Console Wars: The Clone Wars

[Asher]

Yeah, everyone kind of expected Mario Kat and Smash to sell well. No surprises.

They still aren't in the same league as the Halos or GTAs.

[Verto]

Originally posted by Asher
Time for a 360 pricecut.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Asher
Yeah, everyone kind of expected Mario Kat and Smash to sell well. No surprises.

They still aren't in the same league as the Halos or GTAs.

so is it going to be NEXT month that GTA4 sells systems?

as toHW, I will just quote someone from another board

"The Wii singlehandedly outsold every non-Nintendo piece of hardware combined. In the same month GTA4 came out. That's hilariously crazy."

[Verto]

I wouldn't expect to see a huge increase in HW sales because of GTAIV. Most people buying that game would already own a 360 or PS3.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Verto
I wouldn't expect to see a huge increase in HW sales because of GTAIV. Most people buying that game would already own a 360 or PS3.

Yeah. My thoughts exactly.

The other thing is GTA4 early adopters are also more likely to be console early adopters.

I would think the hardware bump would be in the first real month it's out, not the first 5 days.

[Asher]

Originally posted by lord of the mark



so is it going to be NEXT month that GTA4 sells systems?

as toHW, I will just quote someone from another board

"The Wii singlehandedly outsold every non-Nintendo piece of hardware combined. In the same month GTA4 came out. That's hilariously crazy."

Not sure why it's "hilariously crazy" considering the Wii is cheaper and aimed at a wider demographic and GTA4 was only out a few days.

No one has predicted that 5 days of GTA4 would unseat the Wii in HW sales that I know of, so whoever is surprised enough to find this "hilariously crazy" must be insanely stupid. Let me guess, that quote is from QuarterToThree?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Asher

Yeah. My thoughts exactly.

The other thing is GTA4 early adopters are also more likely to be console early adopters.

I would think the hardware bump would be in the first real month it's out, not the first 5 days.

people dont buy HW in anticipation of a release, they wait till its out? (I wouldnt know, I buy HW for last year's releases )

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Asher

Not sure why it's crazy considering the Wii is cheaper and aimed at a wider demographic and GTA4 was only out a few days.

If it was still the biggest seller that would be one thing. If it outsold the PS3 and 360 combined that would be another.

It outsold the PS3 AND the 360 AND the PS2 AND the PSP.

And while you and verto were prescient about HW sales, apparently quite a few people did expect GTAIV to sell SOME sytems in April, from what I can gather.

[Asher]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


people dont buy HW in anticipation of a release, they wait till its out? (I wouldnt know, I buy HW for last year's releases )

Quite obviously, not everyone has the same purchasing pattern.

I'm just saying the people who buy games the day it comes out tend to be what are called "Early Adopters". This would most likely apply to console hardware if it applies to games as well.

I think more casual people will buy GTA4 in the weeks after it's out -- from word of mouth or basically convenience of when they can get to the store.

[Verto]

A game I might expect to produce a HW bump for the 360 would be something like Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, the first in the series not released on a Nintendo console. It's the sort of game that seems to be outside of the "mainstream" for 360 games, at least in some people's opinion, whereas the overwhelming majority of people buying GTAIV were already playing a 360/PS3 because of Halo, or, er, whatever exclusive Sony's managed to hold onto .

[Asher]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
If it was still the biggest seller that would be one thing. If it outsold the PS3 and 360 combined that would be another.

It outsold the PS3 AND the 360 AND the PS2 AND the PSP.

And while you and verto were prescient about HW sales, apparently quite a few people did expect GTAIV to sell SOME sytems in April, from what I can gather.

Well, I'm not one of those people.

The 360 has been out for 2 1/2 years at, more or less, the same pricepoint. Tons of "system seller" games came out since. The effect of games causing people to "rush out" and buy a console almost at its launch price 2.5 years after it came out is extremely small.

The price cut is needed. It's been known for a LONG time the Xbox 360 and PS3 would receive GTA4. The amount of quality games on the the 360 was astonishing. Combine in the pricepoint and length on the market, etc...no surprise here at all.

[lord of the mark]

so does MS cut the price within the next few weeks, or do they wait till after Wii has passed 360 in LTD sales in the US?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Asher
The not so obvious: Look at the PS3's biggest franchise, GT5P...that's pretty pathetic.

werent some sold online? Were those included?

[asleepathewheel]

Yeah, I agree with asher, its all about pricepoint now. I'm guessing a 50$ price cut before madden for all models and an upgrade to the new models. No way the ps3 can match due to still losing ****loads of cash.

Frankly, with the way software moves on the 360, it seems to not matter how much more the install base expands, as quality software is massively consumed, enough to the point where almost every 3rd party game will be multi-platform rather than ps3 exclusive-which is what matters to me.

[Asher]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
so does MS cut the price within the next few weeks, or do they wait till after Wii has passed 360 in LTD sales in the US?

I think they've made it clear they're not competing with the Wii directly, at least it's not their primary concern. One thing you need to keep in mind is while Nintendo makes a tremendous amount of money on hardware, no one else is. MS basically breaks even (or small profits), Sony loses a lot of money. They're not interested in selling units for the sake of selling units like Sony, their focus is on software. The HW still sells decently, which is why they haven't cut the price.

I think Madden's release and the upcoming 65nm-GPU consoles have more to do with the pricecut timing more than anything else.