Did Microsoft gamble with GTA IV and fail?
Peter Moore, former VP of Microsoft and the man behind the creation of the Xbox 360 gambled hard with the gaming division. He saw the value in games such as Grand Theft Auto IV as a potential hardware driver for Microsoft. However, today there is some doubt as to if Microsoft’s gamble truly paid off as Take-Two reveals some interesting news.
Peter Moore is a shrewd and aggressive business man. The powers that controlled the gaming division at Microsoft gambled hard in order to undermine Sony’s dominance in the gaming space. Moore made the decision to end-of-life (EOL) the original Xbox just a few years after launch leaving many existing owners confused.
Moore recently explained that the reason why the original Xbox was discontinued so early was because the company was failing to break even due to the inclusion of a hard drive. The decision was also made to rush the Xbox 360 out to the market before it was ready in order to beat Sony to the market by an entire year. All of these decisions, albeit bad for the consumers, were smart business moves on Microsoft’s part.
Today, the gaming division has successfully implemented a pay-to-play service with XBL as well as release an Xbox 360 model configuration where gamers have to purchase ad-hoc peripherals such as a hard-drive. Microsoft took it one step further by implementing a policy that forces owners into purchasing a first party hard drive without the threat of voiding their warranty.
With Grand Theft Auto IV, Microsoft not only took what was considered to be a Playstation exclusive title multiplatform, but was also able to secure Xbox 360 exclusive DLC along with it. The exclusive DLC did come at the price of a GDP of a small country, but I am sure it was considered to be a well worth investment on Microsoft’s part. Peter Moore was so adamant that GTA IV was the key to Xbox 360’s success that he even put a fake tattoo on his arm to gloat at E3.
This all came to an impasse today as Take-Two revealed in a meeting that GTA IV in fact sold 50/50 on the PS3 and Xbox 360 of the 13 million units. It was further clarified that GTA IV sold 50/50 not only everywhere, but in the US as well. This was a bit confusing as the Xbox 360’s user base is literally twice the size of the PS3 base in the US.
Honestly, I had a difficult time believing this myself despite the fact it was coming from Take-Two. Microsoft put a great deal of marketing budget behind GTA IV with exclusive commercial deals and enticement of exclusive DLC. This proved two things to me today – DLC does not sway gamers into buying a game on a specific platform and franchise platform loyalty does indeed exist.
Unfortunately for Moore’s theory, GTA IV did not go on to move Xbox 360s. In fact it did not end up moving PS3s as well. The game sold phenomenally but as Michael Patcher analyzed post-mortem, the vast majority of the gamers who bought GTA IV were likely existing PS3 or Xbox 360 owners. This brings an interesting question to mind: if existing hardcore franchises do not move systems what types of games will?
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56 Responses to “Did Microsoft gamble with GTA IV and fail?”
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March 12th, 2009
Well it didn’t help Take-Two given they just lost $50 million.
Who cares though. It was an average game. San Andreas is still the best GTA.
I’m more concerned with what Mr. Moore is doing with his fist. Perhaps he’s playing a game of soggy saos.
March 12th, 2009
No.
March 12th, 2009
If he was, I’d say he lost ??!!
March 12th, 2009
rumor has it that gta5 might be a ps3 exclusive due to of the size the game developers are wanting to take
March 12th, 2009
“San Andreas is still the best GTA.”
NEVARRRRRRRR!!! VC for the win!
March 12th, 2009
Oh kevo, I think you’ve just lit the blue touch paper.
March 12th, 2009
Sorry kevo, I don’t think that will happen. Even if game size was an issue, a “modified” version would appear on 360 at the very least, or multiple disks.
March 12th, 2009
shit happens lol
March 12th, 2009
yeah your prolly right trix are 4 kids i got too excited for a while
March 12th, 2009
GTA on 360 with multiple discs…
Let’s see Xbots say they don’t mind disc swapping then haha
March 12th, 2009
Well i think they didn’t fail (Microsoft) they just lost money. And Peter Moore is a terrible business man. What a gamble it was and still is. In the end Sony kind of won weird.
SW:
The best are this two…
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
The worst everything before Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Advance and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars those garbage.
The next GTA should be exclusive to PS3 so Rockstar North can make it huge with Blu-ray Disc.
Bill Gates lost $18 billion but regained his title as the world’s richest man.
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/106712/World%27s-Billionaires-2009
My PSN ID:Ivan-
March 12th, 2009
I’d say San Andreas was the best GTA (cuz I loved the Mike Torreno missions too much and the countrysides) but I’ll definitely put VC in second.
IV was below average. The story was Ok but it was dragged on and got waaaay too boring in the middle.
And that nut case Peter Mooooore is the Prime Example of how incompetent ppl in charge of M$ are.
March 12th, 2009
yeah in san andreas u could buff your dude up and look like a badass and like had to eat meals to keep energy an shit like that was cool though
March 12th, 2009
The excitement factor after I picked up my copies of GTAIII, VC and San Andreas was so much higher than when I started playing GTAIV.
Is GTAV going to be a ‘this generation’ game do we reckon?
I’d like a GTA set in Tokyo. T’wud be awesome.
March 12th, 2009
Even if it is 50/50 that 50% that don’t get to play the Lost and the Damned. And it actually is a great addition to the game so I would say mission accomplished. Mike if it just became obvious to you that there is brand loyalty then you have not been listening to us bitch through every article on Blorge. Of course there is brand loyalty! Do you think that the PS3 guys were not going to buy the game just because 360 secured the exclusive DLC. Get real! GTA etched it’s name on the Playstation brand so it’s not like GTA 4 on the PS3 was going to be lame because 360 got the DLC. You guys got the DLC on Bioshock and that was great for the PS3 guys. In actuallity I would have like to play the DLC on Bioshock but I’m not going to buy a PS3 just for that. There is enough playability on Bioshock for me to be satisified. So I guess that is what the PS3 guys got, enough content on GTA 4 to be satisified even though they know they will not get DLC.
March 12th, 2009
Also Mike you make it sound like it was a failure when it was already reported that Microsoft and Take-Two were happy with the sales of the Lost and the Damned DLC. So where does this failure come into your article besided that fact that it sold 50/50?
March 12th, 2009
To answer Mikes question… It’s a price drop that sells consoles, and rarely one specific title.
March 12th, 2009
That 50/50 sales figure is the RATIO of hardware sold. It DOES NOT mean it sold half on the PS3 and half on the Xbox 360. In fact GTA IV sold almost 1.5 million MORE on the Xbox 360.
So what that means is Microsoft has secured Rockstars trust into making future games on the Xbox 360 console (and their next system) knowing the system can sell just as well if not more than it would on the competing systems. Gone are the days of the Xbox console getting later ports and selling poorly.
March 12th, 2009
@CAD “Even if it is 50/50 that 50% that don’t get to play the Lost and the Damned. And it actually is a great addition to the game so I would say mission accomplished. ”
How is that mission accomplished?
You missed the point Totally!
MS did not get the DLC to stop playstaion users from playing it. They hoped PS guys would buy a 360 just to play it and that did NOT happen.
March 12th, 2009
It doesn’t matter. What Microsoft has done is leveled the playing field. The Playstation 2 dominated sales over the original Xbox and GTA was one of the major blockbuster series that helped the PS2. Sony created a side deal which allowed them to offer a timed exclusive partnership. Now Microsoft has turned that around and sold 1.5 million more copies on the Xbox 360 as opposed to the PS3.
Sony can throw around the 20 million PSN userbase all they want too but I seriously doubt they sell anywhere near the same amount of content than what is sold on XBL. So not only did Rockstar once again favor the higher userbase they also favored the more favorable online userbase. Rockstar did this wheeling and dealing with the PS2 and now they are doing it with the Xbox 360. The Wii is just not powerful enough to create the games they want to create.
March 12th, 2009
ncaissie – exactamondo.
Same could be said for ps3 titles with DLC – it doesn’t make players defect or buy that system.
March 12th, 2009
I think the gamble all depends on how much M$ made off of the DLC. If MS was planning to steamroll over Sony, as far as selling the original disc based game – then yes, they failed. If somehow M$ makes a ton of money (more then the millions they shelled out) off of the DLC, then I guess it worked to there advantage. I think only M$ really knows at this point, but I’ll guess that it didn’t work to there advantage as they had hoped it would. Hopefully this will help to put an end to this “exclusive DLC” nonsense.
Also I loved Vice City. I would love to see a current gen version.
March 12th, 2009
DLC didn’t help 360 version of Tomb Raider Underworld to sell more copies than the PS3 version.
March 12th, 2009
“It was further clarified that GTA IV sold 50/50 not only everywhere, but in the US as well. This was a bit confusing as the Xbox 360’s user base is literally twice the size of the PS3 base in the US.”
Yeah, but does this user base include the multiple consoles purchased by xbots that are ok with being raped by RRoD? I know lots of people that just re-purchased their 360s with arcade models, and swapped over their add-ons. Many people are forced to repurchase, especially if they recieved their original unit as a gift, or simply can’t find their receipts.
Those install base numbers are very questionable to me, to say the least.
March 12th, 2009
‘Same could be said for ps3 titles with DLC – it doesn’t make players defect or buy that system’
I guess securing dlc doesn’t damage sales though.
People who are tempted to buy a 360/ps3 can be tipped over the edge by these little things.
I’ll need more than DLC to get me to buy a 360 to accompany my ps3, but if Live becomes free, well, strip me down and lube me up.
P.S. – my Resident Evil 5 came a day early (like Killzone did). God I love Play.com
March 12th, 2009
well kev said that GTA 4 looks infinitely better and plays better on the 360… so I sold my soul and killed my family and bought myself an xbox… I love live now… its amazing what 12 year old boys will do if you promise them achievement points…
March 12th, 2009
@DWH.
After reading that paragraph I realized the worst thing you did was bought an Xbox.
March 12th, 2009
@phranctoast
lol irl srsly
coffee ejected through nose onto LCD ftw
Wasn’t phanctoast the name of a character in the Bloom Country comic strip? I was going to google it, but thought it might be more human to actually ask a person~
March 12th, 2009
They should’ve released the DLC earlier. As in together with the game or about a month after the launch.
Maybe then the 360 version of the game would’ve sold more if they did that.
But it came waaaay too late since all the HYPE that surrounded gtaIV is now gone and most people won’t bother to switch over to the 360 just for that right now but they might’ve done had it come earlier when everyone was high on the GTA fever.
March 12th, 2009
‘The decision was also made to rush the Xbox 360 out to the market before it was ready in order to beat Sony to the market by an entire year.”
mr moore said nothing to elude to this, but it’s fun watching your creative journalism..
given the high attach ratio on the 360 it’s no suprise gta would sell at 50/50 with the ps3.
think about it, mike… c’mon…you can do it… think…real hard….
March 12th, 2009
@kev
With such a high attach rate, one should be able to assume that Xbox owners buy more games. The 360 has outsold the ps3 to date in the USA. Logically, a population that buys more games should be buying more games.
Instead its 50/50. Perhaps tracking the history of Multi-Plat releases sell ratios between the two consoles can shed some light on this anomaly. What is the logic behind your contradictory assertation?
As a side note, where do the Attach rates come from, and what is the formula? Are the raw numbers plumbed from independently gathered sales figures, or from info fed by the manufacturers?
I have gleaned that the formula is supposedly a basic x divided by y: where x is total software units sold, and y is total hardware units sold. Where this simplicity can become clouded is how the final figures for x and y are determined. What is considered a software sale? Is a replacement unit under warranty considered a sold unit?
There are far too many variables and unknowns to stand behind a simple, yet easily manipulated and exploited statistic. Unless of course, you happen to be a muddled fanboy reaching for straws.
March 12th, 2009
JofaMang
Until November of last year 2008 you did not need a receipt to justify your 3 year warrenty. It was obvious that all xbox’s were covered. When I sent in my Xbox I did not provide a receipt nor did any of my buddies. Some of my friends even bought it refirbed at Millinum 3000 and they got their boxes fixed for free. So the people you know arn’t to smart if they did not take advantage of the 3 year warrenty and spent more money.
March 12th, 2009
Not sure about the comic strip, but it originated for me from volleyball (93-94) as a combo between my name and a hitter on the US team. Morphed eventually…I think Helmets milktoast has something to do with that. Morphed again when I started following Phish.
March 12th, 2009
Hey here is a question. If Nintendo has to raise the price of the Wii in the european region because of the declining pound, Will the PS3 get a price cut in that region? It does not seem like that will happen.
March 12th, 2009
“The decision was also made to rush the Xbox 360 out to the market before it was ready in order to beat Sony to the market by an entire year.”
Just like Sony rushed Blu-ray to market by at least a year leaving everyone with a ‘profile 1.0′ machine buying (at a high price) an obsolescent machine.
The Xbox problem resulted in too many RROD machines, but to Microsoft’s credit they brought in a guarantte and a repair & replace program which stands in stark contrast with certain other CE corps when they had problems
(*cough* PS2 disc read errors).
The fact is that this sort of minutia is mildly interesting to read but it means nothing when set against the wider picture.
The facts are that Xbox has sold more console units and generally speaking Xbox sells more games.
I can’t imagine Microsoft give a f*ck over occasionally missing out on taking the majority of sales when they do most of the time.
March 12th, 2009
@ kev
Not stupid, just lazy and impatient, heh (ok, and a little stupid). People like them exist, but I will admit that since a vast majority of my friends are gamers, I would probably be exposed to a higher rate than the general population.
As for attach rates, does anyone have a link to a decent definition of the formula? All I could find through google was a woefully inadequate wiki entry.
March 12th, 2009
“what is the formula?”
Chuck Norris decides the formula….and he’s not going to share it…not even with kev.
March 12th, 2009
lol @ Phranc. We finally learn your back-story! I’ve seen Phish a few times and Trey also, but have never actually followed them. I would love to quit my job and do something like that…
March 12th, 2009
yeah.. Responsibility sucks.
I have tickets for both Jones Beach shows 6 rows back.
March 12th, 2009
NO! GTA runs better on the 360 cus the 360 has more RAM AND BETTER grafeex… everyone knows ATI makes the best grafeex… and 360 has it… thats why you should buy it…
I STILL HAVE MY HD DVDs… because Bloo ray has no high definition… its a lie made by sony…
March 12th, 2009
The article seems to miss the point that GTA4 did a world of good for the 360. Remember that aside from the 5 people that had bought an original xbox there was little brand loyalty for MS with gamers, unlike Sony who were pretty much the only team in the game at that point. Let’s be honest, if back in 2005 or even 2006 someone had told me that Sony would be in last place in the console market I wouldn’t have believed a word. Gaining former exclusives such as GTA4 has clearly helped MS in changing their position in the market. I would say that those sales figures show 50% of sales that Sony have lost out on. Remember that GTA4 was one of the first decent titles available on the PS3 and was heavily marketed, so it is not surprising that it sold well on the PS3. It was the first title that appealed to both gamers and movie buffs who had bought the PS3 primarily as a Bluray player.
March 12th, 2009
Yeah it does! I really wanted to make it back down to the ‘roo this year, but it’s not looking like its very likely.
March 12th, 2009
DHW I still got my HD DVD too. And I still pick up titles for it every now and then. I would say I got a pretty dame good collection of over 20 HD DVD Titles. Maybe even over 25. It now serves as my upconverting DVD Player and my Toshiba does a dame good job of it.
March 12th, 2009
@JofaMang
You don’t need a receipt for warranties. I never have. They know by the serial number.
March 12th, 2009
I have many coasters too CAD. Mine are cardboard and stolen from bars.
Only went to the Roo once. 102F days are too much. I hid under bleachers for the Oysterhead performance. Moe and Umphreys were key at night.
March 12th, 2009
I bought ‘Moe’s Tavern’ coasters when I went to Fox Studios about 10 years ago. Who wants to touch me? I SAID WHO WANTS TO FUCKING TOUCH ME?!?!?!
March 12th, 2009
HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAH
March 12th, 2009
i miss fos studios, they shut it down after like a year didnt they?… i remember the titanic ride… you got a choice half way through which way you wanted to go, and based on that choice… u live or “died” (it was guy walking up to you at the exit saying that you all died on the boat, sorry)
Arvis you skinny BASTARD, juding what me and royzy have found out your name is chris Jagger man, the maker of jaggermister, and new president of tridad and tebago… errr validation reguired for the last bit though
March 12th, 2009
required* my bad
March 12th, 2009
is it Jagger man like Goldman?? Like a Jewish name? or is it like Spider-man??
maybe Arvis is chris redfield… OH MY GAWD HE KEELZ BLACK PEOPLE!
March 12th, 2009
Resident Evil 5 Tonight at midnight!
March 12th, 2009
RE4 > RE5
March 12th, 2009
AHHH!!!, Some good news from my home City. I’m glad that people of Toronto Have standards because with all the shooting going on around here the last thing we need is more images to promote it. So basically what I’m saying is that Killzone 2 ads were pull from the streets of Toronto for their violent nature.
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/12/sony-pulls-killzone-2-ads-in-toronto-following-complaints/
March 12th, 2009
One of the commenters did mention that it is just a Helghast mask and he is right. There is no guns or anything I think. This is lame!!!
March 13th, 2009
Will you / did you camp outside the store George to pick up your copy?
March 14th, 2009
So either MS lost their butt by paying for the exclusive and not trouncing Sony? Or they paid for exclusive and got half the units sold (instead of none).
So I guess it depends or your fanboy perspective. Its an argument none can win, and doesn’t matter even if it could be won, so once again Blorge writers just inciting flame wars.