Hyruken said:
2. There are few football games out there. So if we use Madden as the example those people who buy that game have little in the way of competition. In a way it is the same as Fifa in europe. I know so many people who have one game for their 360 and that is fifa. The reason for that is fifa is the definitive football game with all licenses etc..PES is it's competitor but fifa sells double what PES sells if not more. Point being if there was no fifa game then those people would buy PES. And vice versa. They are football fans and will naturally buy football games. With racing games this gen it is very different. You have counltess racing games. They are like fps games in that they are chrurned out. That is because in the previous gen they were very succesful. If you look at europe sales for PS2 games i think 4 of the top 8 or something were racing games. 3. I do not believe for one second this myth that there are millions of GT5 racing fans waiting to buy a PS3. There are so many other racing games that would of pulled them in by now. 4. Need for Speed Underground 1&2 was amongst the top selling PS2 games, especially in europe, selling nearly 13m units combined. 7m of those in europe. Proving that it was at least last gen a big franchise. If you look at the Need for Speeds this gen your see they are well down. The only reason they have got into the million bracket is due to sales in europe. The rest of the worlds numbers are pretty bad. So while there will obviously be some people waiting to get a ps3 for GT5 i don't think that figure is going to be very high at all. The ps3 is a few months away from entering it's 5th year on sale. That is a longtime for people to not upgrade to this gens new consoles! 5. If they were that die hard a gamer would they really continue to play the PS2 and miss out on other games? Very doubtful. As the analyst mentions the reason sales don't look so good is simply because there are now more games to choose from but more importantly more formats to choose from. Those hardcore GT5 gamers who have the GT website have a Forza section on there which is very popular, that indicates that GT5 gamers have interest in other racing games. 6. People assume games from previous gens will sell just as well if not better this gen. For some franchises that is true, but for others it is not. For example GTA4 sold less on 2 formats then what GTA:SA sold on one. Last gen PS2 was king, it had basically 140m units out there. That is a vast amount of consoles. This gen see's three competitors so those figures are now split 3 ways. The Wii,PS3 and 360 combined have sold 147m combined. 72m of that on Wii. If you take away Wii and look at the hardcore numbers combined it is 75m. What happened to the other 70m that owed a ps2? Chances are they were casual gamers and bought a wii. A vast amount of those people will probably be people who bought the GT games on their ps2. Will they fork out £250 for a ps3 then £40 to get GT5 just to play that game? Very very doubtful. 7. I am sure those people will probably have bought games like Mario Kart and me happy with that. GT5 will have good sales but unlike Madden and Fifa there are lot's and lot's of alternatives for racing fans now. It just seems at least based on sales people are less interested in them. If there was less of them and they were released less frequently then i am sure interest would be higher.
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1. Except the breadth of content found in GT5 has no bearing on last gen, and only impacts this gen.
2. There were plenty of racing games to be found last gen, much like this gen. From Burnout and Need for Speed to MX and ATV. And few of these are substitutes for a product like Gran Turismo, given they are all arcade racers that cater more to gamers than racing enthusiasts.
3. I never mentioned anything about this "myth" you speak of. However, i do believe that there are people out there that would only be convinced to buy a ps3 for GT5. I wouldn't say they're in the millions, and even when GT5 launches, you won't see much of a spike, as these are the type of people that'll probably wait for a cheaper system and a cheaper game before jumping in, given this is about the only title they care for. They aren't really gamers, but rather racing sim fans.
4. Need for Speed's sales have suffered this gen because the series is crap now. Need for Speed: Most Wanted sold about 6 million at the tail end of last gen, which was par for the course for the series last gen. At that point the series started going into decline, and the horrible Need for Speed: Undercover only managed 3 million. For other franchises that haven't seen a similar decline in quality, sales have remained steady, if not grown. Burnout Paradise outsold Burnout Revenge quite nicely, enjoying about 2.6 million in sales vs 2 million for its immediate predecessor.
5. As I said in my first post, GT tends to cater more to car enthusiasts than gamers. Racing sims have never been popular forum topics, yet they sell gangbusters, because the only gamers that are really excited for such titles are also racing enthusiats. You won't see GT getting the buzz of something like Uncharted or Killzone amongst the hardcore crowd, but you can be damn sure GT5 will outsell both Uncharted 3 and Killzone 3 combined.
6. People by and large consider GTAIV to be a disappointment, which at least partially explains its weak sales compared to San Andreas.
7. Except I'm talking about racing sims, not arcade racers. The two are entirely different markets catering to different types of people.
My initial post made the assertion that GT enjoys such success because it is popular amongst car fans moreso than regular gamers. The additional content found in GT5 should only increase it's popularity amongst this demographic. The inclusion of Nascar alone opens the franchise up to a whole new and quite large segment of racing fans.
Of course, the most important thing is the partnership with Top Gear. Aside from all the content the partnership will bring to the game, the game will be marketed through Top Gear itself - a show with over 350 million viewers worldwide.
