March 29th A day of Record For GTA IV

[Armadillo-002]

March the 29th will go down as a day where GTA IV became another record breaker for being the fastest game being sold. I ain't a big fan of this genere, If I want to play a sim type of game then there's The sims, want to blow things up then an FPS.

Your thoughts on this game please.

PS Sorry if I come across as to strong in my opinion.

 

[Commonmind]

Your opinion is welcome here, no matter how strong; this isn't Gamefaqs

Me, I love the GTA games because I play them without trying to blow stuff up. In GTAIV I follow the rules of the road -- stopping at every red light and trying to obey traffic laws -- and I try and save people when I can. In general I like to play a decent guy who just happens to be caught up with the wrong crowd. It makes for very entertaining playing experiences and that's sort of the beauty of GTA.

 

[HoopyFrood]

Whereas I am completely opposite -- I speed as much as possible, blow up anything in my path and kill and rob mercilessly and end up with the entire police force on my tail. Good fun.

 

[Lenny]

Much easier to lose them in GTA4, which saddened me a little... but then I pulled out Niko's mobile, dialed 911, and called for the cops. A few knifing incidents later and the chase was bakc on.

---

As for April 29th being a record day - so far it has been in the UK:

- 609,000 sales in 24 hours (beat San Andreas' record of 501,000 from 2004) That splits into 335,000 360 sales (beating Halo 3, which got 266,000 sales) and 274,000 PS3 sales (which beat GT5: Prologue's record of 80,000).

I thinm Rockstar can easily reach their predicted 6 million sales in the first week. I'm interested to see what it grosses - the game reportedly cost $100 million to develop, and with EA still looming, Take Two need Rockstars masterpiece to rake the money in big-styley.

 

[Commonmind]

What's even more amazing is that these are sales numbers for systems which are relatively new, whereas SA had launched on the PS2 quite some time after it had weaseled its way into everyones' home.

 

[Cayal]

But, San Andreas was (initially) released solely for the PS2. This is for both consoles. I think that evens it out a little bit.

 

[chopper]

from the other side of the counter: the 360 version has been running away with it so far, although since our scaleout of the PS3 format was half that of the 360 we sold out of the PS3 first. IMO neither format did as well for us as we'd actually hoped - not like Wii Fit, which, despite being £70, shifted like the proverbial off a shovel.
now we stand by for the agonised weeks of "Sorry, GTA's out of stock" while the buggers let demand build up again. at least nintendo have got their act sorted (this time!) and wii fit'll be back in tomorrow (glad i'm off!)

 

[Rane Longfox]

I've been promised that this will be back in stock at the Blockbusters at the end of the road tomorrow. Weeee

 

[Lenny]

from the other side of the counter: the 360 version has been running away with it so far, although since our scaleout of the PS3 format was half that of the 360 we sold out of the PS3 first. IMO neither format did as well for us as we'd actually hoped - not like Wii Fit, which, despite being £70, shifted like the proverbial off a shovel.
now we stand by for the agonised weeks of "Sorry, GTA's out of stock" while the buggers let demand build up again. at least nintendo have got their act sorted (this time!) and wii fit'll be back in tomorrow (glad i'm off!)

Even though I'm of these types who will tout the PS3 at every oppurtunity (oh, the oppurtunities I got when my friends came into school and said that GTA4 had red ringed their 360s! ) I have to say I'm quite surprised that every sold out of the PS3 version first. I know people with PS3s who've bought the 360 version just to tide themselves over until the local shops get more stock.

Saying that, though, it does make sense. Ask any casual gamer which platform Grand Theft Auto is on, and they'll say PlayStation - GTA3, Vice City, San Andreas, all PS2 games. Couple that with the fact that Sony have actually got a PS3 + GTA4 bundle in stores for the same price as a 40gb PS3 (£300), and you've got a number of people who will see this as the chance to upgrade to a next-gen console.

I'd be interested to know the figures (whether rough or accurate) for people who have come into the shop and bought the PS3 + GTA4 bundle, rather than the game on its own, or the game and a 360 at the same time.

Also, mind if I ask where you work, Chopper?

 

[chopper]

well, now we've sold out of the ps3 game solus, the bundle is picking up rather nicely too, lenny. (game+360) however doesn't seem to have happened - the 360 is pretty well saturated now, and since blu-ray won the format war the 360 has fallen from favour somewhat.

i work for Meadowhall's branch of the old Dog & Dansette, btw - wonderfully busy, but we do have 2x Game stores above us (and Zavvi, though they'll be lucky to be in business by christmas) so we still aren't first port of call for the hardcore gamers, but we've got a good rep as a nintendo store.

 

[Commonmind]

But, San Andreas was (initially) released solely for the PS2. This is for both consoles. I think that evens it out a little bit.

That would be a good point...except that there were more PS2's at the time than the combined number of PS3's and 360's presently on the market.

 

[Lenny]

Now this is impressive.

One week on, two systems, and guess how many trained kil...sales there have been!!

6 million!! In a week! GTA4 now holds the record for being the biggest entertainment launch evah! It's generated an estimated retail value of $500 million, beating Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, which generated $404 million at the box office in 2007, and surpassing Halo 3 and Harry Potter.

GTA IV becomes biggest selling entertainment launch ever :: PlayStation Universe (PSU)

I wonder how EA's bid for TakeTwo is going?

 

[Commonmind]

And, not only that, but I get to put one of those nifty small-sized boxes on my shelf again! Thank you, PS3, for being fit and trim!

 

[Armadillo-002]

first off thanks lenny for correcting me on 'march 29th' to 'April 29th', how . Well that is impressive to say, sales grossing over 6 million, and counting. The XBOX 360 console has been revived because of this game, and apparently is out doing the PS3 sales because of downloadable content that is going put on to the server in the future.

 

[Connavar]

Wow thats impressive numbers even for a big game series like GTA and with two consoles.

Its funny that something people still see only as a medium for nerds made better launch than the best of hollywood and even Harry Potter.


I think the strenght of GTA is why i dig GTA3 and will get this. The world,the backround,the epic feel is awesome. Thats something everyone can like unlike one dimensional fps like Halo.

 

[Armadillo-002]

Halo defined the fps on the console, even though the fps is saturated on the PC, so does rpgs have a 'living, breathing world' only the problem is to much cut-scenes and dialogue. The fps is having something of a over-haul just look at the system spec for it in the future e.g. crysis, by using the 64-bit cpu it looks like it wants to take the fps to another dimension.

 

[Connavar]

Exactly if Halo was realesed only in PC and never in console then it wouldnt even sell one million and not be even in the top 20 most famous fps games in PC gaming....

 

[Lenny]

first off thanks lenny for correcting me on 'march 29th' to 'April 29th', how . Well that is impressive to say, sales grossing over 6 million, and counting. The XBOX 360 console has been revived because of this game, and apparently is out doing the PS3 sales because of downloadable content that is going put on to the server in the future.

Welllllll... it depends on how you look at it. Yes, the 360 has sold more copied, but the attachment rate is much lower - on average, 1 in 3 PS3 owners have bought GTA4, whilst that number is nearing 1 in 5 for 360 owners.

Most places seemed to sell out of the PS3 version much earlier than the 360 version, too.

 

[Cayal]

PS3 will be getting DLC. Everyone knows it. Rockstar have pretty much said it as well.

Microsoft just did what they always do, throw money and hope it will work.

 

[Armadillo-002]

True, about Microsoft throwing money around as if it's just small change, but you got to admit even though the orginal XBOX did much better than XBOX 360, Microsoft has learnt some lesson, like getting new developers to develop for the XBOX 360 and aim to a much wider audience, and remember Sony is the creator of the laser device, has a hollywood and hardware (tv etc) division. But does not have much knowledge on multiplayer games. The PS3 will always do well because of the backing of the Japanese and other developers, also because of the style it has (asthetic reason) which it attracts the general public to, while the XBOX 360 has a PC orientation, and is done by Microsoft.