Transition Squeezing Trusted Brands

[Evil Avatar]

Next Generation Online has a new article online, Transition Squeezing Trusted Brands (http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2008&Itemid=2), talking about how most of the big publishers will lose money on established brands as they switch from current generation machines to next generation machines like the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

The company will once again be relying on Call of Duty. The 2004 game managed 1.7 million followed by less than a million for Big Red One. However, that as only launched in November, and was bolstered significantly by the PC and Xbox 360 game Call of Duty 2 (1.5 million).

The strong possibility of a new Medal of Honor game from EA could also affect Activision's numbers.

The analyst estimates Gun sold 980K since launch, and that any sequel will struggle to match this, probably hitting no more than 780K.
GUN will end up almost a Million seller? That is pretty good news. I know it didn't get fantastic reviews, but I've really been enjoying it.

[Rakael]

GUN was a blast to play, it was just way too short with too little to do. If it hadn't been rushed out for the 360 launch, it would have been the ultimate Wild West game, and one of the best games of all time. As it stands, its just a fun little game that had so much wasted potential.

[Dirty Harry]

Gun is probally my favorite game of 2005 for the console front. Half life 2 for pc personally. I eagerly await a sequel to the greatest western game ever made. I agree the game was short but what was packed into the short time was a whole lot. I felt like i always usually had something to do.

[MosBen]

I don't know if I'd level that amount of praise on Gun, but it's certainly a very enjoyable game for a launch title. Length wise I think it's a little on the short side, but only slightly. The most dissapointing aspect to me was that the graphics were terribly great, though I can forgive most of that in a launch title. Still, very fun game and I hope we get a sequel with better graphics and a few new things to do.

[MosBen]

One final note. I didn't read the article, but that excerpt makes it sound to me like they were saying that 780k units would be dissapointing for a sequel. Wouldn't that put the sequel somewhere in the $40 million range? Sure, it's not GTA, but that's got to be quite a tidy profit for a sequel.

[Metal Jesus]

I really enjoyed playing Gun as well.

[RMan]

Wouldn't that put the sequel somewhere in the $40 million range? Sure, it's not GTA, but that's got to be quite a tidy profit for a sequel.
Not when you're spending 10-15 on marketing, 10-15 on development, and you're lucky to see 50% of the money (that's as a top tier publisher, developers surely wouldn't see that). Even for current generation, that's not likely enough to be profitable, it's not even close for a next-gen game.

[JudasGoat]

Ditto for me. I've certainly played it more than any other 360 game I have. I hope the C-grade reviews don't hinder them from making a sequel.

[Dirty Harry]

Not when you're spending 10-15 on marketing, 10-15 on development, and you're lucky to see 50% of the money (that's as a top tier publisher, developers surely wouldn't see that). Even for current generation, that's not likely enough to be profitable, it's not even close for a next-gen game.
Maybe producers expect too much from consumers or even vice versa.

[Deadend]

Ditto for me. I've certainly played it more than any other 360 game I have. I hope the C-grade reviews don't hinder them from making a sequel.

As if negative reviews can stop sequels!

I think Gun 2 will be quite awesome. More time to work on a more intersting world.

[Zurik]

I liked the controls and the plot of Gun, but everything else was crap. Maybe it was just the PC version, but the voices didn't line up with the mouths, and the graphics were terrible. Now if they actually make a REAL open ended western, with more than a couple towns, then I'd be hooked.

[danhoo]

A producer who worked for EA told me that EA generally considers any title that sells less than a million copies to be a failure. Not that this doesn't happen to them, just that their mindset is that to continue the profit margins they're currently making, they have to aim high.

[Dirty Harry]

I liked the controls and the plot of Gun, but everything else was crap. Maybe it was just the PC version, but the voices didn't line up with the mouths, and the graphics were terrible. Now if they actually make a REAL open ended western, with more than a couple towns, then I'd be hooked.
Maybe it was your pc, the game ran fine on mine. With all the bells and whistles the game has better graphics than the console versions. I think of the game as a GTA style game, and yet it has incredible graphics compared to GTA SA.

[Phades]

A producer who worked for EA told me that EA generally considers any title that sells less than a million copies to be a failure. Not that this doesn't happen to them, just that their mindset is that to continue the profit margins they're currently making, they have to aim high.

Good thing GUN wasn't made by EA then :)

GUN was a blast to play, it was just way too short with too little to do. If it hadn't been rushed out for the 360 launch, it would have been the ultimate Wild West game, and one of the best games of all time. As it stands, its just a fun little game that had so much wasted potential.

I don't think GUN was rushed out to make the 360 launch since it came out on the PS2 and Xbox about a month before. I think it was just rushed to make the holidays.

[RMan]

Maybe producers expect too much from consumers or even vice versa.
Yea, raising the cost of games is going to hurt many of them, since it wasn't actually appealing to a new market. Ehh, the transition may be somewhat difficult, but if these trends cause larger publishers to fold and consolidate, the industry will snap back eventually as it always does.

[Smithersnz]

I hated Gun as well. I found the graphics on PC to be sub-par, I didn't enjoy the gameplay, and in the end I had more fun playing the free online poker game they made to advertise it. I probably just didn't get far enough into it for it to get good.

[The Iron Weasel]

Well if I weren't buying like 120 dollars worth of cds next paycheque I'd get Gun, because by the sounds of it, I'm missing out.

[mister_slim]

A producer who worked for EA told me that EA generally considers any title that sells less than a million copies to be a failure. Not that this doesn't happen to them, just that their mindset is that to continue the profit margins they're currently making, they have to aim high.
Yeah, when you're dumping the amount of money into development and advertising that EA does you have to aim for high sales. I think the blockbuster mentality will come around to bite them in the ass eventually, but it's hard to tell. You can see the flaws in their methods in their handheld games though. Too many are underfunded and unfinished.

On the other hand, Capcom was apparently hoping for 100,000 in sales on Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, and it looks like it'll easily do double that, in addition to justifying the GBA doublepack and giving it a boost. Doesn't give them the huge profits of a GTA but still makes them money (makes the fans happy too). I'd like to see more companies balance their portfolios better (hopefully alternate methods of distribution will help with this). They should at least look at the examples Disney and Sony pictures provide.