Where in the World is Jamikaze?

[SixInARow]

that's not true at all....if that were the case the AAA titles would be fewer and further between.  If most gamers didn't have ADD there's no way that Halo, Black Ops, New Vegas, Medal of Honor all come out in a span of less than 60 days.

And while I liked the first Crackdown...its not exactly a must buy.  Singularity will probably be a middle rung forgettable game like metro 2033.

I just don't get why the industry doesn't use E3 as the giant advertisement it could be.  Imagine if Halo came out this week and had two to three months to absolutely dominate the market not only in unit sales but dlc sales as well.

I agree with Seven.  I think in this instance, gaming companies should take a note from movie companies.  The movie industry understands that releasing a movie at certain times can make or break films.  With the exception of the winter rush to get films in for oscar consideration most legit films are released with other upcoming movies in mind, so that they can attempt to dominate the box office for three to fours weeks without having to compete with a film aimed at the same demographic.  What video game release logic is essentially; "OMFG ITZ GUN BE CHRISTMAS SOON, ALL THOSE LITTLE KIDS ARE GOING TO HAVE MONEY, LET'S PUSH ALL OF OUR HIGHER CALIBER GAMES AT ONCE SO WE CAN GET THE MOST MONEY."  All that does is create exponential competition in a geometric market structure.  This causing considerably good games to lose out to the big sequel brand recognition. 

If I was a game company, I would want to put out my product right about now because there is nothing really that great coming out (fuck crackdown 2, it doesn't matter what your name is jabroni), and a great game with strong multiplayer could literally dominate until october.  Throw out some dlcs as summer progresses and deathgod will buy that shit, cash money. 

That's what I would do, but I didn't buy my mba (it deserves to be abbreviated in lower case now) from university of phoenix online so I probably don't know how to continually report quarter loses, OH SNAP GAMING BUSINESS

[Neg1]

I am all for games to be spread out more over the year. In the last few years it seems more games are starting to come out in the late winter and spring but the summer is still almost a dead zone. I don't know why a lots of games come out in Sept. if I was parent the last thing I would do would be to buy a kid a new game at the start of school.

After playing the demo for crackdown 2 I am not going to get it. Only reason I got the first one was for halo 3 beta and never finished it. The only games I am getting this summer for sure are Civ5(PC), CoH:OL(PC) Halo Reach, maybe Mafia 2.

[SevenSixtyTwo]

After more thought I have possibly come up with a good reason why they release all of their top tier games in the fall/winter, other than CHRISTMAS MEANS MORE MONEY!

The fall/winter is also the 1st Quarter of the Fiscal year.  Lets use EA for example.  EA is releasing Rock Band 3, Medal of Honor, Need For Speed, MMA, Dead Space, Crysis 2, and Bulletstorm in the 1st Quarter.  Madden, NHL, and NBA all release in the 4th Quarter of the fiscal 2010 year, but it's at the very end so a lot of the sales will bleed into the 1st Quarter.

Now EA, like every company has a budget, and that budget is based on the past years revenues and stock performance.  By releasing a gluttony of games in the 1st Quarter EA can accomplish two things:

1) They make the majority of their profit in the first part of the fiscal year, which leads to more investors buying stock in the company because the huge 1st quarter profits can mislead them into thinking the other 3 quarters will be huge as well.

2) They have 3 quarters to sell these games and profit off of them.  It's obvious that only the biggest, and richest, nerd in the world is going to buy every one of these games on release day.  But if the game is purchased at Christmas, or for a birthday, or is on sale, or you just heard good things and want to try it, it will increase profits in other quarters as well.  This is also why I think EA is doing more to try and limit the used game purchases compared to the new game purchases by including EA Online Passes.  That way I don't go to gamestop and pick up Medal of Honor next March and pay $8 less for it by getting it used and cut EA out of the profit loop.

This would also explain why fewer games come out in the 4th quarter of the year (july, august, september) Because this lowers the amount of time on the market that it can increase profits for that fiscal year.  Actually most publishers seem to release their last big game of the fiscal year in May, or sooner.

It would also explain why most publishers aren't afraid of Halo's September release date, unlike last year when they avoided MW2's November date like the plague.  Halo Reach will have a huge launch, most of which will be in the 4th quarter.  I imagine if Halo Reach were to come out in October or November, you'd see more companies dumping their games into the first part of the 2nd quarter like you did last fiscal year with MW2.


Of course all of this maybe pure bunk, and most of it is speculation, but it's the only explanation that makes sense to me. 

[Cerebrex]

ULTRAWEINER

[Mediocre Rando]

that's what she said

[Mediocre Rando]

that's what she said

Note: not to me.

[Jaedpact]

Nope that one was directed at me!