GTA3 was the 800 pound gorilla in 2001. It was the big Game of the Year, and being exclusive to Sony, pretty much pissed on the parades of the GCN and XBox launches. It didn't hurt that it was further boosted by MGS2, Devil May Cry, Grand Tourismo 3 and Final Fantasy X, but by and large the buzz was all GT3.

In a few months, GTA4 is coming out. I know some PS3 boosters are expecting this, in concert with other exclusive titles, to save the PS3.  Of course, this time it's not exclusive, and 360 fans are fully expecting its release (along with their own exclusives) to help their own console as much as Sony's.

So how do you think will really happen here? Where will the bulk of the GTA4 sales go? Will its last gen fans bite the bullet and grab a PS3 (priced $200-300 more than the PS2 when GTA3 came out)? Will they jump Sony's ship for the 360? Or will they simply wait for another PS3 drop (or two) next year?

Well if its true that theres a price drop comming soon for the PS3 I expect the sales of that console to go high after the release of GTA4. People may disagree with me but I think that the PS3 version will sell the same to a little more. Seriously everyone will spend there money on Halo 3.

Shrug, if Xbox360 advertises that it has more content in it's version (I keep reading yes/no on that) I can't see any Xbox360 owners jumping to PS3. PS3 owners aren't likely either, any good games are quite welcome on their systems.

For people to buy it, I imagine it won't help the Xbox, Halo is for that, and it will help the PS3 a bit, but I also can't imagine it flying off the shelves for it. 650-750 bucks for GTA IV? Some people may balk at that

Simply put, GTA4 will hurt the wii.

It will drive both Ps3 and 360 sales, a $500 PS3 with Lair Heavenly Sword Warhawk and GTA4 looks like a might good buy.

The 360 gets two exclusive episodes of content.  It will be a significant amount of content only available on the 360.  One will be available in early 2008, and one in late 2008.  If you're a big GTA fan, you'd want to buy it for your 360, not your PS3.

BigFatJ: While the trend may change later, Ps3 owners currently don't have that many good games. They have some, but in what I've observed, seeing how much they celebrate every single release, they need a few more. GTAIV presumably will be a good game, and will help fill that big game hole that they are trying to fill. Also, if you only own a PS3, it's not quite worth the 450 investment to play it on an Xbox360 I imagine, unless you have tattoo's GTA on your arm.

I don't get why people are suggesting that GTA4 won't sell 360's because it has Halo 3 coming out. Halo may be the biggest console mover of the year, but those are two completely different games which sell to different people. To alot of people the thought of having both Halo and GTA on the same console will sound pretty damn good. I'm expecting GTA 4 to sell better on the 360 by virtue of it's increased userbase, but the game to move slightly more PS3 units, since it'll probably be the push that a lot of PS2 owners who want to upgrade will get.

I don't really know what to expect from GTA4 to be honest ... If you look at the line-up of the most important games on the Playstation and compare it to the most important games on the PS2 you may understand what I am thinking.

The Playstation had several games on it which were so popular that they spawned a genre and became the cornerstone of the generation; games like Resident Evil, Tomb Raider and Tony Hawk really were remarkably important to the Playstation's popularity. The unfortunate problem was that the publishers of these games wanted to cash in on their success so they cranked out as many versions of these games as was possible; their competition also was releasing clones at an amazingly rapid rate.

Eventually, people became tired of these games and the genre as a whole shrank and only the original games remained (and even they had lower sales). When you look at the Sandbox Crime genre you see a very similar pattern and I could see that at some point people just stop paying attention. 

 I agree, but I really don't think that this will be that point as San Andreas was the highest selling of them all.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Take 2

0.41

7.89

6.58

14.88

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Take 2

0.00

1.26

0.67

1.93

Factor in the "next Gen" appeal, and I don't see this game loosing any of it's steam, despite the multitude of me too games.

P.S. I'm really curious to see how it does in Japan.

@HappySqurriel:

I couldn't have said my thoughts any better. Thanks.


GTA4 is important, I just don't know how important.

By the looks, it appears SONY doesn't think it is as important if the reports that they refused first offer of exclusivity for it.

My expectation at E3 is that someone will introduce a title that will drive this generation (well, besides Wii Sports...)