Bodhesatva said: ckmlb said: 50 million???? LOL.... wow way too much to spend for additional content seriously... I had heard 30 million elsewhere and thought that was insane but this is just ridiculous. Anyway it's good for 360 owners when they get to play the extra content (it won't be free either I'm sure) I'm not so sure. This is the most important third party franchise on any console, without question. In America and Europe, it dwarfs everything else.  For people who want to play this game, they now can choose between buying a 600 dollar console to play GTA IV, or a 400 dollar one that has the definitive version of the game. This is a game that sells a ton of consoles, and I think it's reasonable to estimate that 75+ percent of the people that buy a console with this game in mind will be buying a 360 now.

In Europe Pro Evolution Soccer dwarfs GTA .As simple as that .Besides the ultimate version of the game wont depend on the episodic content but on wich one runs better have best first impression .You wont sell many systems on the promise of exclusive content (paying it of course ) some months later .And we all know this kind of agreements ,2k will find sooner or later a way to churn out some exclusive content as well on the PS3 and that way receiving money by both manufacturers .

 

thx for your information Dark Requiem
but here again, TombRaider2 was not an old serie that was born in sega consol (since it comes from PC)
this is not the case of DMC or GTA that were born in sony console

25 for 1st DLC and 25 for 2nd DLC.

10, 20 or 30$ for DLC..
1 mln. buyers = 10, 20, 30 mln. $.
so depends on how much they will charge for it. =)

unless, they paid 25 mln. for just making content EXCLUSIVE, then for DLC $ may get only Take2. =)) or atleast half of 10/20/30$. =)

Diomedes - PES sells 5m+ copies per game? I never knew. GTA sells that level.

Again, I think MS is going to do splended, provided a price drop. When I said "ownage on a global scale", I meant that MS has basically mastercrafted the largest lineup of major 1st and 3rd party exclusives and custom-tailored them for each market. I don't mean to insinuate that the 360 will trounce the Wii in global sales numbers for the holidays, but I think it takes MS from trying to tie the PS3 (as the PS3 has a huge 3 or 4:1 advantage against MS), to tying and most likely beating the Wii for a few critical weeks.

Look at this:

For the US and Europe, we have Halo 3 and GTA IV: 2 of the largest increasing franchises (whereas most franchised had decreased at the end of the generation), as well as a bevy of other 3rd party titles such as Mass Effect, et all. Plus a most probable pricedrop. Think about it, H3 and GTAIV will trend to be both 10m+ sellers with 55-65% of their sales being US, and 35-45% being European (GTA:SA and the others all sold 5m+ copies in Europe, Halo 2 sold 1.75+ in Europe). This bodes very strongly, as Microsoft has 1 10m+ exclusive, and 1 10m+ multi-plat definitive version.

For Japan, a much much weaker market for the 360, due to Sony's incopotence, might end up being sell vs. the PS3 at a 1:1 ratio. In all reality, what does Sony have to prevent major 360 sales due to Lost Odyssey? MGS4 and FFXIII are all 2008. Those are what will sell PS3s, but if neither come out, the PS3 only has 1st party titles to carry the PS3 - not that they'll do bad, but it should be interesting. Obviously, however, the Wii will probably trounce both systems 3:1 combined (3 wiis for each PS3 and 360 sold combined)

Again, on MS's end, the $50m worth of cash they're paying for GTAIV content, is probably just going to be cash returned for what MS makes on the licensing fees for GTAIV, and not MS actually reducing their bank book for the game (after all, if MS really pays $25m in March next year, GTAIV will of moved around 5m units on the 360, garnering profits of atleast $25m in just software revenue, and not hardware revenue).


This is all speculative. MS might not drop the price, allowing the PS3 to make the quicker, better move. Nintendo might have something up their sleeve that we don't know of.

Regardless though, it's going to take MS's incredible pocketbooks, and years of planning to just merely match the Wii - which is insane, because even if Nintendo does nothing, they're guarenteed to move 4m units in November and December alone.

Bodhesatva said: ckmlb said: Bodhesatva said: ckmlb said: Bodhesatva said: ckmlb said: Right, I'm not just talking about how many games it sells, because I absolutely agree the 360 had a lock on copies sold; I'm talking about systems. Keep in mind that the last iteration of Grand Theft Auto sold more copies than the last iterations of Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Tekken, Devil May Cry, and God of War combined. It will be difficult to discern how many systems this game sells, but it's fair to estimate that whatever it totals, the vast majority of those systems will be 360s, not PS3s. So you're assuming the average consumer knows about the GTA IV additional content coming in half a year? The only people who will know are ppl like us following the news. As a guy who works in retail, I can tell you precisely how conversations like this will go for me. Customer: Hey, I want to get Grand Theft Auto IV. Me: Okay, it's available on the Xbox360 and the PS3. The 360 version has additional content for it though. Extra episodes. Customer: Oh. How much do those systems cost? Me: The 360 is 400 dollars and the PS3 is 600.   I don't think conversations like that will be very rare, frankly.

 Yes but then someone's eye will be caught buy Uncharted, Lair and Heavenly Sword and think, hang on, I think I'll take the PS3 version cause then I can play those games, and my PS2 collection and blu-rays, all for $500 (unless Sony is insane) and I can trade in my PS2 for a little extra

I'm not saying that this will happen in every case, but in many, I think the fact that it is another GTA will signal the time that many PS2 owners will upgrade (a large proportion of those 14M) and will the backwards compat, they will swing towards the PS3, having never played Halo, or heard of the mirosoft brands (they will have heard of R & C) 

mrstickball said: IMO, buying the exclusive content rights for GTAIV is a definate win-win for Microsoft. #1 - They screw Sony out of having their biggest 3rd party game being either exclusive or definitive. GTA 3 through SA were definitive on the PS2. Thats why they sold about 10:1 versus the Xbox version. Face it, GTA being day-and date and having the added content exclusivity is bigger than MGS and FF13 combined (GTA:SA on PS2 sold more than FFXII and MGS3 combined) #2 - They will make their money back. For all we know, MS is paying them $50m to publish the content themselves, therefore Microsoft will be the one to make the money back. If not, MS still charges for the servers for downloadable content (somewhere around 30% of the total fee goes to MS, give or take). Sometimes you have to throw around lots of money. But really, is $50m alot of money considering they spent 10x that on Rare, and lost 100x that for video games thus far? GTAIV is a guarenteed 10 million copy seller, it's bigger than Halo. MS is going to stand to make tens of millions of dollars on the console license fee to Rockstar, and since GTA will probably sell around 10 to 12m units on the 360 alone, and will profit MS anywhere from $50m to $84m from the licensing fee alone, not including any sort of the DLC that GTAIV offers. Again, GTAIV + Exclusive Content + Price Drop + Halo 3 + Lost Odyssey = ownage on a global scale (not against the Wii in Japan). Certainly Mr. Gates was right in saying that this Christmas would be the key Christmas for the console wars. And MS is betting billions on them winning, or atleast tying the Nintendo behemoth.

MrStickball,

                    I do agree with you in regards to paying big for this kind of content is essentially a safe bet for M$, but making their money back?! You do realise how far in debt the gaming devision for M$ is right? Closing in on --five billion-- the last time I checked.

It's going to be a long time for MS to start making any money from their gaming devision at all.

Holiday is going to be fun around these parts as everyone is going to have so much more data to attempt to spin for their own congnitive dissonance.

 

Munkeh said: Bodhesatva said: ckmlb said: Bodhesatva said: ckmlb said: Bodhesatva said: ckmlb said: Right, I'm not just talking about how many games it sells, because I absolutely agree the 360 had a lock on copies sold; I'm talking about systems. Keep in mind that the last iteration of Grand Theft Auto sold more copies than the last iterations of Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Tekken, Devil May Cry, and God of War combined. It will be difficult to discern how many systems this game sells, but it's fair to estimate that whatever it totals, the vast majority of those systems will be 360s, not PS3s. So you're assuming the average consumer knows about the GTA IV additional content coming in half a year? The only people who will know are ppl like us following the news. As a guy who works in retail, I can tell you precisely how conversations like this will go for me. Customer: Hey, I want to get Grand Theft Auto IV. Me: Okay, it's available on the Xbox360 and the PS3. The 360 version has additional content for it though. Extra episodes. Customer: Oh. How much do those systems cost? Me: The 360 is 400 dollars and the PS3 is 600.   I don't think conversations like that will be very rare, frankly. Yes but then someone's eye will be caught buy Uncharted, Lair and Heavenly Sword and think, hang on, I think I'll take the PS3 version cause then I can play those games, and my PS2 collection and blu-rays, all for $500 (unless Sony is insane) and I can trade in my PS2 for a little extra I'm not saying that this will happen in every case, but in many, I think the fact that it is another GTA will signal the time that many PS2 owners will upgrade (a large proportion of those 14M) and will the backwards compat, they will swing towards the PS3, having never played Halo, or heard of the mirosoft brands (they will have heard of R & C)

Sony stands to lose a billion dollars by cutting the price to 500 dollars. A billion dollars. I'm not saying they won't cut the price, but it's hardly insane to keep the price where it's at. Sony promised increased profitablity this year, and cutting the PS3 price so much hurts the entire companies bottom line. They won't come close to their predictions for the year, and stock holders won't like that one bit.

And yeah, I do agree that the other games for the PS3 make a difference. Although this really complicates things, because the 360 games also make a difference; they will see GTA sitting next to Gears of War and Halo 3 et al. For the moment, I'm keeping with GTA specifically, because I'll bet you a bundle that GTA IV sells more copies on PS3 than Heavenly Sword, Lair and Uncharted combined.

Diomedes1976 said: Bodhesatva said: ckmlb said: 50 million???? LOL.... wow way too much to spend for additional content seriously... I had heard 30 million elsewhere and thought that was insane but this is just ridiculous. Anyway it's good for 360 owners when they get to play the extra content (it won't be free either I'm sure) I'm not so sure. This is the most important third party franchise on any console, without question. In America and Europe, it dwarfs everything else. For people who want to play this game, they now can choose between buying a 600 dollar console to play GTA IV, or a 400 dollar one that has the definitive version of the game. This is a game that sells a ton of consoles, and I think it's reasonable to estimate that 75+ percent of the people that buy a console with this game in mind will be buying a 360 now. In Europe Pro Evolution Soccer dwarfs GTA .As simple as that .Besides the ultimate version of the game wont depend on the episodic content but on wich one runs better have best first impression .You wont sell many systems on the promise of exclusive content (paying it of course ) some months later .And we all know this kind of agreements ,2k will find sooner or later a way to churn out some exclusive content as well on the PS3 and that way receiving money by both manufacturers .

Pro evolution soccer:

http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=evolution&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

Highest total sold in Europe: Pro Evolution Soccer 5, 2.81 million

Grand Theft Auto:

http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=theft&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

Highest total sold in Europe: Grand Theft Auto SA, 6.58 million

Unless you can do some radical re-defining of the word "dwarfs," you're going to have to explain to me how Pro Evolution is a bigger deal than GTA, even though GTA sells 2-3 times as many copies. Here's a bit more evidence, just in case this hasn't sunken in yet.

http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=&console=PS2&publisher=&sort=Others

Here are all the PS2 games, put in order of most sales in PAL territories to least. Grand Theft Auto occupies the 1st, 2nd, and 4th highest positions.  

 

M$ strategy for selling more Xbox360 is great. With so many big games coming on 360 they will sure enjoy a happy Christmas.

In regards to profit I do not think they will see any of this money again. GTA is a beast we all know that, but the 15 million were sold to a 80-100 million PS2 user base (at a $ 200 price range). 50 million is a lot of money even for a exclusive game, for exclusive content it is overkill. I do not think they will sell so much on the Xbox360. In the end this strategy could backfire. Remember that Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear 2 got extra content on the Xbox versions and that later the same versions came on PS2. I know that this time the exclusive content will not come out on PS3, but still the basic versions of these games sold a lot more than the xbox versions. I also know that this time Xbox360 userbase is more than twice PS3 but it is still years away from the price and userbase that the PS2 had.
Those are just some of my thoughs feel free to disagree.

Diomedes1976 said: In Europe Pro Evolution Soccer dwarfs GTA. As simple as that.

Bodhesatva already answerd you, but I still have to ask this: are you high Diomedes?

I know you think you can take Spain's market, twist it to your own purposes, and extrapolate that to all of Europe (as you've done with the PS3, which was plain wrong). But I seriously doubt PES drwafs GTA - even in Spain. Just because you're mostly talking with americans here, you can't just keep spewing that easily disprovable crap, trusting they're total idiots about the European market.