| thismeintiel said: You are right about the previous Prologues not launching this much earlier than the main game. But, consumers didn't know that would be the case when GT5P released. Once again, we can look at the corresponding sales of the last Prologue (GT4P) and GT5P. Now, GT4P was released a year before GT4 released, so let's just look at the sales til then. VGC only has the Japanese numbers, but by going by these it looks like GT4P sold most copies, if not all, by Week 32. I would imagine that is the case for all regions. It also didn't release in America, so I'll just add the American sales of GT5P up to Week 32 (532K) to the total shipped copies of GT4P (1.36 mil). This gives us ~ 1.89 mil GT4P possibly could of sold (on a MUCH larger install base) if released in America. By Week 32, GT5P had already sold ~ 2.21 mil. I think GT5P is a good indication that the GT series is very much alive. |
Comparing Prologues is a losing argument because (1) GT4P didn't get a worldwide release, (2) GT4P wasn't the first "Gran Turismo" release on it's system, (3) GT4 came only a year after GT4P, (4) GT4 didn't have a year of online updates following release and (5) GT4P didn't get a heavy amount of hardware bundles. There's so many differentiating factors that any direct comparison inherently going to be flawed and heavily favoring GT5P.
That last point (5) is also a huge issue if you actually examine Japanese sales (the only region where we have a good idea for the split between bundled and standalone numbers). GT5P only sold about 250k on it's own, it did another 300k when it was bundled with PS3 hardware, a year later, and at NO extra cost. Essentially GT5P sold 250k in Japan and SCE gave away another 300k.... that doesn't compare well at all with GT4 in Japan (750k sold) either. Hell, even GT Tokyo Concept sold 350k in Japan.
