I am getting a bit tired of these "hardcore" rants. I say innovative games should be offered people, and they have a hard enough difficulty level AS AN OPTION to satisfy people who are very skilled. Hardcore is getting used as an excuse to offer the same games that have been played before, but with niftier graphics, or a bunch of gore or questionable "adult content" (this is put in quotes here, because the type of people this content appeals to are usually immature teenagers.

So, if companies do more games that get casual people interested and buy a console, is that a bad thing, so long as you get enough challenging stuff to satisfy you?

And saying something is "not hardcore" is a way to bash the likes of LittleBigPlanet, because Sackboys don't ooze blood when you kill them. Nevermind the levels can be hard, and it takes dedication to design good levels. Taking dedication to do something well sounds "hardcore" to me.

There would be no such thing without the two companies.

@HappySqurriel

Um how is Bioshock a rehash when there has only been one game in the franchise? and GTA 4 was in development for a while...I dont think you understand what I am saying...Im saying Year after Year the same game...lets see a great example would be Need for Speed or Madden...get it?

@ Rol

No one was talking about sales numbers so that was totally irrelevant to the issue and ignorant...kinda sad when you dont even know what your talking about yet you wrote the OP..sad...

Query for all who do not see the basic truth in Rol's arguement in the OP.

Would TakeTwo have had sufficient revenues to fund GTA IV had not Carnival Games sold so unbelievably well?

The company almost went under -- and almost had a hostile takeover -- as it prepped the latest installment in the Grand Theft Auto series. But the funds from its casual Wii offering allowed it to survive.

Mike from Morgantown

Microsoft & Sony need to release updated consoles, but not go all out tech wise.

Next Xbox for example should be 1GB Shared RAM & 4-core 3.2GHz CPU. Companies should also focus on blockbuster games, advertise the crap out of them and release them on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP & Steam (PC).

Are you sure that one game saved them? And GTA4 hasn't made money? That's a pity.

It's hard to believe they didn't make a profit off of GTAIV considering 13 million copies were shipped.

If anyone is saying that, they'd be an idiot.  From Take-Two's 2008 10-K:

"Our latest iteration in the Grand Theft Auto series, Grand Theft Auto IV , was released on the PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms in the second quarter of fiscal 2008. For the years ended October 31, 2008, 2007 and 2006, our Grand Theft Auto titles accounted for 46.2%, 13.1% and 22.4% of our total net revenue, respectively. No other products accounted for more than 10% of our revenue for the year ended October 31, 2008."

"We are dependent on the future success of our Grand Theft Auto products and we must continue to publish "hit" titles or sequels to such"hit" titles in order to compete successfully in our industry."

If the game accounted for over 40% of their annual revenue despite being out for only six months of that period, one would have to imagine it was insanely profitable.  They slobber all of the Grand Theft Auto series in their annual report...it's their bread and butter, and they know it.  The release of GTA 4 was definitely the leading factor in the company actually posting profits for a year.

thats wasn't due GTA4 development cost because GTA4 revenue first  6 month was 3x development cost but rather they didn't knew how to managed thier business.

Actually it took in about 3 times development cost on the first week ($300 million vs $100 million).

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1586971/20080507/id_0.jhtml

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52464