Halo 3 "Cannibalized" Other Xbox 360 Releases

[Andy Chalk]

Halo 3 "Cannibalized" Other Xbox 360 Releases

Stranglehold [http://www.halo3.com]being particularly hard-hit by the effect.

A report on NPD Group [http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16633], covers the first two calendar months of each game's release.

"While the model was able to accurately predict the market size for Halo 3 [http://www.npd.com/], it did not foresee the cannibalization effect that Master Chief would have on other September releases," Williams said. While games like Skate, with sales of 225,887 units compared to predictions of 350,000, and Call of Juarez, which sold 72,317 units against predictions of 125,000, fared considerably worse than expected, it was Stranglehold that fell the farthest behind the GamerMetrics predictions: 115,813 units sold compared to a predicted total of 450,000.

"The underlying reason behind this trend is Halo's unmatched replayability, especially with regards to the online multiplayer features," Williams said. "During September and October, a significant portion of Xbox 360 owners played Halo 3 exclusively, with little attention given to other new releases."


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[akatsukix]

It doesn't surprise me. I personally loved Stranglehold and thought it a bit underrated, but Halo 3 is pretty much what every one of my friends was playing solid for months. COD4 is still a better multiplayer game, but there is no way it has the hype of Halo either.

The other problem being that Stranglehold's main mechanic: Tequila Time, does not work in multiplayer very well.

 

[richasr]

It's not that surprising, but it's quite frustrating when you don't think Halo3 is anything special, yet all your mates are playing it. There are much better games, even more deserving of the Game of The Year award that Halo 3s been mentioned for recently.

Anyway even if they wanted to avoid this situation, when the hell would they release Halo3?

 

[Ghandi 2]

Because Bungie wants to stay in business?

 

[hipholyte]

It's not that surprising, but it's quite frustrating when you don't think Halo3 is anything special, yet all your mates are playing it. There are much better games, even more deserving of the Game of The Year award that Halo 3s been mentioned for recently.

Anyway even if they wanted to avoid this situation, when the hell would they release Halo3?

It would be a hell of a lot better if a panel of professional judges made the decisions of game of the year. Instead of leaving it up the the hordes of single minded fanboys that vote for it just because they own it.

 

[Mossberg]

It seems Master Chief is not only a cannibal, but a time traveler: looking at IGN right now, _Stranglehold_ released on Sept. 5th. _Halo 3_ released on Sept. 25th. Maybe the IGN dates are off, but, _Stranglehold_ seems to have had about three weeks before _Halo 3_ hit the shelves. That is "unmatched replayability" when you can play nothing else but a game that won't launch for another 20 days...

Unless you factor in that most people have some degree of foresight, in which case they chose to hold on to their money for a game released at a later date.

Of course, as you said, we need to see a comparison between consoles to know if that's really what happened.

 

[GrowlersAtSea]

I don't think it's all that surprising, and honestly this is one of the things publishers should maybe start considering for release dates.

Movie studios take great care in planning their opening weekend. For example, in general, opening a movie that moderate success is predicted in Summer often is not a good idea, because that puts it in direct competition with the big budget summer blockbusters. Even down to specific weekends movie studios will look at, it's rare that two or more big movies will open on a single weekend, that is no accident.

They don't want to go head to head with one another at the same time and have to share the critical opening weekend. Game publishers should probably think similarly. Although the comparison isn't totally fair (movies open in a limited time frame, a movie typically will be in theatres between one and three months, a game will be around indefinitely, but will generally be considered a 'new release' for about a year). Most people still have limited time and budgets in certain time-frames, so when two games are released at once, many gamers will feel they have to choose one, then maybe wait for later for the next.

It's kind of sad, but it's a reality of a market place. The smaller fish have to get out of the way of the big fish, if that means pushing your release back (or forward if possible) then that's what might have to happen.

 

[Virgil]

While games like Skate, with sales of 225,887 units compared to predictions of 350,000, and Call of Juarez, which sold 72,317 units against predictions of 125,000, fared considerably worse than expected, it was Stranglehold that fell the farthest behind the GamerMetrics predictions: 115,813 units sold compared to a predicted total of 450,000.

Skate is "Another Tony Hawk." Call of Juarez is a clunky GTA-clone-wannabe with parachutes. Stranglehold is a graphics heavy, licensed duplicate of Max Payne. Perhaps the reason they didn't sell well could also be because they weren't very good. Not only did I not buy Halo 3, I also didn't buy any of the others mentioned - I tried the demos, and none of them felt worth a purchase.

Maybe basing game sales predictions on the page views that they get on IGN and Gamespy (which is what GamerMetrics does, in a nutshell) isn't the most accurate source of data. Developers can influence that rating based on the amount and type of promotion they do, and a game that gets a lot of attention for novelty (Stranglehold, with John Woo and all the news that went around about how they were bundling in a full movie) would be overly inflated.

 

[righthanded]

I don't think it's all that surprising, and honestly this is one of the things publishers should maybe start considering for release dates.

Movie studios take great care in planning their opening weekend. For example, in general, opening a movie that moderate success is predicted in Summer often is not a good idea, because that puts it in direct competition with the big budget summer blockbusters. Even down to specific weekends movie studios will look at, it's rare that two or more big movies will open on a single weekend, that is no accident.

They don't want to go head to head with one another at the same time and have to share the critical opening weekend. Game publishers should probably think similarly. Although the comparison isn't totally fair (movies open in a limited time frame, a movie typically will be in theatres between one and three months, a game will be around indefinitely, but will generally be considered a 'new release' for about a year). Most people still have limited time and budgets in certain time-frames, so when two games are released at once, many gamers will feel they have to choose one, then maybe wait for later for the next.

It's kind of sad, but it's a reality of a market place. The smaller fish have to get out of the way of the big fish, if that means pushing your release back (or forward if possible) then that's what might have to happen.

I think that that's kind of a fallacy that movies only have 1-3 months to make their money. Maybe they get regular showings at preferred times at the local multiplex for the first few weeks but then they are usually relegated to matinee and late night showings, after that, the drive in and dollar shows. After that they live on in DVD sales indefinitely as well as selling rights to broadcast on TV networks and cable channels until the end of time. Add in merchandising and promotional tie ins and there is serious money to be made. The Star Wars brand has made something like 20 Billion$, only a quarter or so of that off of theater tickets.

Video games, on the other hand, don't live on like that. Stores that sell new games pull games that don't sell. This is the fate of most video games. Rentals and used game sales generate zero dollars for publishers and developers. Then, even if a game sells, it generally doesn't last. Madden 07 sells 7+ million copies. Halo 2 sells 8 million. Then what? Nothing. Those games stop generating income after a year or two. This is super-stardom for video games, to sell well for a year or two and then disappear. And while the market seems to be filled with compilations and re-release of "classics," it's not the same as the movie industry. Classic games sell mostly out of nostalgia.

I'd doubt that classic games are being bought by people that missed them initially the way that the Godfather sells to a generation that wasn't even born when the movie was made.

 

[richasr]

It's not that surprising, but it's quite frustrating when you don't think Halo3 is anything special, yet all your mates are playing it. There are much better games, even more deserving of the Game of The Year award that Halo 3s been mentioned for recently.

Anyway even if they wanted to avoid this situation, when the hell would they release Halo3?

It would be a hell of a lot better if a panel of professional judges made the decisions of game of the year. Instead of leaving it up the the hordes of single minded fanboys that vote for it just because they own it.

That would be good to see, though it'd never happen... A more official board with big name execs from the different developers/publishers. Ah itd also stop publishers 'bribing' magazines and such media to print rigged "GAME OF THE YEAR!" issues and what not.

 

[Northern]

As has been said, when it comes down to it, they would have released Halo 3 at some point. So no matter when then released it someone would be getting the brunt of the sale. It just depends who released at the same time as Halo 3 did.

 

[Wengle]

I wonder if Halo's a relative of Jack Thompson. Both media whores.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Skate is "Another Tony Hawk." Call of Juarez is a clunky GTA-clone-wannabe with parachutes. Stranglehold is a graphics heavy, licensed duplicate of Max Payne. Perhaps the reason they didn't sell well could also be because they weren't very good. Not only did I not buy Halo 3, I also didn't buy any of the others mentioned - I tried the demos, and none of them felt worth a purchase.

I think the man has a point. There's no getting around the fact that Halo 3 is this year's gorilla, but it's simplistic to claim that other games produced lower sales - in some cases, significantly lower sales - just because somebody else put out a better game. And further, if Halo's arrival at the party was one of the top reasons why Stranglehold et al. fared so much worse than predicted, it would be quite an indictment of GamerMetrics' methodology: It's not as though we didn't see it coming.

I just don't see how the data support Nick Williams' explanation, and I'm rather suspicious given how much stronger an argument he could have made by showing us the PS3 and PC numbers.

Sorry if it wasn't clear, but the report quoted was looking strictly at Xbox-on-Xbox numbers.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Blaming Halo for the world's ills is all the rage these days; verily the bee's knees in the blogosphere.

Obese? Homicidal? Can't get any box office receipts from your turkey flick? Neilsens are down on your season opener? Unable to sell as many copies of your game as predicted by a dubious computer model? Blame Halo.

(Breaks into rousing rendition of South Park's "Blame Canada", with modified lyrics.)

-- Steve

 

[twilight_dweller]

Damn you hype machine! You destroy the gaming economy yet again!

 

[qbert4ever]

the way i see it is, if game developers dont want to be run over by so called "hype-machines" like halo, why relese it in the same time frame? you know when it's coming out, you know it's going to sell well. So why not just relese your game in spring time and not have to deal with that kind of crazyness? Its not like a ton of awsome games come out in april so how about the less known games try then? or in july? my point is, spread it out and quit moaning when you dont have the forsight not to do somthing this stupid.

(for the record, i like Halo, i think it's a great game, but i also know that there are better games out in the world and alot of them get overlooked, which is really too bad.)