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Forums - Gaming Discussion - GTA IV Not Meeting Sales Expectations?

vaio on 13 September 2008

GTA IV Not Meeting Sales Expectations?

No, you read that right. There are fears that, despite already being one of the biggest-selling games of all time, Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV isn't selling as well as overlords Take-Two would have hoped, with the game slipping to 46th on the NPD sales charts in August. CNN Money reports that, as the silent, secret takeover talks between EA and Take-Two continue, these "sluggish" sales are hurting Take-Two's only real negotiating point. With 8.5 million copies of the game already sold, this is all a bit hard to believe, but then we weren't the ones drinking the kool-aid at T2 HQ when coming up with official sales targets.

GTA IV' Sales Slow, Complicating Take-Two/EA Merger [CNN]

http://kotaku.com/5049310/gta-iv-not-meeting-sales-expectations



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Aj_habfan on 13 September 2008

I thought it was confirmed at over 10 million now?

Honestly, at a 30% attach rate, expecting any higher of sales was just unrealistic. They are lucky it is holding up in Europe so well.



jasonnc80 on 13 September 2008

Opinions of the game set aside...

I just don't see the userbase there in NA/Others to support whatever expectations they may have for the game.

But if that keeps EA from becoming any larger then use whatever excuse is necessary I guess...



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FishyJoe on 13 September 2008

Like I've said many times before, certain franchises are expected to make huge profits. It's not just about breaking even or making slight profits. Shareholders expect big returns on such projects.



Onyxmeth on 13 September 2008

A lot of sales for past GTA games came when the games hit the 19.99 price point. I know it gave San Andreas a second life on the shelf. Once they do it for GTA IV I'm sure it'll see the extra 5 or so million they wanted.



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greenmedic88 on 13 September 2008

TTWO pretty much invested their future in GTAIV; it was essentially the reason for speculators to trade in the stock. It's pretty rough once that one big catalyst has been played out and there is nothing of similar impact in the near future to fill the void.

TTWO share prices peaked less than a month after GTAIV was released and have slowly dropped since, undoubtedly reflecting the obvious realization that the game wasn't going to sell 35 million copies to a 35 million installed hardware base.

In retrospect, was there any real sense in spending 100 million on a game for a 35 million user base? Assuming they were banking on the game being extremely profitable.

Maybe GTAIV will still manage to pick up a decent attach rate for new console owners this holiday season, but it definitely won't be any higher than the initial attach rate.



trestres on 13 September 2008

The market can deceive developers this time. Thinking a game will do as well as it did on the PS2 is not correct. PS2 had a lot of casual gamers, gamers that would buy a lot of games from a lot of genres. Even more if they were popular like GTA.

Now 360 and PS3 dont have many casual gamers + costs this time are too high. So most who bought the game this time are GTA fans.

Developers make assumptions that later cost them money. Look now at how almost every third party dev is avoiding exclusive games for the HD consoles. The next big step would be to try and put some big games on the Wii and see how the public reacts. There's some companies that are doing it already, and I guess that with proper advertising any game can sell shitloads on the Wii.



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hsrob on 13 September 2008
Onyxmeth said:

A lot of sales for past GTA games came when the games hit the 19.99 price point. I know it gave San Andreas a second life on the shelf. Once they do it for GTA IV I'm sure it'll see the extra 5 or so million they wanted.

 

Yeah, but having a significantly larger budget on this game when compared to previous versions makes me think they are going to be pretty hesitant to bring the price down to 19.99 any time soon.



ZenfoldorVGI on 13 September 2008

Once again, high sales do not equal expected sales.



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greenmedic88 on 13 September 2008

Expected sales should have been a lot more realistic. I'd say it was to make Take Two appear more enticing if they were shooting for a merger/acquisition, but since they rejected EA's offer, in retrospect, it just seemed reckless.

What kind of attach rate were they projecting for an installed hardware base of about 35 million?

Realistically?