AranhaHunter
Banned
That's not their worst, they have used chartzzzzzzzzzzzzzz before. I'm 99.9% sure of it.
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Square Enix ships Tomb Raider 3.4M, Sleeping Dogs 1.75M, Hitman 3.6M
- Thread starter Pooya
- Start date
That's not their worst, they have used chartzzzzzzzzzzzzzz before. I'm 99.9% sure of it.
Takamura-San
Member
At the end of the day I would be willing to bet that TR(2013) will be the best selling TR game ever. Yet it didn't meet expectations.
I really doubt that the OG TR formula would be able to pull these numbers.
I really doubt that the OG TR formula would be able to pull these numbers.
dreamcastmaster
Banned
Sleeping Dogs did well for an unknown new IP, what they need to do it build on that good will and make the sequel.
we know Sleeping Dogs shipped 1.51m unit until end of last quarter, Dec 2012. so for it now to be 1.75m, seems doable to me. that's why I think these are not targets.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=498669
this is what SE expected to ship this year, I think it's clear how these games underperformed, 7m unit in US, 7m in EU!. this includes everything and anything including catalog sales for the entire year but still you can tell they had much bigger expectations for these 3 games which was the only thing they had in NA/EU pretty much for the entire year, things like KH3D were lass than a million.
http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/13q2slides.pdf
they expected ~14.9m, likely ending up with less than 10m now.
That's putting it lightly. They have strong IP but Japan alone isn't going to pay the costs associated with AAA development. Especially when your development drags on for so long.
SD outperformed their initial estimates didn't it? These were updated estimates.
Wow, it's sad when sales of 3m+ are considered weak, albeit with publishers having to pay retailers more money under the price protection regulation.
All the more reason for publishers to encourage Digital distribution where giving a discount of say $10 does not entail the publisher having to shell out that same amount to compensate the middleman.
All the more reason for publishers to encourage Digital distribution where giving a discount of say $10 does not entail the publisher having to shell out that same amount to compensate the middleman.
Nah. The original trilogy were huge sellers. 7 million, 8 million, and 6.5 million respectively. I doubt TR 2013 will top Tomb Raider 2. I could see it eventually being the highest selling Tomb Raider game in the past 10 years though.
grimshawish
Banned
Do we know if any of them went 3m+ though; all am seeing is 'below target'.
eot
Banned
The $60 retail market just seems broken. It's not where the growth is happening, studios and publishers that haven't gotten killed in the market are getting out of it an an accelerating pace and next gen costs will only go up. It just seems unsustainable. Even if say Tomb Raider sells enough to break even that's not a good result, companies want to make money, not just stay afloat. Next gen consoles better sell like fucking crazy or this will only get worse.
Tricky I Shadow
Banned
Seriously.
spandexmonkey
Banned
All of those had to of sold at least another 400,000-500,000 on PC. Hitman and Tomb Raider were both atop the Steam bestseller lists for a while, as preorders and after release. Sleeping Dogs got good word of mouth and has popped in and out of the charts since it was released.
I realize that SE has retail sales expectations, but if your game sells 4 million on all platforms combined in its first month and you can't call it a success...
I realize that SE has retail sales expectations, but if your game sells 4 million on all platforms combined in its first month and you can't call it a success...
Will that result in more sales in the AAA space, though? I'm not convinced it will.
alexandros
Banned
One would hope, alas I'm afraid the response will be "marketing budget was not high enough, spend spend spend".
Publishers should realize that there's much more to gaming than the triple-A space.
Clearly all the Eidos games are selling just fine, but whatever little money they make is automatically flushed down the toilet made from FFXIV+Versus, making it impossible for their console segment to post a profit.
*puts tinfoil hat away*
It would certainly help reduce or trim down the budgets, making the "AAA space" a sustainable endeavor.
spandexmonkey
Banned
I think early on we'll see that, but with budgets getting higher and higher, things will just get more volatile. Eventually they'll have to tone it down, not because sales trends say so, but simply to survive.
All of those had to of sold at least another 400,000-500,000 on PC. Hitman and Tomb Raider were both atop the Steam bestseller lists for a while, as preorders and after release. Sleeping Dogs got good word of mouth and has popped in and out of the charts since it was released.
I realize that SE has retail sales expectations, but if your game sells 4 million on all platforms combined in its first month and you can't call it a success...
Has it ever been said what it takes to top those charts?
I agree the $60 game market is broken. I also don't think new consoles are going to fix it either. In fact I see things just getting worse as some publishers will use that as an excuse to put out $70 games. I think EA has already talked about a possible price increase on their games. That on top of the DLC they are trying to sell people.
darkstar0155
Member
If your game now costs half what it did, and you sell 3/4 what you would have with AAA, your doing better financially though.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
Prime 4 is our last hope!
I think the Chinese setting might have turned people off, though.
Exactly. Are growth and more sales really that important to publishers that they continue to neglect this observation? Or are there any other less unreasonable motivations for them choosing to ramp up the budgets?
spandexmonkey
Banned
At least eastern publishers still support female leads.
If publishers lower the budgets and have realistic expectations sales-wise sure it can result in more successful projects and a more healthy industry.
As Lime already said you can have beautiful graphics without having to spent a fortune, thing is these days graphics in the AAA games are not a problem but the dumbed down mechanics and games trying to ape 2-3 successful franchises resulting in similar design in a lot of games of even different genres.
Nah, but if you're implying that it doesn't take much, I agree. Probably only between 50,000 to 100,000 if it's not releasing up against anything big. Still, that gives both of them a few weeks at the low end of that scale as preorders then a week at the high end after it releases. Tomb Raider and Hitman both came in at number 1, I'm pretty sure. Tomb Raider is still on the charts 3 weeks later, albeit at number 10.
Steam is the biggest DD, but factor in Amazon, GMG, Origin, and the rest and I don't think an extra 400,000-500,000 digital copies is that much of a stretch.
Interesting to see that for all 3 games the PS3 version is rated the highest on metacritic, despite the PC versions clearly being the best for all three.
No, and it's all relative. But leaving out digital sales makes these types of sales numbers hard to interpret.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
I am so sorry for the dumb question but I am still confused. The pic in the OP is what their forecast for those games was right not actual sale numbers?
darkstar0155
Member
i think a lot of it is having too many suits and ties at the top that are chasing the big bucks to please their shareholders instantly (this is in a lot of industries, not just gaming), instead of creating a stable buisness enviornment that, while wont land you GTA/Mario Kart/COD sales, will keep your industry healthy and viable.
Not saying that games that chase that arent needed.. you never know what the next hit will be, but you dont have to keep chasing it with almost every game you release.
Why are we focusing on the month time frame? If these are shipments, the reality is that the vast majority of an AAA game's shipments are on day 1, forget month 1. With exceptions (of course), the first reporting period's shipments are like 85% of what a game will eventually ship.
Do I dare dream?
Given the prominence of the brand in SE's eyes, when they acquired Eidos, i doubt they would've let it become some really niche puzzle exploration product.
They could've cut down on some of the Uncharted-ness, but a certain level of polish, performance and motion capture (cinematics) would have gone into it no matter what.
I don't know how much the game cost them, but assuming they wanted to keep the brand's prevalence in the market (or you could say, restore it) i don't think they could've skimmed on the price that much.
Surely we're not talking about a 100$ millions production GTA style.
Needless to say i would've liked that a million times more, but it's not my money so whatever, i won't ask them to gamble with theirs.
digoutyoursoul
Member
Tomb Raider is a great game imo, would be pretty gutted if there isn't a next gen sequel
This is correct. I was confusing shipped numbers with actual sales numbers.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
Most of these games were in development forever and probably had huge budgets though.
shinobi602
Member
Wow, 3 and a half million TR copies sold and you're still missing your targets? Get your goddamn targets in check Square Enix, no wonder you're doing so shitty.
i'll bite >.>
could you elaborate on "shit"? because, i think , in comparison to the other games of the same year , it was quite pretty... o.o
3.4M is the target.
dreamcastmaster
Banned
But without that it had no hook and would be a GTA clone. It would have probably sold less.
@Urbanrats: I think we agree on things, we're just approaching the topic of budget allocation from different angles.
The IP is too big to leave and die. My prediction: Crystal Dynamics will be allowed to make one more attempt with this new Tomb Raider universe. Then the sequel will underperform unless any significant changes are made to the gameplay formula (aping Uncharted only gets you so far).
Then the series will either get rebooted again or SE will leave the series to rot.
The IP is too big to leave and die. My prediction: Crystal Dynamics will be allowed to make one more attempt with this new Tomb Raider universe. Then the sequel will underperform unless any significant changes are made to the gameplay formula (aping Uncharted only gets you so far).
Then the series will either get rebooted again or SE will leave the series to rot.
Unspeakable Evil
Member
Do we know how much they have shipped or sold so far?
Those might be the actual shipments. It's hard to tell.
We'll know in late April/early May for sure.
It's criminal that Sleepydogs sold less than Tomb Raider and Hitman. Absolutely criminal.
Oh wait, figures don't include downloads. They were practically giving the best version away merely two months after release, so I imagine that's a large chunk missing from the actual numbers.
Oh wait, figures don't include downloads. They were practically giving the best version away merely two months after release, so I imagine that's a large chunk missing from the actual numbers.
Visualante2
Member
There will be because the risk of letting Crystal Dynamics do anything other than Tomb Raider is not something they can afford.