Peter Jackson barely broke even on King Kong's $207 million budget and that was riding off the name of one of the greatest films ever created. Now, as popular as the Halo games are, I doubt they could draw in King Kong-calibur crowds. Lets say if all the two million (or so) people who bought the Halo game went out to see the Halo movie, it would only gross around $20 million assuming they paid $10 a ticket. In order to break even, they'd have to draw in a considerable amount of people who have never touched a controller in their life. Considering Gears of War costed Microsoft $10 million to fund, there is no way its a good idea to spend nearly 20 times as much as a top teir game for something that's really hit or miss.
Its a double-edged sword. We're still getting just as much gaming news as at last year's E3 and its nice to know the publishers won't be wasting money on "booth babes" and other promotional non-sense. Its still a shame, E3 turned from a media expo to a gaming holiday. This is just going closer to its roots.
Most good games are sold from word of mouth but I find it absolutely scary when crap like 50 Cent: Bulletproof become a million seller while critically praised games like Eternal Darkness are left on shelves.
It took Xbox Live about a year before it even showed up on the Xbox and with the exception of the original Halo, that wasn't too much of a loss for the original Xbox. Or more recently, take a look at the DS taking a year before Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection came into play. Not many titles were really lost in the long-term.
As long as Nintendo takes notes from Microsoft and Sony when launching their online service, the extra time spent should be a good sign. It's not like there isn't room for delays in the Wii's launch line-up. Launch titles like Call of Duty 3 and Far Cry could probably have better sales in a month like February with added online play instead of choosing to compete with the likes of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption without online play.
Viva Pinata is supposedly going to be one of the most-marketed titles this year from Microsoft and they're going for a completely different demograph with that game.
Slashdot Mirror
Peter Jackson barely broke even on King Kong's $207 million budget and that was riding off the name of one of the greatest films ever created. Now, as popular as the Halo games are, I doubt they could draw in King Kong-calibur crowds. Lets say if all the two million (or so) people who bought the Halo game went out to see the Halo movie, it would only gross around $20 million assuming they paid $10 a ticket. In order to break even, they'd have to draw in a considerable amount of people who have never touched a controller in their life. Considering Gears of War costed Microsoft $10 million to fund, there is no way its a good idea to spend nearly 20 times as much as a top teir game for something that's really hit or miss.
Its a double-edged sword. We're still getting just as much gaming news as at last year's E3 and its nice to know the publishers won't be wasting money on "booth babes" and other promotional non-sense. Its still a shame, E3 turned from a media expo to a gaming holiday. This is just going closer to its roots.
Most good games are sold from word of mouth but I find it absolutely scary when crap like 50 Cent: Bulletproof become a million seller while critically praised games like Eternal Darkness are left on shelves.
It took Xbox Live about a year before it even showed up on the Xbox and with the exception of the original Halo, that wasn't too much of a loss for the original Xbox. Or more recently, take a look at the DS taking a year before Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection came into play. Not many titles were really lost in the long-term.
As long as Nintendo takes notes from Microsoft and Sony when launching their online service, the extra time spent should be a good sign. It's not like there isn't room for delays in the Wii's launch line-up. Launch titles like Call of Duty 3 and Far Cry could probably have better sales in a month like February with added online play instead of choosing to compete with the likes of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption without online play.
Viva Pinata is supposedly going to be one of the most-marketed titles this year from Microsoft and they're going for a completely different demograph with that game.