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Industry Fallout from GTA IV Delay
SET writes "MSNBC has an interesting writeup on the shakeups in the gaming industry following Take-Two's announcement that Grand Theft Auto IV has been delayed. The article examines the problems this creates for Microsoft and Sony, both of whom were expecting GTA IV to help boost Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 sales this coming holiday season. 'Analyst Michael Pachter told Web site GamesIndustry.biz that he believes Rockstar has delayed the game because it is struggling with development on the PlayStation 3. Sony denies this charge and said that the company has a dedicated team working with Rockstar on "GTA IV." They say they're not that worried about the delay and would prefer that Rockstar take the time it needs to perfect the game. "We'd love to have [it] out as soon as possible," said Sony spokesperson Dave Karakker. "But we've never had a single game make or break any of our platforms. That's not how we built 100 million sales of [the] PlayStation 2, and that's not how we'll build 100 million in sales of [the] PlayStation 3."'"
I disagree, while they are happy that Halo 3 is coming out, their projections of units sold took into account the release of GTA IV, a very different game than halo3 (and thus attracts a different demographic), and will therefor have implications on bottom line, and shareholder expectations.
With everything going on recently, including the extended warranties, reversal on Xbox 360 not needing an HD, and GTA IV not being released... Microsoft can't be very happy about much right now.
Gamers on the other hand, can be happy about a lot of cool games coming out, regardless of GTA IV.
All Halo 3 does is give Microsoft the fans that they already have. GTA4 gives them new users. I don't think it's going to have a major effect since the XBox always got GTA games after a while anyway, but it's going to be a bigger effect on system sales than Halo 3. Halo 3 was always going to be about the sales of the game itself, the profits of which MS gets to itself.
Rob
could NOT care less. "could care less" means, well, they could indeed care less than they do.
But we've all been through this a hundred times before.
(anonymous) *sigh
It's speculation, but it's hardly unfounded.
There have been plenty of demos of GTA4 running on the Xbox 360, but none of it running on the PS3.
It's safe to say that the cause for the delay is the well-known difficulty of developing for the PlayStation 3.
So some random analyst assumes the PS3 is the problem
Actually, it's all over the media. G4 TV has been quite frank in how the PS3 delays are way longer for virtually all announced games, although they say some of that is just due to marketroids overpromising game ship dates.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Holy misinformation! That was one incredibly leading question. Rockstar was basically asked "is there a limit to storage space?" and the answer was, not surprisingly, yes. No one has yet to invent a device that can contain unlimited storage. (Gee, I wonder why?)
They most certainly did NOT say that the limited space was limiting GTA4 in any way.
Besides, Microsoft already allows games that require the hard drive. As Penny Arcade pointed out, there already is an MMORPG that requires the hard drive. (Just because it's not WoW doesn't mean it doesn't exist.) So it's not a new thing.