| starcraft said: I know very little about Epic's financials, however I do know that they are currently only known for two gaming franchises, Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3. The former recently made Epic a LOT of money both directly in terms of sales, and indirectly in terms of the number of developers that became licencees to their Unreal Engine 3 after seeing Gears of War. The latter, Unreal Tournament 3, just cost Epic what is probably a considerable amount of money when it flopped horribly on the PS3 and PC. Though some of this may be recouperated through a 360 version, it is still unlikely to be profitable.
In my opinion, this is the time for Microsoft to push for Gears of War exclusivity beyond Gears of War 2 (my understanding is that they only have publishing rights for versions 1 & 2). Epic have only two significant properties, one of which has been immensly successful and was developed with large Microsoft input, the other of which may just be pronounced dead after it's abysmal sales. This is the perfect time for Microsoft to step in and offer Epic a little money (to pad their half-yearly bottom-line out after UT3's failure) in return for a couple more exclusive Gears of War games, or perhaps another exclusive IP. Thoughts? |
Just about everything is wrong with your statements. First of all UT3 didn't flop, it didn't sell amazing but look at the American totals for PS3, theres only 3.5 million units! Did you really expect it to sell 1 million with only 3.5 million units? its got about 200k or just under that and its still selling at a reasonable rate. I know its only about a 6% attachment rate for America and about 2% worldwide, but give it a chance..it will keep selling.
Also by the time Gears of War 3 comes out, which isn't a guarenteed 360 exclusive, that could be 2-3 years from now, do you know how much greater the PS3's userbase will be by then? It will be much much larger, and also Gears 3 would be sold in Europe and Japan I assume as well as america, so it would have the chance to sell well over a million...a chance UT3 never really had. If it had been released in Europe it may have had decent numbers.
Of course it would be smart for Microsoft to try to lock up Gears of War 3, but it will require a lot of money from Microsoft to make that happen, as PS3 will have a lot more systems in peoples homes by then.
