Can Gran Turismo 5 still reach 10 million?

[Michael-5]

Troll_Whisperer said:

Michael-5 said:

Yea, but the PS3 version of the game is only 500k lower, and it would give us a better idea of how well old games sell on PS3. Like I said 360 has a bigger tie ratio and a larger presence in regions which push late life game sales. I don't think GT5 will hold to GTA Iv's late life pattern.

However 10 million is possible......,but only because of bundles :P

Hmmm, I don't know about the bolded. Why would a larger presence in NA, UK, etc. warrant better legs? I thought these regions were more frontloaded, actually, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, about the legs. GT is a monster in Europe. It's normal that you don't understand its legs because you are from NA, where the game is not that big and you may not understand its demographics.

For example, in the UK PS3 sold 5m and GT5 1m, meaning a 20% attatch ratio. GT is a game with a very wide appeal, the casual audience (or last gen's definition of casual, purchasers of FIFA, CoD, F1, etc.) knows the brand very well, and these people tend to buy brands they know, and they tend to keep buying the game long after release. When someone buys a PS3 and look at the games available, Gran Turismo is one of the games that stand out. Europeans absolutely love cars and GT is the racing game. An the brand is only growing here. It's best selling GT in Europe already and keeps on going, despite the lower user base. Though the decline in Japan and lower interest in NA didn't help its cause.

Of course the bundles help, but all GT's have been bundled to some extent, it's a brand that attracts sales after all.

I'm not referring to NA/UK exclusively, I'm referring to NA and the entire EMEAA. Basically I'm excluding Japan because in Japan there is a huge used video game market and generally after only weeks, most game sells flatten out (unless it's a game people keep for a while like Mario games on the DS). I don't think NA/UK sales differ that drastically from the rest of Europe.

Anyway your arguement seems to be loosly related to my point. I don't argue that GT5 doesn't have legs, I argue wouldn't it be fairer to compare GT5 games sales to PS3 versions of GTA IV? Just because GT5 is selling similar to GTA IV on 360 now, doesn't mean it will continue to hold that because PS3 and 360 have different selling patterns. We should compare it to GTA IV for PS3. GTA is still a brand name in Europe is it not?

Or better yet, we can use Forza 3 sales and extrapolate. Forza 3 managed to break 5 million sales correct? While not as large of a brand as GT5 in Europe, it's still a strong racing game brand (I think it's very similar to Battlefield vs. CoD). Now 360 has a slightly smaller precence in Europe, but it has a substantially bigger precence in the combined NA/EMEAA regions (where the legs for most racing games would exist). So if you want to compare to anything 360, compare to Forza 3.