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Holiday Game Sales Semi-Merry After All?
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.")
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.
Almost nobody plays online console games.
The Gamecube is $99, $80 less than the Xbox or the PS2.
These are facts.
Nintendo's games are also very fun. This is an opinion of course.
Besides, a company that can do a re-release of two games that have been out for "ages" (gaming ages being pretty short) and sell another HALF MILLION copies doesn't have to worry much if a title or two have trouble finding an audience.
What's funniest about the tizzy over Manhunt is that this kind of game (gory, ultra-violent) is NOT the norm. Even the supposed "hardcore" lament the direction gaming is going while ignoring the fact that the bulk of titles released are rated E and T.
Hell, even the people who generate that top ten worst (in terms of being "unsafe" for children) games list had to include DOA: Xtreme Beach Volleyball (a game that gets an M based on cute animated girls in bikinis) and Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne (rated T for Heaven's sake, not to mention being pure fantasy). In other words, there were so few putrid M-rated games on the market that relatively innocuous titles get lumped in with the likes of Manhunt.
In short (if that's possible now), I could make a lot of money selling "chill pills" if all the people who were in need decided to take one.
And yet it receives a 79.1% rating (an average of the review scores from 36 different sources) at 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 from insulting it, just as it never stops pre-release hype.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you were being a little loose and lazy with the facts when you posted this, so....
"I don't think the public, in general, likes Nintendo."
They are no longer the only game company in town, but neither do people generally dislike them in any way. Assuming you are talking about America, I doubt that Americans base their opinions on the nonsensical criteria that you present in your post, and no amount of marketing that Sony and Microsoft do can erase the gaming heritage that millions of people have already had on Nintendo's numerous platforms.
(Side note: I heard a young mother talk to her son playing a GameBoy on the train a few days ago. In talking to the boy, she used the term, "playing Nintendo." Not since the days of the Atari 2600, when the term "playing Atari" was popular, has anybody had an affect on the popular lexicon as Nintendo already has.)
We must face it: Nintendo is the IBM of the gaming industry. They're the old-timers who may not have created the industry, only taken it to incredible heights (NES, SNES). Like IBM in the PC sector, they have been surpassed in some ways by competitors, but in other very important ways (SOFTWARE, hardware reliability/design, and customer support come to mind) they are still king of the mountain, thriving.
"Its a very old company, which markets few games in comparison to the PS2 and lacks the monetary warchest that Microsoft's Xbox has."
In so few words, you've given me a headache. Here are some thoughts, presented in response to the multitude of false assumptions you so succinctly and efficiently lump together in one sentence:
1. "Nintendo" != "GameCube"
2. "Sony" != "PS2"
3. "Microsoft" != "Xbox"
4. The age of the company is irrelevant to Nintendo's public image. Sony is about half as old, and Microsoft is about half as old as that, but if you were to mention this to _anyone_, gamer or not, you'd get a qualified stare and maybe a "So what?"
5. Microsoft's financial support of the Xbox is also irrelevant to Nintendo's public image.
6. The number of games that a console manufacturer "markets" relative to another is not a proper gauge of the company's image in the mainstream press.
7. As a software publisher, more people are buying Nintendo's games than Sony's or Microsoft's, regardless of marketing.
"True, any hardcore gamer will tell you Nintendo is the elite veteran of the gaming wars, but any non-serious gamer (read : a lot) will think that Nintendo is fading and should just die out like Sega."
Bullshit. Most non-serious gamers that I know have no opinion either way. And most serious gamers I know, who have ever spoken a single word about the subject, consider Sega's fate an unfortunate compromise, one which any company, especially Nintendo, should best avoid for our own best interests as gamers. Compare Sega's products since they went third party with their legacy of great games from the past, when they were an arcade and console company. No comparison, in 2003, Sega is a shadow. They can be compared, negatively, to the Namcos and the Capcoms of the world. Once upon a time, that was unthinkable, because they produced products that were meant to be showcases of their technolgy, on their own platforms. But now nobody blinks when you say this, because it has become true.
"Think about it from the investor's point of view."
If we do this, we are no longer considering the opinion of "the public, in general," whom you for some reason claim do not like Nintendo.
"The PS2 has an insane amount of games and plenty of third party developer support."
As does the GameBoy Advance, a Nintendo product. See item #1 above.
"The Xbox has the Microsoft name behind and the (pretty much) proven Xbox Live."
Okay. Since we have switched topics and are now talking about investors, the Microsoft name IS a positive. But the only thing that Xbox Live has proven is that an internally operat
I think that dropping the Gamecube price to $99 was a very smart move. I was initially going to buy my brother some PC games, but I found out that he has a n old PC. So I got him a Gamecube with the Zelda game pack and 2 other games for less than either the Xbox or the PS2. I would think that we should see a substantial spike in the sales of Gamecube, because it is such a bargain.
BTW. Why does a Gameboy Advance cost as much as a Gamecube?