GTA DLC "would have outsold Killzone"
Greenberg oils up for another round.
Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg has said that Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned is "the most successful game add-on content we've ever launched" on Xbox Live.
The exclusive GTAIV expansion, which reviewed well despite a relatively high price point (1600 MSP), "would have outsold Killzone 2" in February if it had been at retail, Greenberg added in an interview with Gamasutra.
Rockstar Games has not released any specific sales figures or projections for Lost and Damned to date, but Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter recently said it was likely to sell 2 million copies by the end of 2009. And Microsoft paid up front for its exclusivity, remember.
Although Lost and Damned is Microsoft's biggest single success in terms of unit downloads, the DLC revolution marches on. Rock Band recently passed 30 million songs downloaded, and on a purely anecdotal level the interest from Eurogamer readers in add-ons like Fallout 3 Operation: Anchorage and the Tomb Raider episodes, based on page stats, has been more considerable than many full-price releases reviewed within a similar period around release.
Elsewhere in his discussion with Gamasutra, Greenberg also puffed out his chest about Xbox 360's February NPD sales figures for the US, which point to a year-on-year increase of over 50 per cent in hardware sales, and once again said that the PS3 business was "declining, it's been described to me as hemorrhaging at retail right now, and it just keeps getting worse".
"What we're finding in our research is that a large portion of the volume we're driving with Xbox 360 purchasers is actually PS2 owners choosing Xbox for the next generation. We're switching people from the PlayStation brand over to the Xbox brand," he claimed.
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Comments (56) Latest comment 3 years ago
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Mind you if I stole the biggest exclusive (even though it was only timed in the end, people still couldn't wait!) Sony had last gen I'd crow about it to
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So even if they shift 2M copies they still wont have recouped what they paid for exclusivity ? (Let alone dev costs!)
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I'm sure Sony didn't think so
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Then Sony could blame poor sales on the rain! \o/
/ gets coat, goes to work
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LOL!!!
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http://uk.xbox live.ign.com/points.html
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£13.60
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So even if they shift 2M copies they still wont have recouped what they paid for exclusivity ? (Let alone dev costs!) "
$50M was for several DLCs. It also was a down payment to R* so R* was sure of profit and risk free (hence the high quality of the DLC IMHO, they took their time). If the DLC sells 2M and the next one as well it will mean quite a good profit for MS *and* probably a lot of happy GTA owners/players. Dev costs have nothing to do with this, that is R* concern (and I am sure with $50M they are very happy).
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It's not a timed exclusive, it's completely exclusive for Xbox 360.
"Didnt they pay $50M for it.
So even if they shift 2M copies they still wont have recouped what they paid for exclusivity ? (Let alone dev costs!)"
They paid $50m for two episodes of content, the next due out around autumn time, and I'd say the $50m was more than well spent. What dev costs are there? It's not made by Microsoft, it's made by Rockstar, their dev costs will come out of the $50m they were paid to make it.
Some people really need to use their heads and think for a second, it's not all about unit sales, even forgetting the 2m copies of TLAD they will sell and the lets just say another 2m copies of the next DLC, there's then the 2m copies of GTA IV that those DLC buyers guaranteed MS over Sony, there's the console sales that MS then received due to people wanting to get GTA IV and it's DLC for 360, there's LIVE subscriptions (probably not a huge amount but every little helps none the less) that will have increased so that people could buy this and play it online. There's the people who won't have bought the 1600 point packs and will have paid for 2100 or more and so MS will have made more money that way too. It also got MS and Xbox 360 a hell of a lot of publicity too, which is priceless.
Personally I'd say it was $50m well spent, also remember this deal was made at a time when the dollar was far weaker against the pound that it is now, so it would have worked out as about £25m, so it's really not as much as you'd think. (Not that I'm saying £25m isn't a lot of money).
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ha ha... good work!!
(edit remove piss take!)
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Greenberg! You bitch!
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Seems tp me he's getting defensive about Microsoft's exclusive lineup this year, which extends to.... well, Halo Wars and GTA DLC is pretty much it, isnt it?
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Halo 3 ODST. And dont forget the best looking versions of all multiplatform titles aswell.
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Yep, that just about sums it up. Microsoft are ahead at the moment, but the reason that Greenberg and all the xbox owning special needs kids on this site are shitting their school shorts is that they know they've used up all their weapons already. They can't cut the price anymore, they've got no big games coming out, except yet another Halo shit fest, so that's it, they've nowhere else to go, all they can do it sit back and watch Sony catch em up and pass em. Can't wait to see you xbox cunts crying into your warm milk I really can't.
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People shouldn't care about the hardware, they should care about the games, bring on the single format.
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Why is Microsoft so proud? They didn't make GTA, just waved some money around.
People shouldn't care about the hardware, they should care about the games, bring on the single format.
The hardware manufacturers should care about the hardware. Why do people think that companies like Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony should ignore the business side of things?
That said, I'd like a single format too, to stop all these bitchy "news" stories from the various corporate mouth-pieces.
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And ofcourse TLaD would have outsold Killzone 2 had it been at retail; you're talking about an extension of the biggest franchise in gaming vs. a comparative newbie which does well but not incredibly. It's like saying Wii Fit 2 will outsell the next SingStar.
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All of them are guilty of trying to talk up their hardware/software as all at the end of the day is out to make as much money as possible.
Still have to say that TLaD is doing better than I had thought previously, and every extra sale for X360/MS is a sale potentially lost to Sony. That why MS is doing this to stop being dominated as they did the last gen, now we are seeing a more equal share and why is this a bad thing?!
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I know, I was in the Sony Centre yesterday and the assistant told me their 360 sales were non-existant basically.
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Yes you can, you've been waiting for more than 2 years now.
there's nothing on TV, he took her to a movie
but she's the one for me, he took her to a movie
we're at number three, he took her to a movie
but so did I
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I like how he says "would of".....still both sides are full of shit, its expected.
LOL!!!! @ miiigel
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Wrong! You need to original disc to play the DLC so for returning players or new players it adds up to more.
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Microsoft are getting a little too cocky now.
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Not really,unless you consider Sony consoles as most
see this
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"declining, it's been described to me as hemorrhaging at retail right now, and it just keeps getting worse".
I know, I was in the Sony Centre yesterday and the assistant told me their 360 sales were non-existant basically.
I would assume that 360 Sales in a SONY store would be non-existent seeing as i would doubt an Sony Store would sell the 360!
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I think he was taking the piss.
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That or wrap them in towels.....
Still to have the balls to say "would have" without solid numbers.....just as bad as showing CGI as "in-game-footage"...well almost.
@des - Shite that is bad - then again are those numbers could be outta Greenberg's arse without a proper source.
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excellent quote!
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a) Microsofts gaming division are $50m poorer (but hope to recoup that from people moving to the 360 just to play the DLC)
b) 360 owners are no better off than if MS had've just kept the money, and worse off than if MS had spent the money developing a decent new title.
c) PS3 owners don't get the DLC. Or at least not yet.
Good first/second party exclusives are console shifters. Zelda. Gran Tourismo. Halo. All guaranteed to sell their respective consoles. IMHO the reason that Killzone isn't a console shifter on anywhere near the same scale is that it's the first decent iteration (aside from the plot, which is admittedly gash), and hence didn't have a fanbase to build on. Killzone 3 will have.
@Ausfreelancer and farticus
You're not alone. I got bored a little after the coke bust mission - haven't really been back to it. I reckon if they'd kept in the RPG lite elements from San Andreas there'd be more impetus to keep playing.
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"@ Fart - Ahhh dude, most consoles sales have been in decline.....something to do with the economy, and people not having enough space for more wiis. "
In the article he is quoted as saying that according to NPD figures, Xbox hardware saw a 50% rise (year on year) in February. How is that a decline in sales?
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Your profile says you are in the United Kingdom.
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"In a console war we once claimed to have been based on games now solely is based on numbers, so when Halo expansion sells 8m copies will be a triumphant victory for MS despite us now offering nothing new to our ever so loyal cutomers. We deny all claims that Bill owns 7m copies of Halo 3 and the 6,999,999 he gave to charity weren't counted in our sales figures."
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That's right......and i'm not "currently playing nothing"
cyber - "In the article he is quoted as saying that according to NPD figures, Xbox hardware saw a 50% rise (year on year) in February. How is that a decline in sales?"
My bad, was reading the article late and night, and skimmed that part in my rage