Dodece said: I wouldn't hold out high hopes that Mario Kart will ever surpass Grand Theft Auto either. The reality is that Rockstar is not going to cash in this generation like last generation pumping out a couple pseudo sequels in short order instead they will be producing expansions to the main game. Which means no self competition. Which means the game will probably outsell all of its predecessors. The title should easily surpass twenty five million copies sold.

 I am not so sure they are not going to "cash-in" like last generation. I actually think they are going to do essentially the same thing. For half the development price of GTA4, they can make another game that will get as much sales if not more. GTA, just like all other games, has a limited market to which it can sell. If there are, let's say, 30 million persons that are interested in the game and own a console, then it is safe to assume the maximum sales that GTA4 can get is 30 million. If you produce 3 games instead, you could get more easily 3 times 20 million = 60 million sales. That's why they're much better off with sequels than expansions.  

Godot said: Dodece said: I wouldn't hold out high hopes that Mario Kart will ever surpass Grand Theft Auto either. The reality is that Rockstar is not going to cash in this generation like last generation pumping out a couple pseudo sequels in short order instead they will be producing expansions to the main game. Which means no self competition. Which means the game will probably outsell all of its predecessors. The title should easily surpass twenty five million copies sold. I am not so sure they are not going to "cash-in" like last generation. I actually think they are going to do essentially the same thing. For half the development price of GTA4, they can make another game that will get as much sales if not more. GTA, just like all other games, has a limited market to which it can sell. If there are, let's say, 30 million persons that are interested in the game and own a console, then it is safe to assume the maximum sales that GTA4 can get is 30 million. If you produce 3 games instead, you could get more easily 3 times 20 million = 60 million sales. That's why they're much better off with sequels than expansions.

 Rockstar will cash in, this is the only major franchise that they have.  Nintendo on the other hand does not need to do this.  The reason is simply because they have plenty of other franchises they can use, and simply let games like smash bros and mario kart sell for the rest of the gen.

The Ghost of RubangB said: Yeah Zen, we expect better from you than to just walk into a graveyard and pretend you killed everybody and won some epic battle. These arguments were dead on arrival, ZAP! That said, nice move.

Hey man, taking credit for others self-ownage is half my epeen, lol. ;D

i lol'd

FishyJoe said: It does appear that MK is somewhat supply restricted in the UK. The major online retailers seem to be out of stock. MK sales are pretty damn good as far as I'm concerned. Can you show me one reasonable person who predicted MK would outsell GTAIV in the opening weeks? If not, then you're just rewriting history.

Yeah, its like that in Australia too.

 Here it released on the 24th of April.  I went to buy it on about the 29th and it was sold out everywhere.  Its still sold out completely, with no stores getting it for at least a cpl more days.

johnsobas said: Godot said: Dodece said: I wouldn't hold out high hopes that Mario Kart will ever surpass Grand Theft Auto either. The reality is that Rockstar is not going to cash in this generation like last generation pumping out a couple pseudo sequels in short order instead they will be producing expansions to the main game. Which means no self competition. Which means the game will probably outsell all of its predecessors. The title should easily surpass twenty five million copies sold. I am not so sure they are not going to "cash-in" like last generation. I actually think they are going to do essentially the same thing. For half the development price of GTA4, they can make another game that will get as much sales if not more. GTA, just like all other games, has a limited market to which it can sell. If there are, let's say, 30 million persons that are interested in the game and own a console, then it is safe to assume the maximum sales that GTA4 can get is 30 million. If you produce 3 games instead, you could get more easily 3 times 20 million = 60 million sales. That's why they're much better off with sequels than expansions.  Rockstar will cash in, this is the only major franchise that they have.  Nintendo on the other hand does not need to do this.  The reason is simply because they have plenty of other franchises they can use, and simply let games like smash bros and mario kart sell for the rest of the gen.

There's actually one more financial point of view supporting the cashing, since Rockstar pretty much owns the sandbox genre, so their interest is to keep the domination by releasing sequels so that the competition has harder time to enter their market. They just make too much money with GTA for not to try to keep the market for themselves.

I look forward to coming back to this thread at the end of the year

The interesting thing is that Nintendo decided, intentionally, to go head to head with GTA IV.

They didn't have to, but they did.

Therefore, the comparison is more than valid.

hanafuda said: The interesting thing is that Nintendo decided, intentionally, to go head to head with GTA IV. They didn't have to, but they did. Therefore, the comparison is more than valid.

 They wanted to show that they can outsell the HD consoles when the biggest game of the gen is released, and they accomplished it easily.  MK Wii was just icing on the cake.  Nobody, not even the worst Nintendo fanboys (or Nintendo themself) thought that MK Wii would sell more than GTA 4 the opening week.  There might have been some that said it would outsell it lifetime.  

hanafuda said: The interesting thing is that Nintendo decided, intentionally, to go head to head with GTA IV. They didn't have to, but they did. Therefore, the comparison is more than valid.

Then your conclusion is still wrong, because MK WII still had a platinum opening week, which is still a rare thing.

So the real conclusion is that MK Wii held its own against GTA IV, since the MK series is also a hit series.