I think another thing you are doubting here is the names involved. Bioware developers have been making top title PC RPGs for over a decade. They have an Xbox following with their Knights of the Old Republic series. In many magazines they have had articles about their games, and how they have a very high average rating on them.
According to Gamespot.com Microsoft will still be publishing this game. Microsoft should advertise this game really well. It wont be another Halo to them, but I would expect great advertising regardless.
Bioshock was developed and published by 2k games. Not to say anything bad about them, but they do not hold the legacy Bioware has on games. Why people didnt buy Bioshock? Maybe it was just because people saw it as another FPS in a world where we have too many FPS to choose from. Bioshock on the other hand is in a world where good RPGs are rare. Good action RPGs are even rarer. So, for the whole collection of RPG players and action RPG players, this is one of few choices. For all the FPS fans out there, they have tons of shooter games to choose from, and just didnt see anything unique enough about Bioshock to justify the purchase.
And just so you know, I played the demo and liked it. One day when it isnt $60, I will buy it.
This is true, but the thing you have to remember about Mass Effect is that the game is massive. Who knows how many hours it will take to complete plus all the sidequests, unexplored worlds, and so on (plus replayability). I think Mass Effect will have longer legs than Bioshock, because with Bioshock you can completely beat the game in a rental or two. Mass Effect is the kind of game you need to buy to finish, and savor.
@Powertrade, I think that there's a lot of overlap between Mass Effect and BioShock, but that Mass Effect has a lot more upside in that Star Wars people (like me) are more likely to pick it up just based on positive past associations with BioWare. Whereas BioShock suffered with comparisons to Halo (regardless of how accurate those comparisons were), Mass Effect is getting called the next level in BioWare's developmental evolution. I don't think that 3 million is under-rated. We're predicting a million in sales for the first two months; personally, I think it'll be much much higher than that. I don't think it's unreasonable for the first part of a trilogy from a well known AAA production house to sell 3 million copies.
There seems to be a lot of buying inflation across the board recently. Mass Effect appears to be a title that has been suscepted to this. I am doubting this will sell over 3 million copies given how BioShock (a true AAA quality title) lost legs a month after launch. There is sufficient risk in this stock that the forecast should be discounted below 3 million.
BioWare has just explained what's going on with the Mass Effect Collectors Edition. As in, which regions are getting it, and how they can get hold of it. As largely confirmed by EB Games' notices, in the US, you can get the CE only from "select online retailers".
Good ol' DaKing240 has gotten his hands on another list of achievements, this time for BioWare’s upcoming third-person action RPG, Mass Effect. There are 45 achievements in all, adding up to a grand total of 1000 gamerscore points as per the norm.
Among the various goals you'll have to accomplish in order to unlock 'em all include getting one of your characters to level 60, beating the game twice, and completing a "romance subplot."
So... Apparently this site has a crappy server. It crashed soon after I posted these pics. Hopefully they will come back, the site has 149 new in game images on their site, very cool to look at, I posted a series of them (when the site is back up) to give a sample.
Part of an overall strategy to promote the game, this is yet another example of the marketing being done for this, which has been shown in the past to effect game sales.
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I think another thing you are doubting here is the names involved. Bioware developers have been making top title PC RPGs for over a decade. They have an Xbox following with their Knights of the Old Republic series. In many magazines they have had articles about their games, and how they have a very high average rating on them.
According to Gamespot.com Microsoft will still be publishing this game. Microsoft should advertise this game really well. It wont be another Halo to them, but I would expect great advertising regardless.
Bioshock was developed and published by 2k games. Not to say anything bad about them, but they do not hold the legacy Bioware has on games. Why people didnt buy Bioshock? Maybe it was just because people saw it as another FPS in a world where we have too many FPS to choose from. Bioshock on the other hand is in a world where good RPGs are rare. Good action RPGs are even rarer. So, for the whole collection of RPG players and action RPG players, this is one of few choices. For all the FPS fans out there, they have tons of shooter games to choose from, and just didnt see anything unique enough about Bioshock to justify the purchase.
And just so you know, I played the demo and liked it. One day when it isnt $60, I will buy it.