Hines: Someone will lose out in November

By Tom Bramwell Published 4 August, 2011

But the crush is "healthy for the industry".

Bethesda Softworks vice president Pete Hines reckons that the intense period of high-profile releases at the end of 2011 is good news for the games industry, but probably not good news for all the contenders.

Skyrim is due out on 11th November. Other potentially triple-A releases in the same period include Uncharted 3, Modern Warfare 3 and Assassin's Creed: Revelations - not to mention Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and Saints Row: The Third.

"It's probably healthy for the industry because the industry gets a lot of attention when there's all these things happening, just like the movie industry gets a lot of buzz when there's a bunch of really big things at the movies and everyone's talking about them all," Hines told Eurogamer at QuakeCon shortly after we went hands-on with Skyrim.

"It's probably not healthy for everyone who has one of those titles, because as you rightly pointed out usually someone gets the short end of the stick. Someone ends up falling short and not doing quite what they expected to do."

The last time we saw this sort of congestion around a particular date in Q4 was at the end of October 2008 when another Bethesda title, Fallout 3, arrived in close proximity to the likes of Dead Space and Fable II.

"This is also fairly unique - it's not like it happens every year, it's a bit cyclical," Hines noted. "And it's not even specific to when we're out in early November - starting in September all the way through to November, stepping out of my job and looking at the period of time as a gamer, it's amazing.

"How long do I have in order to play and finish this game before that one comes out?"

But while one or two titles will perhaps struggle to do the numbers, it's fair to say that Hines does not imagine that Bethesda's games will be the ones to suffer.

History is probably with him on this one. Fallout 3, for example, managed to shift more than 600,000 units in its first month on sale despite strong competition.

"We're feeling very good about both Rage and Skyrim and very good about our line-up for this holiday season," Hines added.

If an hour with Skyrim is anything to go by, we can see his point.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (39) Latest comment 10 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • LR100 #1 10 months ago

    I shall be getting all of them, with the exception of the Halo remake, it's win-win for me! We all know that MW3 will be number one of course.

  • Red930 #2 10 months ago

    "Skyrim is due out on 11th November. Other potentially triple-A releases in the same period include Uncharted 3, Modern Warfare 3 and Assassin's Creed: Revelations – not to mention Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and Saints Row: The Third."

    It does not matter. By the looks of your ads for the last 6 months we'll all be playing BF3 anyway.

  • Triggerhappytel #3 10 months ago

    I think Mr. Hines should heed his own advice and consider delaying RAGE until 2012. Sales-wise I think it'll get destroyed by the established sequels and bigger shooters due out like Gears, BF3, MW3, etc.

  • Mr_Brown #4 10 months ago

    Well Skyrim is a definite buy for me no matter what. I'll also definitely be getting Saints Row 3, Battlefield 3 and Halo Aniversary. Everything else I'll wait for it to go down in price or not bother with at all. To be honest its hard to see many of those not doing well, I think most gamers will pick most of them up anyway and that sales will just continue into early next year anyway.

    I think games like Dead Island, Body Count and Rage will struggle or be effected though. But its definitely good news for all companies that the Vita was delayed as most will more cash available.

  • Raiko101 #5 10 months ago

    I'm getting Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land, but i'm not too hyped about any of the mentioned games. That's just me though.

  • Tryhard #6 10 months ago

    BF3-Skyrim-Saints Row the Third will tickle enough gaming pleasure spots over this period.Everything else will have to be put on the game backburner till the next gaming dry period.

  • riseer #7 10 months ago

    Uncharted 3,Skyrim, BF3 for my Fps fix,god i am going to be broke...i want RAGE as well....

  • IMD1_Pk #8 10 months ago

    Fable 2 was the only serious competition for them in November considering Dead Space was a new unproven IP at that time.

  • Xardan #9 10 months ago

    Mass Effect 3 got delayed so did The Witcher 2 on 360. It doesnt seem all that busy this year to me. But maybe i have forgotten about some more big games due at the end of the year.

  • Stoatboy #10 10 months ago

    @LR100: re "it's win-win for me"

    No it's not.

    A "Win-win" requires more than one winner. You winning is just a win.

    There was a supermarket advert on the telly with some daft "woman-on-the-street" misusing this recently. I blame her. Or them rather, cause clearly she wasn't using her own words, heaven forbid.

  • Mr_Git #11 10 months ago

    Whilst the film release analogy would normally be quite apt, here it really isn't. It would be like 4-5 major releases going to cinemas in the same couple of weeks, which just doesn't happen. My wallet is seriously in need of expansion; not only November but the whole autumn/winter period is absolutely jam bloody packed with awesome games. I'm still catching up with this year's releases.

  • originaljohn #12 10 months ago

    He for got to mention the legend of zelda on wii

  • BloodSaint #13 10 months ago

    Meh, I've already preordered Skyrim, Battlefield, Deus Ex, Rage, Batman, Assassin's Creed and Need for Speed at Zavvi. If I can save enough money, I'll probably also buy Saints Row 3 Diablo 3 (If it makes it out in time), Dead Island and Fifa 12... Still my wallet is hurting a lot and I wish they would not release so many games at once >.

  • menage #14 10 months ago

    Skyrim, UC3 and AC for me.

    And Dark Souls of course.

    Screw the FPS's.
    Edited by menage at 05/08/11 @ 05:57

  • adz #15 10 months ago

    Why do we all buy so many games at once? What's the point? I mean, we can't play more than one or two at a time without the experience suffering anyway. And if we bought another after we finished what we were already on we'd probably find it cheaper too.

    I'm speaking as someone who's currently playing about 10 games, and is starting to rethink the whole situation.

  • Scimarad #16 10 months ago

    You are not wrong...

  • gjgjg #17 10 months ago

    @stoatboy maybe s/he means the royal me, or some kind of multipersonality disorder :/

    Anyway if I were releasing a game this winter I'd go for December. That way you userp the nov. bottleneck and the Xmas prezzy demand. Whomever is supposed to be getting these games as gifts for xmas surely doesn't want to get one that came out a month before anyway?

    Edited by gjgjg at 07/08/11 @ 23:41

  • RodHull #18 10 months ago

    I think I'll wait for the games to come down in price and instead get puma slipper woman for thirty dollar.

  • rockavitch #19 10 months ago

    "How long do I have in order to play and finish this game before that one comes out?"

    As long as you want. I'll play Uncharted 3 when I get around to it, the others mentioned I won't bother as I don't like the franchises personally. Anyway it's not a race, play them at own pace, longer you take the less the rest will cost.

    Besides I've still Uncharted 2, God Of War 3, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age 2, Fallout New Vegas to catch up on and even if I didn't I'd still be too busy with Dark Souls to even give any other games a consideration.

  • Inmediasress #20 10 months ago

    Well if they put out a demo for Skyrim and I can see it's worthwhile then I buy it otherwise I probably won't.
    I have been burned too much to preorder anything and most reviewers can go screw themselves they rarely do things unbiased.

    There is the third option of piracy and then deciding if it is worth it or not but that's looked down upon.
    Edited by Inmediasress at 05/08/11 @ 08:21

  • dingo75 #21 10 months ago

    The good thing is that you can pick up the losers for cheap after Christmas like every year. :)

  • joelstinton #22 10 months ago

    I got Uc3 and Batman AC pre-ordered. These two are the major want wants. But still considering dropping it down to one preorder. Combine this with christmas and its very much a ball ache. . Also, Metal Gear HD seems likely to come out around that date as well which will def pull at my impulse buy strings. (As well as all the other skyrim, ass creed, mw3 etc)

  • DwarfyP #23 10 months ago

    I shall be getting CoD MW3, Saints Row and Halo and maybe Uncharted 3 if I finish those other three in time.
    Edited by DwarfyP at 05/08/11 @ 08:38

  • gm914 #24 10 months ago

    @Stoatboy
    You are forgetting that Charlie Sheen is always winning, so everything nowadays is an automatic win.
    If you find 20 quid on the street, that is now considered a win/win, because Charlie is off somewhere being a winner and you have some extra cash.
    If your dog shits in your slippers, it's a win/lose.
    Charlie will still be banging some stripper (win), but you are propped up on the sink scraping faecal matter out of your toenails (lose)
    There is no more lose/lose.
    Unless Charlie's internet connection stops him from enjoying Ubisoft games.
    Then we all lose...

  • Yuroko #25 10 months ago

    I think I'll just buy Fifa 12 and MW3.

  • TheEarlOfZinger #26 10 months ago

    Charlie Sheen is a drug addicted woman beater.

    'winning'

  • Murton #27 10 months ago

    When I saw the headline I thought they were going to be giving an early admission of post release support being platform exclusive again.

    Hines is right though, with so many great games out in one month someone is going to lose out, and based onBethesda's previous form for things like build quality and post release support (traditionally Bethesda have skipped the PS3 on both DLC and patches) Skyrim might just be the title that doesn't make the cut for me and either gets picked up in the new year or requested as a Christmas present.

  • TheEarlOfZinger #28 10 months ago

    There's so much coming out, that I think me and a friend will buy the key titles and swap them once finished.

    Or get a money tree. Not sure yet.

  • SleepyDeathFred #29 10 months ago

    BF3, MW3 and Batman probably instabuys. Definitely going to wait for GOTY editions of things like Skyrim and Assassin's Creed though - I'm never going to buy the DLC if I paid full price for the game originally.

  • Jolly_Armadillo #30 10 months ago

    Just uncharted 3 for me, maybe saints row but I don't know anything about it so will have to research and then maybe I will want it. Until then uncharted is good enough for me

  • Alestes #31 10 months ago

    Skyrim is pretty much the only game this fall I'm really interested in.

    There are some other games I have a minor interest in too, like Batman, El Shaddai and Uncharted 3, but they can wait until next summer vacation (not to mention that they should be cheaper by then too).

  • carlitoswagon #32 10 months ago

    He's right. Would love the time to play most of these titles. As an unashamed fps fan bf3 is the only one that'll be a day 1 purchase. For the mp of course.

  • M0nkeyMunch #33 10 months ago

    I still don't get why apart from these guys and their uber games, other devs are thinking that Q4 is the 'right time' to release games!! I mean look at it at the moment little or no games to buy. Yes it's summer and people should be out and about but it's also the summer hols kids are off and there are little or no really great new games to buy!! Red Faction Gurilla (sp:p) sold really well in the summer when it came out it was a great little game but if instead it was released in Q4 it would have got swallowed up by the gaming giants. Yes people spend more money at Christmas but still on only a few games. Money is tight this year for everyone and it seems stupid for all devs to be putting all their eggs in one basket when they could be making a killing this time of year!!

  • Paulie_P #34 10 months ago

    @adz I had the same problem, I tried writing a program to give me a timetable of what to play each week randomly but the games kept piling up and I started to resent some of them. I've had to cut my losses with some of the games like Fallout NV, Deadly Premonition and forget about Trophy/Achievement hunting and Online play.

    It couldn't continue, I bought Infamous 2 recently and decided enough was enough so I played that through to the end which I got to pretty quick. Then I gone back to Persona 3 to finish that (got onto the last boss and got killed on the 11th Arcana - what a pain in the arse!). I'm not going to buy a game anymore until i've finished the current one (might have one home console, one portable game at a time). Besides theres a baby on the way so I need to stop buying so many games anyway!

    Its going to be tough.

  • 32768Colours #35 10 months ago

    There's no way I can afford to buy all the Autumn-release games in one go now that we have a toddler, so I'm probably going to plump for Skyrim because its definitely the game I want the most. I suppose the good news is that I'll probably get another one or two at Christmas and after that the ones I didn't pick up will probably have dropped in price a fair bit.

  • Madder-Max #36 10 months ago

    "Fallout 3, arrived in close proximity to the likes of Dead Space and Fable II."

    All of which did well.....i dont see the point of this article. all these games will come out at roughly the same time and will all do consistently well over time as before. no one will fall by the wayside

  • silversun #37 10 months ago

    I am amazed july and august had so few high profile games , if you want try get some attention for your game then atm seemed like right time.
    Next few months will be tight , hoping deus ex does really well this month and also xenoblade out.
    For me they 2 big games this month, plus there some lesser know ones coming out atm as well.

  • Hindle #38 10 months ago

    Post deleted at 23:04:43 04-04-2012

  • P1GEONPOO #39 10 months ago

    @Madder-Max
    Gears 2 and Far Cry 2 also released the same time as Fallout 3 if I remember right.