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Video Game Industry Thread: November's done, post in the new one

cloudeaglecloudeagle Registered User regular
edited November 2011 in Games and Technology
Hi! Welcome to the video game industry thread. Here we discuss things like sales figures, game development, studio closures, executive quotes, marketing and general business stuff. Also poop jokes. And frequent references to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoCZ07hwoZ4
NPD Coverage: October 2-29 (4 weeks)

Below is the top 10 physical software sales result in the U.S. for October:

1. Battlefield 3 (360, PS3, PC)** - almost 2 million
2. Batman: Arkham City (360, PS3)** - 1.5 million
3. NBA 2K12 (360, PS3, PSP, Wii, PS2, PC)
4. Rage (360, PS3, PC) - 550k
5. Just Dance 3 (Wii, 360)
6. Dark Souls (PS3, 360)**
7. Madden NFL 12 (360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP)**
8. Forza Motorsport 4 (360)**
9. Gears of War 3 (360)**
10. FIFA Soccer 12 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PS2, 3DS)

**(includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc. but not those bundled with hardware)


360 - 393k
3DS - >250k
WII - <250k
PS3 - 240k~250k (estimated from Microsoft, Nintendo and NPD PR)
NDS - 1800k

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Posts

  • cloudeaglecloudeagle Registered User regular
    edited October 2011
    Re: thread title.
    Brainiac 8 wrote:
    How does he get all those wonderful sales?
    Warner Bros.' new video game Batman: Arkham City sold 2 million copies worldwide in its first week, the studio said Tuesday. That puts it among the industry's fastest sellers, though still short of blockbuster franchises such as Call of Duty, whose last sequel sold 5.6 million copies on its first day.

    About 4.6 million copies of Arkham City have been shipped to stores since it launched Oct. 18, meaning the game has a good chance of eventually selling at least that many copies. Warner's previous Arkham-Batman game, the 2009 hit Arkham Asylum, sold 4.3 million copies.

    Arkham City was fueled by Warner Bros.' largest ever marketing campaign and received overwhelmingly positive reviews.

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/10/batman-arkham-city-sells-2-million-copies-in-first-week.html

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  • AllforceAllforce Registered User regular
    I wonder where they advertised it, I've seen exactly one ad for it on tv and I watch pretty much nothing but ESPN, the prime spot for every video game commercial to run 40 times a day (outside of WWF shows.)

  • Skull2185Skull2185 Registered User regular
    AC does deserve all the wonderful praise its recieving, but somebody deserves a massive bat punch to the dick for those AR things...

    I'm just sayin'

    I really hope they decide not to include those in the next one.

    Anyway uh... Quickster almost killed Netflix!

    Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
  • Brainiac 8Brainiac 8 Don't call me Shirley... Registered User regular
    Woo, new thread.

    As for Batman, the game deserves all the money it makes. It is in my top five games made this generation. It's worthy of all the praise and admiration it's been getting.

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  • slash000slash000 Registered User regular
    Sorry missed the new thread just as I was posting in the other.... so anyway...
    Preacher wrote:
    shitty non-hdd texture pack footage of BF3

    No need to go to the PS2 era, without it just looks like textures in Rage.

    Seriously, I was thinking the exact same thing. BF3 w/out the high res textures looks bad - but in fact looks quite like Rage!


    Also I'm just going to reiterate the point that the shitty-texture "option" is not an option -- they had to do this because it's a Microsoft rule that every 360 game has to be able to run without a hard drive for those 360 sku's that lack hard drives, and putting a note on the box that says "Requires hard drive" is not allowed by Microsoft (this is the general rule, though it might be supposed that MS could have made an exception).

    Besides, do you think EA wants to miss out on potential non-hdd-owning Xbox 360 owner sales?

    Valve / Russia / preventing piracy with better service
    He's talking about how most publishers ignore Russia "because everything is pirated there." Publishers ignore the region for six months after release of some game and half-ass a localization (or total lack of localization for that matter) and then over price it. Instead, Valve tries to do a great localization job and release the game the same time as elsewhere at a reasonable price. Gabe's saying that Russia is a great and lucrative market for games when it's treated well like other regions/countries instead of being dismissed as piracy-city and half-ass releasing your game with no localization efforts long after other regions have it and wondering why the people there pirated it already / continue to pirate it.

    Skull2185 wrote:
    Not exactly VG industry news, but I just saw a thing on Yahoo that claims Netflix has lost roughly 800,000 members since the price hike

    ...!

    That's close to a million...jesus

    I remember hearing they lost a lot of members.. but I thought they already reneged on the price hike and went back to their original pricing? I don't have netflix but I thought I had read that? Is that inaccurate?

  • AZChristopherAZChristopher Registered User regular
    Skull2185 wrote:
    AC does deserve all the wonderful praise its recieving, but somebody deserves a massive bat punch to the dick for those AR things...

    I'm just sayin'

    I really hope they decide not to include those in the next one.

    Anyway uh... Quickster almost killed Netflix!

    Didn't Netflix also lose Starz? A price hike followed by splitting services, and then changing their mind about splitting services, is what is killing them.

    They still made money though. Just lost a few hundred thousand more subscribers than they expected.

  • cloudeaglecloudeagle Registered User regular
    edited October 2011
    "slash000 wrote:
    Skull2185 wrote:
    Not exactly VG industry news, but I just saw a thing on Yahoo that claims Netflix has lost roughly 800,000 members since the price hike

    ...!

    That's close to a million...jesus

    I remember hearing they lost a lot of members.. but I thought they already reneged on the price hike and went back to their original pricing? I don't have netflix but I thought I had read that? Is that inaccurate?

    No, the new pricing, which separates out DVDs and streaming, is still there. All they reneged on was that stupid Qwikster thing, which would have split up the DVD and streaming queues and made things much more annoying for the customer. Oh, and the Qwikster thing was announced as part of an "apology" for not handling the price hike announcement better.

    People are kinda ticked at Netflix, or at the very least wondering if they know what the hell they're doing.

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  • AllforceAllforce Registered User regular
    I think they lost Starz but that's not happening until next year anyways.

    For 9 bucks a month and the giant streaming catalog I still think it's worth it

  • Skull2185Skull2185 Registered User regular
    edited October 2011
    Allforce wrote:
    I think they lost Starz but that's not happening until next year anyways.

    For 9 bucks a month and the giant streaming catalog I still think it's worth it

    Its a giant streaming catalog, but 90% of it is stupid crap.

    Heh heh

    "Giant Steaming Catalog"

    Skull2185 on
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  • Brainiac 8Brainiac 8 Don't call me Shirley... Registered User regular
    I get to watch Star Trek (any series), Monk, and now Malcolm in the Middle.

    Nine bucks a month is so worth it. :P

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  • AZChristopherAZChristopher Registered User regular
    Also, Redbox went nationwide which probably didn't help.

  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Absolutely worth it. Provided you're leeching off a family subscription.

    Now, if it were me alone, I'd get the mail subscription alone, probably. With all the good stuff. As oppose to a small portion of it.

  • slash000slash000 Registered User regular
    cloudeagle wrote:
    No, the new pricing, which separates out DVDs and streaming, is still there. All they reneged on was that stupid Qwikster thing, which would have split up the DVD and streaming queues and made things much more annoying for the customer. Oh, and the Qwikster thing was announced as part of an "apology" for not handling the price hike announcement better.

    People are kinda ticked at Netflix, or at the very least wondering if they know what the hell they're doing.

    I see... Thanks for the clarification.

  • AllforceAllforce Registered User regular
    Yeah I never have an issue finding tons of good stuff, not sure where the 90% comes from. People just always want to feel like a victim I guess

  • cloudeaglecloudeagle Registered User regular
    Netflix streaming is great for TV series, but utter crap for movies. Very little from the last two years that's watchable shows up, and when it does it stays on the service for what seems like a week before it gets pulled.

    Of course this may not be Netflix' fault... the movie studios seem to be as greedy/clueless toward internet content as the music studios were a decade ago, and the Starz thing highlights that. (Netflix offered Starz ten times the money they were originally paying them; Starz turned them down.) As another example, there were plans to have the new movie "Tower Heist" available for on-demand viewing the same day it was available in theaters... for seventy fucking dollars.

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  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    edited October 2011
    Honestly I think a lot of subscriptions they lose were probably just near-jerk reactions to "They're charging me moar monies!"

    Its still a worth while service and worth the 8 dollars a month. Really, only really I went to streaming only is because I never used the DVD service more than once every few months anyway.

    But yeah...I will say it is hard to find a good movie. But I think that's because so many are either crap or stuff you've seen already. But Netflix has really got me into watching foreign and lower budget films, stuff you don't hear about on TV. And while they have their crap, some of them are pretty good.

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  • ArchsorcererArchsorcerer Registered User regular
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  • RainbowDespairRainbowDespair Registered User regular
    Netflix did lose some subscribers, but they also had their highest quarter for revenue ever.

  • Lindsay LohanLindsay Lohan Registered User regular
    Like someone else said - streaming is great for TV, lousy for movies. The fact that on any tv, phone or 3DS in the house we can stream a complete library of shows is worth the price alone. We did cancel the DVD service because we never used it so we're technically a partial loss for Netflix but we're still a customer.

    The Starz thing was greed - pure and simple greed. And frankly they aren't even that great a content provider - much of their stuff wasn't available in HD either. We just RedBox movies at this point if there's something we really want to see.

  • Magic PinkMagic Pink Tur-Boner-Fed Registered User regular
    Dragkonias wrote:
    Honestly I think a lot of subscriptions they lose were probably just near-jerk reactions to "They're charging me moar monies!"

    Yeah, it had nothing to do with being disgusted at a company that took away a service you were already paying for then offered it back to you for more money. All those people were just overpriviledged whiners.

  • maximumzeromaximumzero I...wait, what? New Orleans, LARegistered User regular
    edited October 2011
    Like someone else said - streaming is great for TV, lousy for movies. The fact that on any tv, phone or 3DS in the house we can stream a complete library of shows is worth the price alone. We did cancel the DVD service because we never used it so we're technically a partial loss for Netflix but we're still a customer.

    The Starz thing was greed - pure and simple greed. And frankly they aren't even that great a content provider - much of their stuff wasn't available in HD either. We just RedBox movies at this point if there's something we really want to see.

    I can never get HD mode to kick in so the Starz content not being in HD was never a big deal for me.

    Not to mention half of the displays I watch Netflix on aren't "HD" anyway.

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  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    Magic Pink wrote:
    Dragkonias wrote:
    Honestly I think a lot of subscriptions they lose were probably just near-jerk reactions to "They're charging me moar monies!"

    Yeah, it had nothing to do with being disgusted at a company that took away a service you were already paying for then offered it back to you for more money. All those people were just overpriviledged whiners.

    Pretty much.

  • AutomaticzenAutomaticzen Registered User regular
    Netflix did lose some subscribers, but they also had their highest quarter for revenue ever.

    I was going to post this but you beat me to it.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-24/netflix-3q-subscriber-losses-worse-than-forecast.html
    For the third quarter, Netflix reported net income rose 65 percent to $62.5 million, or $1.16 a share. Analysts projected 95 cents, the average of 25 estimates. Sales rose 49 percent to $821.8 million, beating expectations of $812.8 million.

    They lost 800,000 users but still made more money.

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  • Skull2185Skull2185 Registered User regular
    Allforce wrote:
    Yeah I never have an issue finding tons of good stuff, not sure where the 90% comes from. People just always want to feel like a victim I guess

    Not trying to feel like a "victim" at all, not sure where'd you get that from.

    I used to have the one dvd/instant streaming plan. The majority of the stuff they had available for instant viewing was horrible straight to DVD crap nobody's ever heard of, or knock offs like "Paranormal Entity" or "The Day the Earth Stopped". There was some enjoyment to be had while I waited for my DVDs. And the Streaming was good for some TV shows, when the price hike came about, I didn't piss and moan at all. Just said " Ah, that stinks, can't justify it in the budget... ah well"

    Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
  • Brainiac 8Brainiac 8 Don't call me Shirley... Registered User regular
    Like someone else said - streaming is great for TV, lousy for movies. The fact that on any tv, phone or 3DS in the house we can stream a complete library of shows is worth the price alone. We did cancel the DVD service because we never used it so we're technically a partial loss for Netflix but we're still a customer.

    The Starz thing was greed - pure and simple greed. And frankly they aren't even that great a content provider - much of their stuff wasn't available in HD either. We just RedBox movies at this point if there's something we really want to see.

    This is me pretty much. I use Netflix for tv shows, and Redbox for movies...and that does me just fine.

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  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular
    Good news for Arkham City, its a solid single player experience that was meaty without feeling overly long and drawn out.

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

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  • AutomaticzenAutomaticzen Registered User regular
  • Brainiac 8Brainiac 8 Don't call me Shirley... Registered User regular

    I hate the series, so it didn't catch my attention.

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  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular
    Until I see the trailer on November 2nd its kind of a ho hum thing. I mean it was expected not exactly earth shattering, and while 4 was competent it also had its share of issues. Not to mention SR3 comes out this year and looks to be everything GTA stopped being and more.

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

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  • AutomaticzenAutomaticzen Registered User regular
    Point taken on Saints Row 3.

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  • AllforceAllforce Registered User regular
    If you're expecting Captain America or Green Lantern on Netflix streaming the month it releases I don't know what to tell you, that's not really what the service is. It's catalog titles like Mad Max or Slapshot or Bullitt that you can watch whenever in HD without the commercials and editing that happens on cable.

    To claim it's all SyFy ripoff made-for-tv stuff isn't genuine.

    Also the Tower Heist thing was Comcast xfinity, not Netflix, and it's still a go as a trial. It's 70 bucks to rent it day of release in theaters, so like next Friday..

  • cloudeaglecloudeagle Registered User regular
    Right, I wasn't blaming the Tower Heist thing on Netflix, I was just pointing out that the movie studios are being jerks lately.

    I dunno, out of my 300+ movies in my DVD queue, a queue that is absolutely crammed with catalog titles, maybe 50-60 at any given time show up in my instant queue. Which may or may not be Netflix' fault, but if the company's betting the farm on streaming that absolutely needs to improve.

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  • AllforceAllforce Registered User regular
    Compare that to 10 years ago tho, if you didn't already own it you'd have to truck it to Blockbuster to find a copy of Mad Max or worse, wait for it on cable. For 8 bucks a month the quantity and quality is way more than I'd expect at that price.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    cloudeagle wrote:
    Netflix streaming is great for TV series, but utter crap for movies. Very little from the last two years that's watchable shows up, and when it does it stays on the service for what seems like a week before it gets pulled.

    Of course this may not be Netflix' fault... the movie studios seem to be as greedy/clueless toward internet content as the music studios were a decade ago, and the Starz thing highlights that. (Netflix offered Starz ten times the money they were originally paying them; Starz turned them down.) As another example, there were plans to have the new movie "Tower Heist" available for on-demand viewing the same day it was available in theaters... for seventy fucking dollars.

    Oh, they aren't clueless in the slightest. That's why they are telling Netflix to take a hike.

    Movie/TV makers have finally realised how much money there is to be made from streaming shit over the web.

  • JCRooksJCRooks Registered User regular
    Totilo wrote an interesting piece regarding GTA V and hardware implications: http://kotaku.com/5853129/the-huge-hardware-implications-for-grand-theft-auto-v-and-the-future-of-video-games

    It's a bit of a hefty read (I mostly just skimmed it), but he makes some interesting points. Here's the last paragraph:
    There is one thing in common with all of the above scenarios. Rockstar doesn't need anyone. Everyone else who makes video game platforms needs Rockstar. They get to choose. Where will we be able to play GTA V? I expect any smart platform holder will be knocking on Rockstar's door to find out if there's a way they can get in on it. We're at a moment where almost anything is possible and Rockstar gets to lay the crown on whichever heads it chooses. If Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Satoru Iwata and the rest of gamings' intentional and accidental czars aren't ringing the phone at Rockstar HQ, they're fools. Or they just don't want to be the king.

    tldr: Don't be surprised to see GTA V on iPad and other "non-traditional" platforms, such as Facebook.

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  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular
    While GTA is a large franchise, its not the only one out there and Rockstar stands to make good money appealing to their traditional market place than IPAD or facebook. I mean are there any sixty dollar games on those platforms?

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

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  • AllforceAllforce Registered User regular
    Preacher wrote:
    While GTA is a large franchise, its not the only one out there and Rockstar stands to make good money appealing to their traditional market place than IPAD or facebook. I mean are there any sixty dollar games on those platforms?

    Only from Square Enix!

  • cloudeaglecloudeagle Registered User regular
    edited October 2011
    Allforce wrote:
    Compare that to 10 years ago tho, if you didn't already own it you'd have to truck it to Blockbuster to find a copy of Mad Max or worse, wait for it on cable. For 8 bucks a month the quantity and quality is way more than I'd expect at that price.

    At this point I still have to truck it to Blockbuster if I'm feeling impatient with 5/6th of my DVD queue.

    At any rate. Remember when Sony, right before the PS3 launch, turned down an offer to moneyhat GTA IV? Good times.

    And we may soon find out if the Wii U really is getting the next GTA.

    Edit: Almost forgot, GTA III is coming to iOS.

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  • RainbowDespairRainbowDespair Registered User regular
    Netflix Watch Instantly has Parks & Recreation, IT Crowd, 30 Rock, Better Off Ted, Arrested Development, Monk, Psych, lots of Star Trek, a bunch of cheesy kung fun flicks, several MST3K episodes, lots of anime, more than enough educational children's shows for the kids, and various random movies & shows. Add in free Hulu and I don't miss cable at all.

  • Lindsay LohanLindsay Lohan Registered User regular
    Allforce wrote:
    If you're expecting Captain America or Green Lantern on Netflix streaming the month it releases I don't know what to tell you, that's not really what the service is. It's catalog titles like Mad Max or Slapshot or Bullitt that you can watch whenever in HD without the commercials and editing that happens on cable.

    To claim it's all SyFy ripoff made-for-tv stuff isn't genuine.

    Also the Tower Heist thing was Comcast xfinity, not Netflix, and it's still a go as a trial. It's 70 bucks to rent it day of release in theaters, so like next Friday..

    I don't think it's expecting new releases - but it's expecting old stuff that's actually good and not disappearing all the time. My son got hooked on Space Jam awhile back and the stupid movie would appear and disappear depending on the month (I think it was a Starz movie). We've tried finding Pokemon movies on their - none.

    I thought it would be good to watch the first Batman flick - nope - only Forever is up. Same with X-Men - only the TV shows were there.

    The issue is that there a lot of movies there, but finding the good stuff is a pain and searching usually leaves you frustrated. It can be really annoying to try to find a movie to watch - my wife and I usually end up searching for movies for 30 minutes, and then watching a streaming TV show instead.

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