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Christmas Cheer Entertainment Games

Holiday Game Sales Semi-Merry After All? 47

Posted by simoniker from the ho-ho-ho dept.
Thanks to CNN for its report discussing specific sales numbers for November's top videogames. The report, shortly following previous analyst worries, mentions that "game software sales climbed 7 percent, as compared to November 2002", fairly reasonable, but still short of (possibly excessive?) analyst estimates. GameSpot has further commentary, mentioning the big winners ("Strong sales of True Crime: The Streets of L.A. (630,000 copies) and Tony Hawk's Underground (554,000) let Activision skate its way to a 46 increase in sales over November 2002"), and the not so fortunate ("November's big loser was Take Two Interactive, whose sales plummeted 47 percent. Hopes that Manhunt would help fill in for the absence of a [new] Grand Theft Auto game proved woefully unfounded, as the controversial game only shipped 75,000 units, a fraction of the 502,000 GTA Double Packs sold.")
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Holiday Game Sales Semi-Merry After All? More

Holiday Game Sales Semi-Merry After All?

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  • I can see Manhunt being eschewed for holidy gift-giving because of its over-the-top violent nature. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if it sells at a more brisk pace once the season of peace and love ends and the season of returns and gift certificate spending begins.
    • I see it being eschewed because it looks about as pointless as State of Emergency.
      • I see it being eschewed because it looks about as pointless as State of Emergency.

        And yet it receives a 79.1% rating (an average of the review scores from 36 different sources) at gamerankings.com [gamerankings.com], only 0.3% less than Metal Arms (which I've read a lot of good things about), 1.2% better than True Crime (a game that has been selling well and has a sequel already in the works)...In fact, it's 8.8% better than State of Emergency for the PS2.

        Of course, never having played a game doesn't tend to stop people

    • I think it's headed for the bargin bin after the xmas season. Rockstar games are usually hard to rent, and at my local Hollywood almost every copy of Manhunt is in, it's possibly more boring than SOE was.

  • Brand Recognition (Score:4, Insightful)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @10:41PM (#7742045) Homepage
    I don't think that Rockstar has necessarily build up enough brand recognition for it to sell every game it makes. If they did, it was all but spent on the horribly medicore State of Emergency. As much as I'm sure they'd like to disagree, since they plaster their logo nearly everywhere, I think people are far more attached to the Grand Theft Auto tagline than they are necessarily Rockstar. Really, few game companies have outside of the niche hardcore gamer. The only brand that really brings in sales on a wide mainstream basis (sales near the level of GTA) based merely on brand is EA Sports. People buy Tony Hawk Whatever because it's Tony Hawk, not necessarily because it's Activision. While you or I might pick up something because Ion Storm or Irrational or Rockstar crafted it, I don't think Christmas shopping parents look for game studios when they're picking stuff up.

    Maybe if they'd called it Grand Theft Auto Manhunt it would've sold better.
    • What brand recognition? Gamers have been burned enough time that there's really not much in the way of brand recognition. How many times has Game X done well, and then been followed by Game X Part 2, which is often as not a $50 expansion pack?

      I'm one of those people who bought a PS2 just to buy GTA. I'd heard it was a fun, entertaining game. But I'm incredibly uninterested in Manhunt, because it's...well, not a fun, entertaining game. It brings nothing to the table besides excessive gore, and excessiv
      • "But I'm incredibly uninterested in Manhunt, because it's...well, not a fun, entertaining game."

        I've passed it by because it's a sneaker, and I don't find sneakers that much fun. A noticeable deviation from this taste question was Deus Ex, though.

        Trying to sell a game on controversy, as this one was, is always a bit of a hit and miss affair, especially when we get jaded to the whole thing. Rotting corpses? Big deal. Chainsaws? Had those in Doom.

        I suspect this is why 'The Sims' completely exploded
      • I worked at EB during the rise and "fall" in sales of both GTA, and with Vice City there was definitely brand recognition, or more aptly franchise recognition. The interesting thing is that most of the gamers who shop at EB generally know the release date of something. Of course we receive calls all the time asking when something is coming out, but it was nowhere near the number of calls we received asking, "When is the next GTA coming out?" since most of the people were generally not game buyers.

        You m
    • I wasn't interested in GTA3 until I saw it and played it for a while. The GTA name just wasn't worth anything to me, even though I had played the first GTA.

      On the other hand, when State of Emergency came out, my youngest step-brother bought it, because it was a Rockstar game (in other words, because it was by the makers of GTA3). Next time I talk to him, I'll see if he bought Manhunt, but I somehow doubt it. That being said, much of what Rockstar did in SoE was ported into the GTA3 engine for GTA:VC. Rocks
    • The only brand that really brings in sales on a wide mainstream basis (sales near the level of GTA) based merely on brand is EA Sports.

      There are many other major brands that can sell millions on reputation along. Blizzard and id are good examples.

    • Rockstar has lots of recognition. With the exception of Vice City (Which they bought mostly complete), everybody I know agrees that all their games suck.

      Again, excluding Vice City, name a single game they've published that wasn't either buggy crap, or a sequel (read: patch) to buggy crap?

  • Interesting they left out Nintendo (Score:5, Interesting)

    by edwdig ( 47888 ) on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @11:33PM (#7742379)
    According to IGN [ign.com], Mario Kart: Double Dash sold 528,000 copies so far.

    The mainstream media really has something against Nintendo this round. They'll gladly complain that their sales are down over past years, but they'll also ignore the fact that sales below Nintendo norms are still really damn high compared to almost everybody else.
    • Nintendo doesn't have all the behind the scenes resources that Sony or MS have.
    • I'd guess this is because Nintendo isn't doing anything particularly exciting. They are doing what they've always done, making fun games for the whole family, while there is a war coming between Sony and MS.
  • "November's big loser was Take Two Interactive, whose sales plummeted 47 percent.

    This season's big loser is Valve, Sierra, et. al. for the snafu over Half-Life 2. They would be fucking ROLLING in cash if it'd come out in time.
  • Heh, probably has something to do with penny-arcade [penny-arcade.com]. ;)

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