’t help sold more consoles.
The explanation may be that the number of gamers that are solely appealed by technical innovation is already at its maximum.
After all, the number of gamers appealed by games like GTA IV is finite (basically gathering the same profile of gamers since the PSX), while different approaches on gaming appeals to different profiles, hence expanding the overall market of videogaming industry (call it “casual” or “serious” games, it’s still games ;))
So maybe all the people who could be interessed by a PS3 or X360 already have one, while the others gamers just don’t care about buying the same old games with new graphics (as AAA titles for these two console are mainly sequels to previous AAA titles), and hence don’t need any of these consoles.
Or, as a comment on the NYTimes articles suggested, the economical situation makes people thinks twice before buying “leisure stuffs”, especially if they already got “old gen” consoles.
I’m wondering if we are comparing apples with oranges here. Did GTA III and/or San Andreas drive console sales for the previous generation? It may have but to what extent? GTA IV is targetted to the serious gamer and also predominantly those who have played previous incarnations. I’d be interested in knowing the numbers of those that GTA IV was the first incarnation of the franchise that they played.
I think that there is a few things happening at the same time that also have an impact, like rising cost of living having an impact on entertainment spending. There is also the greater level of generally negative press surrounding these next gen consoles, 360 with its red ring of death and PS3 with it high cost and publicity snaffus that are only now starting to fade in peoples memories. While the Wii has had nothing but positive press.
At the end of the day I know I’m playing devils advocate as personally I’m wrapped to see innovation and a dedication to user centred design principles of products in the marketplace (like the iPhone and Wii) showing that people want a good experience over and above expensive window dressing.
TickledBlue, good points – I suppose “everybody knows” that GTA III+ drove Playstation 2 sales, though I don’t have any numbers at hand.
The GTA series did make up 3 out of 4 of the topselling PS2 games: http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=1281
I think the negative press around next-gen is effect, not cause: Sony and Microsoft are having a harder time convincing people of the need to invest in their new machines than they did in last generation.
Moreover, Gta IV (alongside with Halo 3) is one of the few game to have such a large advertising campaign, including large “non-gaming related” media coverage (which is very unusual here in Europe).
Besides, I’m not that sure about GTA IV targetting “serious gamers who have played the previous incarnation”.
If it was the case, they wouldn’t need such a large media exposure, considerating the sales charts of previous episodes, loads of “serious gamers” would have bought it, even without any advertising.
I may be wrong, but I definitively thinks that GTA IV was aimed to expand its audience, thus helping the sales of platforms it’s “exclusively” released on.
But maybe they just wasted their money in this huge advertising campaign ;) !
TickledBlue, well said. What’s really possible with better graphics power is merely icing on the cake. In other words, an additional 5000 polygons per character doesn’t make a game more fun, just prettier. One could argue you could make more photorealistic games i.e. more immersive (face value). But gamers have found out that this particular quality doesn’t make them tick.
To make an extremely oversimplistic analogy, does a Tamagochi II make previous fans happy?
There’s so many interconnected factors that might be playing on sales levels. I think if you have a console that people were going to buy at some point, or didn’t know/think much about, and then you release a game that “everyone is playing” either because it’s fun or visually impressive, then I bet you’d still see sales. But “coolness” alone won’t do it. You need to get people within the “I’d think about buying that” zone before you can nail them. The factors that give you that are pretty hard to fathom.
Personally, I’d love to own a PS3 but the price is just out of my grasp. I can’t justify spending A$700 on a PS3, no matter how badly I want to play Little Big Planet. If it was $350, then OK. The Wii – well, that wiimote is cool, and the price is right, but I’m not going to buy one because I want a PS3.
So I’m stuck. Instead, I’m getting my fix waiting for Spore and Diablo III :)