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Activistion:More Nintendo games;THDJ port>PS2
AlphaTwo
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http://www.gamespot.com/news/6165582.html
A few things:
a) Holy shit at the XBL CoD numbers...10 million? I guess I know why publishers like it.
b) Lackluster THDJ sales? Not suprising. Most people skipped it because of the graphics, even though the gameplay is still solid.
c) Reverse port for Tony Hawk. Oh boy.
d)
In a conference call with analysts, Activision Publishing president and CEO Mike Griffith showered praise on his company's bread and butter franchises, Call of Duty and Tony Hawk. According to NPD, Call of Duty 3 racked up over $85.8 million in US sales from its release in November until the end of the year. Activision said it also took in over $10 million from international sales of Call of Duty 2 map packs on Xbox Live Marketplace during the quarter.
US 2006 sales of Tony Hawk's Project 8 exceeded $43.9 million, while Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam eked out just over $9.0 million. Despite the latter's lackluster numbers, Activision also announced it was porting the game to the PlayStation 2 during the April-June 2007 quarter.
Above all, though, Griffith singled out Guitar Hero II for particular praise. Despite only being released on one platform--the PS2--the game headbanged out over $93.6 million in the US alone in 2006, according to NPD. Griffith credited the game's success to an extensive publicity campaign, which includes some 7,500 demo kiosks, and better-than-expected sales of the PS2.
"The PS2's success certainly benefited Guitar Hero and, you know, some would say Guitar Hero maybe benefited the PlayStation 2 platform as well," he said. Griffith also said he expects the PS2 to have surprising longevity. "If you look back at the PSone, when they got down to that $79 price point that year they sold 2.5 million units and there's a long way to go still on the PS2's price point."
Griffith also gave his company's predictions on how the 2007 console race will shape up. Activision's current estimates peg the Xbox 360 as selling 5 million units in North American during the calendar year. The publisher has the Wii, PS2, and PS3 tied at 4 million apiece. The company also said it expects "10 million handhelds" to be bought on the continent during the 12 months, but did not specify a platform. Activision also expects the $59 price carried by most third-party PS3 and 360 games will hold, as will the $49 sticker slapped on Wii games.
For the company's 2008 fiscal year, which begins on April 1, Griffith said Activision will have 60 individual products, or SKUs, which would "aggressively target the Nintendo platforms." He said the company "will be focusing on our most successful franchises--Call of Duty, Tony Hawk, and Guitar Hero," though he stopped short of announcing specific new titles.
The first quarter of Activision's FY2008 has 360 Guitar Hero II and Call of Duty: Roads of Victory scheduled to ship. It is also the tentative launch window of the long-in-the-making PC shooter Quake Wars: Enemy Territory. Finally, the quarter will see the release of a wide spread of cross-platform games based on three films: Spider-Man 3, Transformers, and Shrek the Third.
A few things:
a) Holy shit at the XBL CoD numbers...10 million? I guess I know why publishers like it.
b) Lackluster THDJ sales? Not suprising. Most people skipped it because of the graphics, even though the gameplay is still solid.
c) Reverse port for Tony Hawk. Oh boy.
d)
CoD4, New Tony Hawk and Wiitar Hero confirmed?"aggressively target the Nintendo platforms." He said the company "will be focusing on our most successful franchises--Call of Duty, Tony Hawk, and Guitar Hero," though he stopped short of announcing specific new titles.
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The best news is the possibility of Wiitar Hero. I'll buy it in a millisecond. The Wii seems like it has quite a bit of untapped potential for rhythm games.
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
They probably only spent about 2 million to make it.
I'm going to quote Deacon from the latest Platformers podcast: You can't expect to lowball the budget for a game and get the income and profit of a big dollar game. What you get out is relative to what you put in.
There's also the fact that Project 8 was available for two consoles while DJ was a one-console game. If they're going to backport it to the PS2, they might as well pull a THPS3 and backport it to the GameCube too.
Project 8 was available for PS3, X360, PS2, and Xbox. So yeah, divide the number by 4, and you get around $11 million.
So really, wouldn't THDJ have overperformed? I mean, for a new system with a smaller installation base than PS2, Xbox, and 360, you think these numbers would be praised.
True.
I also forgot the PSP port of Project 8.
So Project 8 makes close to $9 million each console.
And Downhill Jam makes $4 million on Wii, and again on the DS.
Still, not too bad to me, considering it's a launch title for a new system.
I hear this all the time and I don't get it. Guitar Hero already has a great controller. What is the Wii going to add to the game? I can see the enthusiasm for it if you don't own a PS2 or 360 (or assume there will be some new set of awesome songs), but otherwise I imagine it will be a lot like the entries on the other systems.
Yea, the only way I'd want to play Guitar Hero on the Wii is if they made a guitar controller for the Wii. Just waving the remote around isn't going to do much to make the game any better.
Now if Harmonix were to take the Freq/Amplitude/GH formula and come up with something creative and new on the Wii, I'd buy like 30 copies.
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Exactly.
People balk at Twilight Princess' numbers.
But the game is over 2 consoles.
And then Gears of Wars numbers are celebrated. Granted, it sold a shit ton. But it also has a wider appeal than Zelda, and a larger installation base of systems. Regardless, its not far to say one tanked and one didn't. It's ridiculous and shouldn't even matter.
Its weird how "analysts" will just gloss over numbers and consider certain games winners over others. When really, nothing like profits are taken into consideration. Twilight Princess' marketing budget must have been next to nothing.
And I vaguely recall a THDJ ad somewhere in Nintendo Power. Plus, it was an ad for both versions, so I doubt marketing was an issue for the game.
I imagine Activision is more than happy with DJ's numbers, its the spin of the writer that makes it seem so negative.
Ummm... I bet it has more to do with what they expected to make, as in, it failed to meet their projected sales figure for a Tony Hawk game. Otherwise it's just not going to be called disappointing...
Yeah, I'm just kind of a nut for that series, and I agree that it would need to have its own controller rather than using the Wiimote (due to button placement mostly). Something brand new for the Wii would be even more amazing!
(I'm hoping against hope for Samba De Amigo Wii, I think that would really be cool).
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
How on earth does a random shooter have wider appeal than Nintendo's biggest flagship series aside from Mario? Zelda is one of the few series that you can say around most non-gamers and still expect them to know what you're talking about. (Note, I'm not trying to put down either Gears of War or Zelda: Twilight Princess - I think they're both excellent games).
Yeah, Guitar Hero seems like one of the game series that would benefit the very least from being ported to the Wii (since it already has its own custom controller) so I don't get why every thread that even vaguely mentions the series has at least one person express a great desire for Wii Guitar Hero. And add me to the list of people who are shocked that the CoD Map packs made over 10 million
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That's fiscal year 2008, which for Activision is April 1st, 2007.
Gamespot said it undersold/failed, not Activision.
To my knowledge, Zelda hasn't gotten a single commercial at this point. Casuals may still have some memory of Zelda, but it lacks the immediacy and recent exposure of Gears.
Well, they could make the controller really cheaply if the Wiimote slotted into it.
It would be no more complex than the Classic Controller, really (just bigger). The Wiimote would handle wireless transmission and tilt sensing, and the controller would just have to relay the info to the Wiimote in the same way as the classic controller.
Plus, there are plenty of casual gamers buying the Wii as a party console. Guitar Hero is a perfect fit.
The only commercial Zelda has, that I know of, is inside one of those "one size fits all" Wii commercials. Where the guys ask if they can play.
It's kinda like the first generation Cube commercials where they all took place inside a Cube. Games that come out after the first wave will start getting individual commercials..
Australia? Do you guys even have the 360?
i kid..
I never asked for this!
It was a joke you know. I was tempted to say xbox 1 instead cause well yeah..
I never asked for this!
Yeah but not like theres anything else to be number 1 or 2 besides the 360 or Wii.
I never asked for this!
for the Guitar Hero idea on the Wii...
maybe instead of Guitar Hero...
"Drum Hero"
Make a seperate remote attachment for the 2nd stick (or make a 2 remote setup or something), and it could work pretty nicely.
http://www.thetanooki.com/2007/02/08/breaking-guitar-hero-comes-to-the-wii/
But I don't see this anywhere else, and I don't know where to get a transcript, so I can't cross-reference it.
Like others ... I don't see Guitar Hero as a "natural" fit for the Wii, but that game deserves to have versions on the Wii, 360, PS2, PS3, NES, SNES, Genesis, TG-16, my cell phone, my toaster and my mother-in-law.
It's an hour long, so be ready to do some skipping around.
Edit: After skipping through the dry stock option stuff, I can't find anything that displays Activision as being negative on the THDJ sales. On a direct question regarding their Wii marketshare %(apparently 14%), the CEO talks about how pleased they were with their properties performance. Another question directly addressing THDJ performance in particular, they just kinda spout some market speak about "enhancing brand value."
I'm going to chalk this up: to some misplaced editorializing by Gamespot.
Also, analysts love them some downloadable content. I can't wait to be see how we'll be BOHICA'd in the upcoming year.
Also not bad considering that THDJ was a spin-off that doesn't observe any of the series norms and people looked at it as "not really a Tony Hawk game." Kinda like Crystal Chronicles was a spin off and people wonder why it didn't sell like FFX did.
EDIT: I guess an appropriate comparison would be if we could compare THP8 PS3 numbers with THDJ Wii numbers. If THP8 is "as well received" as THP8, then the Wii numbers should be roughly about double the PS3 numbers.
I pick those two consoles because they're in roughly similar situations (as-yet low market penetration due to them being in the very very very early stages of their respective product cycles -- let's not turn this into system wars).
Aren't games that are easy to get into the whole philosophy for the Wii? And really, when a game is that successful you'd be a fool not to release on it every platform and make even more money off it.
It's not so much that Guitar Hero couldn't be done, and done well, for the Wii. It's that Guitar Hero requires a special controller. That controller is pretty expensive.
Many people are already looking to migrate from the PS2 version to the 360 version, which means buying at least one new controller. Unless the Wii version has a bunch of songs that will never be available in a pack for PS2 or as downloadable content over XBL, Activision is really only looking at picking up potential rockers that don't own either PS2 game or those that haven't already moved to the 360 version.
As much as I love Guitar Hero, I don't need three guitars but still only be able to play the game in single player mode.
I think Guitar Hero for Wii would be nice. You could have wireless guitar controllers for a wired price.
Come on you pessimists! You could just plug the Wiimote in the guitar to allow the guitarplayer in the game follow YOUR MOVES!
I would consider rebuying it just for that even if the songs are the same as ps2/360 version.
In my mind it would have the best songs from GH1 and GH2 (so it doesn't fall into the same trap DDR Mario Mix did) but it would focus on guitar-heavy renditions of Nintendo songs. Songs like the Mario theme, Mario underworld theme, Zelda theme, Gerudo Desert, Pokémon Gym Battle, etc
And of course as special unlockables you can select certain Nintendo characters to play as
This'll probably never happen but I'd buy it
Wii: 5024 6786 2934 2806 | Steam/XBL: Arcibi | FFXI: Arcibi / Bahamut
cheaper, even, since the GH controller wouldn't need an accelerometer in it anymore to sense motion.
People just think it doesn't belong on the Wii because kidtendo doesn't deserve a game made for people over 10.
[spoiler:7d9e10aca5]That's sarcastic ... but has a grain of truth. They think the Nintendo audience is too young to recognize the older songs.[/spoiler:7d9e10aca5]