With the highly-anticipated title Grand Theft Auto IV due for release late next month, Wedbush Morgan has said that it expects the game to sell over nine million units during the fiscal year, and that Take-Two is likely to ship six million of those in the first week of sale.
Grand Theft Auto IV launches on April 29th 2008. Every person who places a pre-order on a copy of the game at either Game or Gamestation will receive 500 free Microsoft points (plus, codes to download the before mentioned exclusive GTA IV gamerpics - four to be exact).
I do think this is a concern. In aggregate, GTA games sell more than Halo games, but this has never been the case on the Xbox 360 platform alone. I think the difference this generation is that the Xbox 360 has a very strong lead vs the PS3 in the US a the time of the GTA IV launch. In previous iterations, GTA games on Xbox were always long delayed after the PS2 version, and Xbox had much smaller market share than PS2. This time, the release is simultaneous and 360 has the leading marketshare, so the Xbox 360 SKU will have far more attention this time around.
Because this time around MS isn't a distand third. Because this time around the userbase of the 360 is at least a little bit different? I don't know.
I don't think the game will get that much sales this generation, because for these sales you need one thing: Casuals. And while the "crowd" was on the PS2 last generation, it is this time on the Wii (at least to a greater extend than to the PS3/360). Don't get me wrong, it will have good sales, but looking in the forums there are quite a lot hardcore gamers that seem to just not like GTA, at least more than Halo for example.
And to be honest, while GTA games are pretty damn fun to me, they where never "state of the art". They have normally relatively crappy graphics (compared to other games like Halo, GT, etc). The controls are not the best. Its just the game together seem to appeal to a broad audience. Playing the "bad guy" for a change. The problem is, will be broad pay 300$ for GTA (which is the minimum to invest). While GTA should still have the same appeal, the consoles it will be on have not. There price is still just to high to appeal to such a broad audience.
Possible reasons why this is considered higher sales potential than Halo 3:
X360 popularity in US compared to Sony. Exclusive DLC seen as deciding feature for buyers. GTA was highest selling game series last generation. Irrational exuberance?
I have no position but would be negative if I had DKP spare.
@kspraydad,I think it is probably due to they hype and people buying it because they know its value will go up because of the hype. I think GTA might do better outside the states than Halo does but I have no data about it.
Can some of the LONGS on this stock please chirp in. I'm trying to justify to myself the current price on this.
I'm not an X fan or owner so my question may be naive. I have always worked under the assumption that Halo is THE system seller/killer app for the X brand.
Why is it then that we are predicting 20% higher lifetime sales for this game vs Halo?
I've tried to go back and look at previous sales results for GTA on X and X360 and it never has outsold a Halo game has it? Why is this time going to be different?
(yes...I understand the exuberance of pre release hype on the stock but its getting close to the time that reality needs to set in)
""If you're not in a rush and you answer the phone when it rings it'll take about 100 hours to complete", we were told. "It's harder to distinguish between main and side missions - there are loads of both. But there are more main missions than side missions. It's not as clear cut as it used to be because of the phone."
There won't be a GTA 4 demo, Rockstar has told VideoGamer.com.
When asked if there will be a demo Rockstar replied: "I'm sure there won't be. If there was we would have talked about it. With a game like this the guys at Rockstar North will want to spend every minute making the game look great. Most people know the concept of GTA anyway. I don't know that the demo is worth the time and effort."
We walk away from our first GTA IV hands-on encounter with a hundred stories to tell. The two hours we spent locked away with the game at Rockstar's London HQ was abundant with hilarious, outrageous, explosive and downright unbelievable moments.
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