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No Blockbuster Titles in 2005?

Posted by Zonk on from the maybe-if-they-weren't-all-sequels dept.

The NYT is reporting that, unlike last year with likes of Half-Life 2 and Halo 2, 2005 has been curiously devoid of gaming hits. "With the introduction of a brand-new console, the Xbox 360, millions of players are supposed to be raving about the new machine and buying tons of new games to play on it. None of those things are happening. Sales are down relative to the holiday season last year, and major publishers are getting hammered on Wall Street. And so there is a lot of angst out there in the video game industry."

5 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Really? by Cadallin · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Yes, it was, but it was released by Nintendo, which, as the media keeps telling us is washed up, Utterly finished in the industry, no future, etc.

    Absolute garbage.

  2. Re:Suffering the same as RIAA and MPAA by Lisandro · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No matter how much EA spends on promoting it's latest FPS - it's just like the original with extra antialiasing. Woopittie doo. My money is spent much better elsewhere.

        My music purchases lately, except for a few notable exceptions, are all of artists from the 80s/90s. Not that it was a particularly magic period in music history by any strecth (even though i'm quite fond of grunge), but atleast composing and playing your own tunes was still marketeable. People took risks. Nowadays, i listen to radio, and in a same genre i have a hard time telling one band from another.

        Sadly, it's the same with games. The ones i've enjoyed more lately i've picked up on the discount bin.

  3. Same problem as the movie industry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ask yourself this question:

    How many movies/games that were released in the past year were unique in either substance or presentation?

    Then ask yourself:

    How many movies/games that were released in the past year were copies/clones of another popular franchise?

    The fact is that, although you can probably name quite a few for the first question (Nintendogs, Katamari for games) the majority of movies/games falls into the second category; in paticular the Big-Budget, expected to be Blockbuster, movies/games. Quake 4 offered absolutely nothing in the way of presentation or product that hadn't been done several times before, is it a surprise that it wasn't a 'must-have' title for anyone? On the other Hand Nintendo's Kirby's Canvas Curse, Nintendogs, and Brain Training (to mention a handful of the unique games on the DS) all became popular where they were released because people hadn't played anything like them before.

  4. Hey now! by mister_llah · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No blockbuster titles? Must all "blockbusters" by first person shooters?

    In my opinion, Civilization 4 is quite a blockbuster release!

    Hmph.

    --
    MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
    http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
  5. 1985, 1995, 2005 by muel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Each *5 year for the past three decades of gaming has been known for being relatively slow and stale. Also, each *6 year has been big stuff; coincidentally, Nintendo has had a hand in the last two *6 years. It wasn't until '86 that Super Mario Brothers revitalized gaming in the USA; in '96, Super Mario 64 set the 3D gaming generation on fire. Both of those games changed the way people played games for the next decade--d-pad in the '80s, analog control in the '90s.

    Interestingly enough, 2006 is the launch year for the Revolution...