GTA IV is a huge success story that has become should now be clear. Still, the name Grand Theft Auto no guarantees that a project will be successful, so psimonk.
Fifty million dollar. This hefty amount paid Microsoft to Take-Two Interactive for GTA IV at the same time with the PS3-release on the Xbox 360 to be allowed to bring and for the exclusive rights to the downloadable content for GTA IV.
It was big news, with a lot of spectacle. Who doesn’t remember the images of former Xbox 360’head honcho Peter Moore with a GTA tattoo on his arm during the E3 conference of 2006? But three years later, now the dlc for GTA IV will finally be available, the question is whether all the fuss is as has been.
Let about a thing no doubt; GTA IV is a screaming success. There are already thirteen million copies of the consoleversies of the game over the counter gone. But about the number of paid downloads of GTA IV for the Xbox 360, it remains remarkably quiet. While we are almost a weekly basis to be informed about the huge number of players that the mappacks Call of Duty download, or about the phenomenal amount of songs for Guitar Hero and Rock Band is binnengehengeld, keep Take-Two and Microsoft the jaws firmly together. And that is at least striking. Microsoft is never afraid to success stories from the rooftops, to shout, but now wraps, the company is in silence.
There is only one logical explanation to bear in mind: the number of downloads of The Lost & Damned is disappointing. Analysts estimates number around one million, but of hard numbers lacking any trace. Why still such a relatively low number? The Xbox 360 version of GTA IV were more than seven million units sold and the PS3 version was good for about six million copies. You would expect that at least a third, if not half of the group of Xbox 360 gamers that the original has played the dlc of GTA IV will have. Were gamers not to wait on an adventure with bikers in leather pants? Are the people ready with Grand Theft Auto? Or keep gamers in this time of crisis, the hand on the purse strings, and they would prefer their money to a different, completely new game?
Anyway, the estimated number of a million downloads seems nice, but for a title from this franchise is actually too little. Too far to GTA IV: The Lost & Damned is a flop, but there should be feared for the popularity of the second exclusive downloadable episode, yet this year or early next year, the light should see.
Certainly flopped, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Rockstar’s DS title was overloaded with high numbers, but which were not followed by matching results. In the first month after the release, sold the game with difficulty around the one hundred thousand copies. Now it is some what spread, but many American retailers have the game already on sale. And that is for a Rockstar game unprecedented.
For a GTA game on a platform with more than 102 million users, these numbers are alarmingly low. Of course, there are among these 102 million DS players, a lot of mothers who are Sudoku games, and more girls who are having fun with Nintendogs. But still: only 0.1 percent of all DS owners who are in the first month of release, a such triple-A-title buy? That is far below expectation.
Now, the target audience for DS-gaming in the recent time grown explosively and it especially widened. Wrong game for the platform? Not entirely, because there’s also talk of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, illegally downloaded versions of Chinatown Wars. The download of DS games is, unfortunately for the industry, absurdly easy. And the audience is that GTA for the DS would acquire is the potential to understand the group that the game, without the conscience download. There’s only one little rascal on the playground or in the cafeteria to report that he has the game on his R4 card, and the rest of the herd follows.
Is the GTA franchise, now in danger? That will be easy, but a new GTA part for a handheld, Nintendo is sitting there in the coming years. And that second episode for GTA IV for the Xbox 360? That is just there, only will be in Redmond the commercial expectations this has now been properly adjusted.