Rockstar has released a patch for Grand Theft Auto 4 targeting both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms. This patch notably addresses the oft-heard early complaints of "multiplayer connectivity issues" and "freezes during certain modes." There's 11 total fixes so, if you've been having trouble getting things done in Liberty City, Rockstar wants to offer you an apology and recommends taking this patch out for a test drive.
Unsurprisingly, April's end-of-the-month releases notched three of the top five slots in this month's chart, with the Xbox 360 version of GTAIV taking the top spot at 871,300 units. That tally is almost twice as much as the PS3 edition of the game, which occupied the fourth slot in NPD's data charts with 442,900 units on the month. "GTAIV has now generated combined sales of 4.2 million units [in the US], making it the top-selling title of the year," commented NPD analyst Anita Frazier.
Earlier this year, Hudson Square Research analyst Daniel Ernst issued estimates for Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV, pegging 2008 sales for the title at 13 million copies. Today, Ernst upped his estimate to 15 million on word from Take-Two that the publisher had already sold through 8.5 million copies of GTA IV, with 11 million shipped to retailers. Ernst noted that "We expect GTA IV sales to re-accelerate in the latter part of year in conjunction with the seasonal holiday period."
Yes i can go about another 6-10k of stock short on the X360 version, so im not far off my limit. My PS3 short is minimal at -10k stock or in that region.
You make a good point that i had overlooked, it is quite possible that the figure does not include the last week of May NPD. I am willing to gamble that it does though, as i like to play risky :).
I would say that NPD has a close relationship with publishers and so 5 days is enough time to collate the data, give to publisher and for them to release the figure. Especially as this is specifically for T2 earnings report, i would assume they would want their figures to look as good as possible, so they would push for NPD to give them the most recent data in time, or make a conservative estimate. I could number crunch worst case scenarios given the ratios but i have an exam in a couple of hours and cant be bothered :).
@vGInfidel, So, you have almost 30K stocks of X360 version (I didn't bother checking your PS3 version stocks), which should brought you to almost max limit (of 35% networth investment limit).
Just a word of caution (to you or anyone else that agree with your calculation) : There was no specific mention of WHEN that 8.5 Million sold was counted. We know that 11 Million shipped is up to May 31, but we don't know for sure that the 8.5 Million sold is ALSO up to May 31. We assume that it is ALSO "up to May 31" for the sold figure, but it could be a different date.
Why I think it is a different date ? There are more lag (between things happening and report arriving at T2 HO) for the "sold to" figure compared to "ship to" figure. Notice how close the June 5 (date of article) to May 31 ? It COULD be that the sold to figure is only up to May 24 (3 NPD weeks), or even May 17 (2 NPD weeks).
If what I suspect (sold to date is not up to May 31), then your calculation could be significantly off.
Anyway, I am also Short on GTAIV X360, but I have different estimate of sales #. Instead of 850K for X360, I had 1.01 Million estimate (which is why I only had 11K stocks at the moment).
Yes, i dropped the PS3 and X360 May futures yesterday because of this news. Yesterday morning i took a small long position on the PS3 of around 500k, when i heard this news i immediately sold that and shorted down another 500k, so a swing of a million which caused the 15% drop.
I then turned my attention to the X360 future and shorted about 1.5million to 90DKP, i went a little bit lower than i had originally intended but still not below my revised prediction, still it caused a 50% drop. Ive since sold another 1.5million worth of shares as the price has increased again.
One advantage i have found is that by shorting a little bit lower than what you would like often sparks a bigger jerk reaction in the opposite direction, so overall you can sell more shares for a higher price point in a short space of time. This is especially useful on futures i find.
My reasoning behind taking the position is that GTA4 sold 6million worldwide in its first week, a week not covered by the May future as it was in Aprils as im sure you well know. This news that it has sold 8.5million worldwide total since then means that over the period concerning the May future it has sold 2.5million worldwide. Now breakdown of first week sales of America compared to the rest of the world was about 48:52. Apply the same ratio loosely to this new figure of 2.5million and you get 1.2-1.3million sold across the two platforms in May. Yesterday before i started shoting the market was predicting over 2million. I focused my attention mainly on the X360 stock as i am estimating a ratio of 62:38 continued on from first week sales. Maybe slightly more in the X360's favour due to bigger install base. But even at 65:35 split and using my high figure of 1.3million, that leaves the X360 version on 850k and the PS3 on 450k.
Now normally i wouldnt short it down to as low as i did and have such a low margin but as future payout is under 2 weeks away i thought i might as well go for it. I state my opinions now as i have already built up a substantial position and so arent looking to put too much more in. :)
@lstormy10, I believe when they stated first quarter of 2009, that this means first quarter of their 2009 financial year. The article was not very clear on this - other than stating that the FY 2009 starts in November 2008. This could mean that the first DLC could come just in time for the holiday season.
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