No new games til after Xmas?

corblimey

I was looking at the gamefaqs and eurogamer release lists earlier and noticed that there's no major releases now til the new year on the major consoles? Isn't it odd that we're still 2 weeks away, but the releases are basically finished for the year? Anything I'm missing that's not listed (or not not listed, I guess)?

hooradiation

corblimey wrote: »

I was looking at the gamefaqs and eurogamer release lists earlier and noticed that there's no major releases now til the new year on the major consoles? Isn't it odd that we're still 2 weeks away, but the releases are basically finished for the year? Anything I'm missing that's not listed (or not not listed, I guess)?

It's not odd.

Most people have done their shopping for Christmas at this point, so there's no point releasing a big game now as you've pretty much missed the boat in terms of getting a slice of the Christmas sales pie.

Best off holding it back until sometime in the new year then, when the market will be less crowded and people will be buying again.

Sabre0001

And all for the Christmas rush, you want to make sure that if shops are selling out, they can still re-stock before Christmas.

Atavan-Halen

Mmhmm, also more chance of people buying it because of people with money recieved at Christmas.

dreamers75

Dec 7th is the last time i rememeber a top top game being released think it was jet force gemini or something by Rare.

Has to be in the shops for november seems to be the publishers plan, then the late releases in jan and feb.

and then the 3 months of fookin nothing

rizzla

Yeah November is the main month for big releases, mainly targeting the North American audience for thanksgiving.

hooradiation

rizzla wrote: »

Yeah November is the main month for big releases, mainly targeting the North American audience for thanksgiving.

Black Friday in the states is a pretty big deal, if you want your triple A title to make obscene amounts of money, it's gotta be out by then.

Mr. K

And most are afraid of competing with Modern Warfare 2, so many of the big titles are being released early next year. Examples include Mass Effect 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction.

L31mr0d

Mr. K wrote: »

And most are afraid of competing with Modern Warfare 2, so many of the big titles are being released early next year. Examples include Mass Effect 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction.

Did they officially site this as a reason for pushing back the release or are you just guessing?

tman

Suits me... I'm still catching up on games from last year, never mind the recent releases! (still have to get MW2, AC2, Uncharted 2 and Brutal Legend among others...)

Burning Eclipse

L31mr0d wrote: »

Did they officially site this as a reason for pushing back the release or are you just guessing?

Don't be so facetious... Do you honestly think that competing developers are going to release 'official' statements saying they didn't want to go up against MW2 in the Christmas market... ?

It makes sense, and you don't need a degree in marketing to see it.

indough

i think you might be making a bit too great an assumption there to be honest

Burning Eclipse

I'm not saying it's the sole reason. In the case of Splinter Cell, I think e3 went much better than they were anticipating and they realised they needed to improve their product. But competing with Modern Warfare was a major consideration for all games published in the last 2 months of this year, or the decision whethere to go to market or not!

Granted, this is also published by Activision, but here's an example
http://monstervine.com/2009/07/singularity-pushed-back-due-to-modern-warfare-2/

hooradiation

That doesn't really make much sense, if you think it through.

Lets assume, for a second, that you're correct. This would mean that several companies are now releasing their triple A titles in one of the least profitable times of the year because they are worried that they wouldn't make as much money if they went up against MW2.

So, we have publishers actively choosing to delay big games so they can fight with other delayed games over a much smaller pie post Christmas, rather than settle for coming in 2nd or 3rd at Christmas behind MW2 and making a ****tonne more money in the process.

I'm not convinced.

I'd imagine there is a simpler reason why ME2 and Splinter Cell: Hobo edition are coming out in the new year - they just weren't ready in time for this Christmas.

rizzla

Well there were alot of rumours about games being delayed because of MW2's release. It spawned this vid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW_Niblip2g

noodler

It makes absolutely perfect sense.

The last one was the biggest seller of this gen, the next one was hyped for over a year and has turned out to be the one of the biggest sellers of all time.

hooradiation

noodler wrote: »

It makes absolutely perfect sense.

The last one was the biggest seller of this gen, the next one was hyped for over a year and has turned out to be the one of the biggest sellers of all time.

You still make more money being #10 at Christmas than being #1 at almost any other point of the year, generally speaking.

I can understand activision adjusting their own release schedule so as to make MW2 their flagship title for Christmas, but that very other publisher held back and let them have it, and opting to fight over the smaller scraps in the new year?

Nah.....

seraphimvc

http://www.ranker.com/list/games-afraid-to-compete-with-the-modern-warfare-release/pt_tesla

i am not too surprised my google showed up that:D

when you are releasing a new product you want the launch sales as big as possible - at least not clash with the biggest title (especially on the same platform and your new game is in same genre as MW2 ).launch sales highly affects the long term sales(unless you are Mario or Pokemon) - the hype of consumers/gamers is no joke.

the xmas cake maybe big,but still,i wont risk it if i am gonna releasing my big title like Bioshock2 (same genre FPS),i am gonna want the optimal launch sales too as big as possible.obviously, if i can release earlier in november for the thanksgiving and join xmas war that would be perfect:P big titles especially in same genre/platform rarely come out at the same time is a general rule.

Overheal

Compteting Platform, Competing Genre, etc. - Modern Warfare 2 (Sorry, MW2 is already taken) didnt stop Valve from Releasing L4D2 at a commercial success, 5 days later. Splinter Cell and Mass Effect are just a completely different type of game to Warfare.

I just dont see the justification to say 'All t3h n00b devs were pwnt by Warfares 1337 grafix and ran away'. Dont get me wrong, it wouldnt be the best month to release a new Battlefield game, but I think you're stretching to say release dates were being pushed back because of one title.

edit: and to say that Starcraft is afraid to compete with Modern Warfare is just laughable.

edit edit: and what do I have to pay $50-$70 for when theres already a war going on in TF2?

seraphimvc

lol i just give the page a glance ,didnt see SC2 is among the list.thats just silly.blizzard will take ages to fix the bugs before its release and thats gonna take ages,nothing to do with modern warfare2(damn mechwarrior:D) at all.

is just a general rule in gaming industry i guess,judging from the gaming release history - but doesnt 100% mean some games will need to be delayed because of another big titles.and the reasons are obvious and valid(as i said above).

i think L4D2 is not really a big budget title right?plus Valve is always pc-platform orietated :Pmaybe they just dont care,or they think it wont be matter much,who knows?

Leprachaun

I doubt Mass Effect 2 was pushed to 2010 because of Modern Warfare 2. That game (ME2) has a massive following and most people who were going to buy it would buy it regardless.

Overheal

seraphimvc wrote: »

i think L4D2 is not really a big budget title right?plus Valve is always pc-platform orietated :Pmaybe they just dont care,or they think it wont be matter much,who knows?

It was probably in the millions alright.

Valve's MO is not World Domination like most other companies. I think their just happy to have their slice of life and make the games they wanna play.

leninbenjamin

Overheal wrote: »

Compteting Platform, Competing Genre, etc. - Modern Warfare 2 (Sorry, MW2 is already taken) didnt stop Valve from Releasing L4D2 at a commercial success, 5 days later. Splinter Cell and Mass Effect are just a completely different type of game to Warfare.

L4D2 was the DLC for L4D that Valve employee's went a bit nuts with so it's not fully comparable in some respects. It wasn't the big budget long dev cycle major release that MW2/ME2 are.

The Modern Warfare 2 question is interesting though. I think there's some credibility to the rumours, although I actually think it's as equally likely a case of collusion among the publishers.

What I've noticed recently is that the shelf life of games is falling rapidly year on year. When I was buying N64 and PC titles back in the 90s, it seemed you had to wait around two years before you started to see titles being discounted. Nowadays I'm seeing games that aren't even out 2 months being heavily discounted by retailers (two of the best games of this year: Borderlands, €20 everywhere now; DA:O is falling everywhere too, saw it for €25 today). It seems that the profitability of a game is being determined by it's immediate post release sales and there is a big big push by publishers to carve out a space for themselves in the release calender, and that this is becoming as significant as the season in which the game is released.

Overheal

leninbenjamin wrote: »

L4D2 was the DLC for L4D that Valve employee's went a bit nuts with so it's not fully comparable in some respects. It wasn't the big budget long dev cycle major release that MW2/ME2 are.

The Modern Warfare 2 question is interesting though. I think there's some credibility to the rumours, although I actually think it's as equally likely a case of collusion among the publishers.

What I've noticed recently is that the shelf life of games is falling rapidly year on year. When I was buying N64 and PC titles back in the 90s, it seemed you had to wait around two years before you started to see titles being discounted. Nowadays I'm seeing games that aren't even out 2 months being heavily discounted by retailers (two of the best games of this year: Borderlands, €20 everywhere now; DA:O is falling everywhere too, saw it for €25 today). It seems that the profitability of a game is being determined by it's immediate post release sales and there is a big big push by publishers to carve out a space for themselves in the release calender, and that this is becoming as significant as the season in which the game is released.

Well see back before the Playstation 2 the industry used the long term model. Games like Mario 64 could be got at a reasonable price - I believe it was $30/40? I mowed lawns for that. It was a great title. And it never really jumped up or down. But since the new consoles came out alongside the market for the old consoles, Retailers have taken the excuse to jack up the price of new titles. It began after the 360 launch to really take shape. You would see a new PS2 game for 50 quid and a new 360 title for 60. The prices have been slowly creeping up. And in a new generation you can expect that to go up to 70. and 80. Up from the 2-quarter scandal way back in the arcades of old.