Impact of GTA4

[naznatips]

RolStoppable said:

naznatips said:

Goodquestion. I expect both Mario and Smash to outsell GTA on the 360 and PS3 seperately, but combined it's pretty hard to beat GTA's overall sales. I would say with the Wii's userbase it's possible, but unlikely. One advantage the Wii games have this time though is GTA only has the hardcore audience this time between the PS360, and the casuals are what REALLY sell the game. Even casuals will buy Mario Galaxy, and they may even buy Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Brawl is a lot less casual though because to know most of the characters you have to have a pretty detailed knowledge of gaming. Of course, with all it's classic characters Smash has the advantage of attracting the lapsed gamers on the Wii.

Does this part mean that you think Mario Galaxy has more appeal to casuals than Brawl? Brawl has for sure more appeal to casual gamers, you can jump right into a multiplayer match and have fun, while Mario platformers require more skill to get into the game and are singleplayer games. Both games appeal to core gamers as well as casuals, but a kick ass multiplayer mode makes a huge difference. And why should unknown characters be a problem? You can still easily enjoy the game.

On topic: GTA IV will sell better on the 360 than on the PS3, that's a no-brainer. Higher userbase and cheaper entry price point of the system. But due to its casual nature, GTA IV won't be the best selling console game this year, at least Halo 3 will beat GTA's sales. Galaxy and Brawl have a shot too, but that depends largely on their release dates. If one is released at the end of november/start of december, chances to outsell GTA IV are slim.

Yes, I do think SMG has more casual appeal.  WE know that you can just jump in and play Brawl and have a blast, but the average joe buying games would look at it as a fighting game, which automatically turns off the casual beacon.  It certainly has more casual appeal than any other fighting game, but it's still a fighting game which limits it.  Super Mario Galaxy though is Mario.  EVERYONE knows the name Mario.  The people who bought a Wii for Wii sports will buy a Mario game.  

You have to think about it from their perspective.  Name recognizability is very important to a casual's purchase of a game.  They buy games they recognize with characters they recognize.  GT sells because GT always sold well.  GTA's ridiculous milking attempts sell because everyone knows what GTA is already.  Smash Bros is not guaranteed to sell to the casual though because most of the characters won't be recognized by casual gamers and the game will look overwhelming.