NPD October 2008

[eastmen]

obonicus gears isn't going anywhere. Epic and MS have a good relationship that is only going to keep growing. First off GTA was never exclusive to the playstation brand it was allways on three platforms (ps2 , xbox , pc). DMC from capcom never got the marking push from Sony that MS has given the Gears series and as far back as I can remember it wasn't published by Sony. FF series has also never been an exlcusive sony franchise. Remember there were 6 games on nintendo home consoles and 6 games on sony home consoles. Meanwhile last gen we got a FF on the wii.

Epic can continue to have ms publish gears on the 360 and continue to push the game as its big exclusive. In the end its most likely the same amount of money they can make from putting it on the ps3 or a future sony platform gears marketing was most likely 10-15m if not more and I'm sure they will ramp up some more for black friday and christmas

 

[mrcorbo]

Insomniac could easily jump ship any day.

Which was precisely my point. They don't because it makes better sense for them to continue their relationship with Sony. This is likely to continue unless a third party publisher buys Insomniac or Sony allows a third party to outbid them on one of Insomniac's projects.

Could they get better-than-normal terms from a third party? Maybe. It comes down to what makes more financial sense to them. That's why it's reckless to state as a matter of fact that GeoW will never be on a non-MS platform. That'll only be certain if MS buys the IP or Epic (and I think both would be really really expensive).

It's not a question of whether they can get better than normal terms. It's a question of could they get better than MS terms. This is very unlikely unless MS determines that GeOW isn't worth pursuing.

Now if Epic does get bought out by a third party publisher, that's a different story. Not sure how well that would work from a ROI perspective though, WRT the engine licensing business. The competition wouldn't be eager to line the pockets of one of their peers. By buying Epic the publisher would immediately devalue them. That's not smart business.

 

[obonicus]

obonicus gears isn't going anywhere. Epic and MS have a good relationship that is only going to keep growing. First off GTA was never exclusive to the playstation brand it was allways on three platforms (ps2 , xbox , pc). DMC from capcom never got the marking push from Sony that MS has given the Gears series and as far back as I can remember it wasn't published by Sony. FF series has also never been an exlcusive sony franchise. Remember there were 6 games on nintendo home consoles and 6 games on sony home consoles. Meanwhile last gen we got a FF on the wii.

None of that's conclusive. The only thing that'd conclusively state that GeoW is never going to a non-MS platform is if they bought the IP. I'm not even saying it's likely, I'm just saying that GeoW is not a MS franchise and there isn't strictly exclusive. If you want a further example, look at Bioware. Bioware also had a good relationship with MS, developing exclusive games for the 360. Mass Effect 360 was MGS, but ME PC was EA. We have no idea who's publishing ME2 (there's talk that Bioware is contractually obligated to give MS another ME, but it's usually by people who have no reason to know such things) but there's already speculation of multiplatform.

Look, all I'm saying is that 'GeoW has always been with MS, GeoW will always be with MS' is, well, a not really that safe. MS has plenty of reason to keep Epic happy, but we have no idea what's going on in their heads. Or not; if believing that it'd never, ever, ever happen makes you feel safe, go for it. Most likely we're not going to see a huge upset there. But then again, Bungie leaving MGS was also pretty unlikely.

 

[mrcorbo]

Gears of War is definitely not in the same league as Gran Turismo. Mindshare for GT is on a completely different level.

If the sales of GT4 vs GT3 are any indication, the relevance to the US market of Gran Turismo has fallen off dramatically.

 

[obonicus]

snip

Honestly, at this point I'm just saying it's really really unwise for anyone to say 'it'll never happen'. Those are famous last words. Especially if you base yourself on things like 'working relations' (which I'm not saying you did) which are entirely transitory -- financial reasons are a much stronger reason not to, at least in the short-term. In the long-term, if next-gen MS doesn't have the majority of the shooter audience for whatever reason, I think that the likelihood of Epic going third party increases significantly. (In the same vein, I'm sure Insomniac isn't quite so thrilled about Sony's place this-gen, but they don't have IP to leverage.)

It's true about the engine business; EA buying Criterion brought up the exact same problems. Not to mention that by Rein's crazy price tag, it doesn't seem like they're really willing to sell Epic.

 

[lazybum131]

Lazy or just joke post

You listed one platform exclusive game. Compared to 3 platform exclusive games I listed. Some of them that you listed like rock band had 2 weeks of reporting time in that thread with only 1 of the 3 planned skus out . SW TFU came on onsept 16th and its sales were split onto two platforms. Then you go on to list things like Madden nfl 09 ? Did you forget this also was on the wii and hte wii also had an extra sku for this ?

Your post talked about 'big titles' as if the 360 was devoid of big software sellers during this period compared to the Wii. I merely listed the games for 360 that we know have sold decent-to-great numbers. It's not as if the 360 suffered a software drought from Jan-Sept.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Compared to Halo 3 it is.

No. Both Gears and Halo are tier 1, and you may add Fable to that club as well. It's not a coincidence that MS won't release a Halo and Gears game at the same time, they're aiming for the same audience, they have the same marketing team behind them, they get the same attention, and they sell very similar numbers.

If you really want to separate games into tiers then second level would be stuff like Forza, Mass Effect, Viva Pinata - games that do well but aren't sales chart topping multi-million sellers. And obviously tier 3 would be the ones that can't make it past 1 million.


I can understand that one may wish to treat Halo3 separately - but then it's no reason to talk about tiers as it'd be alone in its category.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I'd say it's saner to wait for October sales to really declare what tier GeoW2 is -- compared to Halo 3, remember. There was definitely less fanfare over GeoW2 than there was over Halo 3.

Bullsh*t. Gears 2 has sold 2.2 million within its first week, it's probably way over 3 million by now.

 

[RobertR1]

More numbers:


Guitar Hero World Tour
Xbox 360 -191,049
Wii - 182,845
PlayStation 3 96,657
PlayStation 2 63,462

Rock Band 2
Xbox 360 119,569 (483k LTD)
PlayStation 3 118,559

Rock Revolution
Xbox 360 1,442
PlayStation 3 816
DS 666

 

[Vic]

Bullsh*t. Gears 2 has sold 2.2 million within its first week, it's probably way over 3 million by now.

Yeah and Halo sold 3.3m in 12 days in the US alone.

If Gears went multiplatform then I think it might reach those numbers, but as someone said, its also about mindshare.

As far as GT in the US goes, one of the things that GT4 was criticised for was lack of progression from #3, which sold over 7m in the states, and how many games manage that?

Regardless, I'm sure MS will be more than happy with Gears' US sales.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How can people discuss 'top tier' titles without specifying how big the 'tiers' are?!

 

[Vic]

Well its like a pyramid isnt it?

Every platform has more lowprofile/crap games, than top tier games...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well its like a pyramid isnt it? Every platform has more lowprofile/crap games, than top tier games...

Sure, but what are the thresholds for tiers? One person might rate the top tier as anything above 10 million while another rates it as anything above 5 million. Or the top 2% versus sustained Top-Ten presence in monthly sales. Seems to me one person could say Gears isn't top tier and be absolutlely right, going by their own personal measure, yet a contradictory response 'Gears definitely is top-tier' would also be true as someone else measures the top-tier to a different threshold. A bit like arguing if a piece of string is or isn't long - by what standard?

By my standard, Gears certainly is top tier in terms of public perception and sales. It hasn't reached the same sales level as Halo, but it's still head-and-shoulders above the average. But someone else with a pymid of more, finer steps would classify Gears differently. In the end, it's a term that isn't condusive to sensible discussion. If we're wanting to measure game sales performance and impact on consoles (or whatever, I don't generally follow these NPD threads), we need ot use applicable measures - x million units sold equates to n gains in console-market mindshare, or some such correlation.

 

[Vic]

Yeah maybe thats for another thread...I actually think KZ2 is a tier 1 game, even though I dont think it will sell more copies than Gears. I'm putting it up there because of the hype and money Sony have poured into the game (and the resulting crazy buzz), and because I think it'll sell to a high proportion of the PS3 userbase.

Right now, I'd have Halo 3, GTA 4, COD4, GT 5 (when it drops) along with KZ2 (when it drops) in the top tier of games (with honourable mentions to Gears and even Crysis). Not too sure about the Wii because I'm less familiar with its catalogue.

 

[obonicus]

Sure, but what are the thresholds for tiers? One person might rate the top tier as anything above 10 million while another rates it as anything above 5 million. Or the top 2% versus sustained Top-Ten presence in monthly sales. Seems to me one person could say Gears isn't top tier and be absolutlely right, going by their own personal measure, yet a contradictory response 'Gears definitely is top-tier' would also be true as someone else measures the top-tier to a different threshold. A bit like arguing if a piece of string is or isn't long - by what standard?

By my standard, Gears certainly is top tier in terms of public perception and sales. It hasn't reached the same sales level as Halo, but it's still head-and-shoulders above the average. But someone else with a pymid of more, finer steps would classify Gears differently. In the end, it's a term that isn't condusive to sensible discussion. If we're wanting to measure game sales performance and impact on consoles (or whatever, I don't generally follow these NPD threads), we need ot use applicable measures - x million units sold equates to n gains in console-market mindshare, or some such correlation.

I think the word tier was used unfortunately, since we begun by talking about flagship titles. Probably my fault, too. My point was that Gears is not as important a title to MS as Halo is (just as KZ2 isn't as big as GT -- it's different there, as both are Sony IPs and they have little reason not to let one overcome the other), even if they end up selling the same (which I suspect they won't, unless Gears shows CoD4 legs). Anyone who says MS makes as big a fuss about Gears 2 as it did Halo 3 is delusional or was asleep during 2007.

Because, yeah, otherwise they fit the same criteria. They're both system sellers (it'll be hard to say this conclusively for Gears 2, though in 2006 the 360 actually came close to the PS2) and reasons to own a 360. They're both far larger than anything on PS3.

 

[mrcorbo]

Honestly, at this point I'm just saying it's really really unwise for anyone to say 'it'll never happen'. Those are famous last words. Especially if you base yourself on things like 'working relations' (which I'm not saying you did) which are entirely transitory -- financial reasons are a much stronger reason not to, at least in the short-term.

Well, yeah. The first thing I said in the initial post you quoted me on was that I didn't believe that you could say, "Gears won't go multiplatform" without a qualifier. If this generation has taught us anything it's that this market can change radically. Making absolute statements IS probably unwise, or at least naive.

In the long-term, if next-gen MS doesn't have the majority of the shooter audience for whatever reason, I think that the likelihood of Epic going third party increases significantly. (In the same vein, I'm sure Insomniac isn't quite so thrilled about Sony's place this-gen, but they don't have IP to leverage.)

It'd be interesting to get a perspective from a developer on this, but I'd expect that they prefer to work on a single platform given the choice. Third party publishers are the ones who are keen on multiplatform titles to maximize potential sales. I would guess that working out a deal with a platform holder is always going to be preferable to working with a third party unless the financial terms offered are much worse. As I pointed out, the platform holders can always offer a better deal if they choose as they stand to benefit in more ways than just sales revenue from the title itself. All of this leads me to believe that Gears stays as a MS exclusive unless MS decides not to keep it.

This is why the Gears franchise is markedly different than the former Sony exclusives that became multiplatform this generation. All of those IPs are owned by third party publishers not independant developers. The motivarions of the two are complerely different.

It's true about the engine business; EA buying Criterion brought up the exact same problems. Not to mention that by Rein's crazy price tag, it doesn't seem like they're really willing to sell Epic.

Yup. It also just occurred to me that Bungie was probably inspired by Epic in their desire to become independant. Being an independant developer who own your own IP seems to be a good situation to be in if you have what it takes to make it work. Now Bungie are free to pursue this path.

 

[tha_con]

Isn't that horrible sales for LBP that was (yet another) supposed to be a PS3 system seller?

And it continues to stun me that nobody can make anything worth buying for the Wii.

Wow.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Yeah and Halo sold 3.3m in 12 days in the US alone.

That wasn't Halo1 or Halo2. We'll see how Gears 3 is going to sell.

From the top of my head, it's like this:

Halo1 6.5m
Gears1 5.3m

Halo2 8.5m
Gears2 ~3m and counting

Halo3 8.4m and counting

Whatever you say, the sales so far are more then comparable.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Sure, but what are the thresholds for tiers?

If we're talking about a single platform then tiers only make sense if there's more than one game in each. By this logic I'd say X360's top tier first party stuff are the Halo, Gears and Fable franchises, maybe Forza too; multiplatform are GTA, COD and so on.

But the whole discussion went way too far already, so I'm gonna drop it now.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

My point was that Gears is not as important a title to MS as Halo is

Okay, just to say this: I absolutely disagree with the above. Gears is the buddy of Halo with each franchise releasing a new installment every other year and it's totally obvious by now. Next year we gonna get another Halo shooter game and Gears 3 is sure to arrive in 2010. Recon looks like it's been created just for this reason.