Do you think the "competition" ever crosses PD's mind?
- Thread starter GTOne2Three
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Racing games in general seem to be in a decline since GT3 was released. (there are more variety of racing games though) Nascar sales decline so badly that EA didn't care to continue the series. There are a few exceptions like Mario Kart. Even if Gt6 gives us everything we want the sales will more likely to less than Gt5.
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- 646
- UK
Okay...don't accept it and you can stay in your own la la landtre12
We have seen however with Forza that a racing franchise can grow both commercially and critically when applied in the right fashion. And FM4 is highly likely going to continue that trend.Zoom!Zoom!
With GT, it's been in constant decline both commercially and critically since GT3. IIRC, only in the UK and France did GT5 have larger opening sales than GT4. But after than opening week, sales fell off a cliff. There was not the traditional "GT tail" that so frequently gets talked about.
Yes, there's more competition out there now to compete with, but it's precisely because of that competition that we get back to original thread topic: PD should be looking at the competition and be implementing successful features from those games so that GT has a fighting chance of starting to grow once again. Forza proves that it can be done.
Just following the same broken game design and ideology from years gone by is not going to give the franchise a shot at growing or staying relevant.
Zer0
(Banned)
- 1,624
GT4 Release date:
JP December 28, 2004
NA February 22, 2005
EU March 09, 2005
April 28 2005:
the recent release of Gran Turismo 4 currently stands at 6.25 million worldwide (Japan 1.09 million, North America 1.94 million, Europe 3.12 million).
link
Gran Turismo 4 11.19 million
*as of Dec 2010
link
=====
GT5 Release date:
WW November 24/25, 2010
In an updated series software title list (thanks, VG247), the Japanese studio confirmed Gran Turismo 5 had shipped 6.37 million units as of December 2010. Why, that doesn't even include the January sales.
link
Gran Turismo 5 ?? million
*as of 2015
=====
You get it?
Also GT3 sales were a peak in the series not an average, 10M are the expected numbers for a GT full title:
Gran Turismo 1 10,850
Gran Turismo 2 9,370
Gran Turismo 3 A-spec 14,890
Gran Turismo 4 11,190
Anyway: Gran Turismo 5 “Prologue” 5.2M + Gran Turismo 5 6.37M = 11.57M
- 1,214
First Forza 3 (and Gt5) were bundled and then there was a spite in sales with Forza 3 complete (especially in USA) since some people who hadn't bought all the DLC like me bought another copy of Forza 3.Okay...don't accept it and you can stay in your own la la land
We have seen however with Forza that a racing franchise can grow both commercially and critically when applied in the right fashion. And FM4 is highly likely going to continue that trend.
With GT, it's been in constant decline both commercially and critically since GT3. IIRC, only in the UK and France did GT5 have larger opening sales than GT4. But after than opening week, sales fell off a cliff. There was not the traditional "GT tail" that so frequently gets talked about.
Yes, there's more competition out there now to compete with, but it's precisely because of that competition that we get back to original thread topic: PD should be looking at the competition and be implementing successful features from those games so that GT has a fighting chance of starting to grow once again. Forza proves that it can be done.
- 646
- UK
@ Zer0, if you look at NPD and Media Create sale data when GT5 released, you will find that in the US and Japan, GT5 was down on GT4's release numbers. UK sales were up (albeit fractionally), but GT5 has long since tumbled out of the Top 40, likewise in Japan and probably the US as well. There is no "tail" in effect here. It's highly unlikely GT5 will ever match GT4. Two out of three declines in the three most important software regions isn't exactly a win.
And in addition, GT5 was released at the perfect time for Christmas, and in the US, the perfect time for Black Friday, both a time when you would expect to see a significant jump in sales anyway. How significantly this benefited GT5 is open to debate.
But really, the sales numbers is not the most important point I would suggest. Surely it's the critical decline? We know people were disappointed (a mild way of putting it) with GT5, and so they're going to take a lot of convincing to go out and buy GT6. That's the real challenge.
And in addition, GT5 was released at the perfect time for Christmas, and in the US, the perfect time for Black Friday, both a time when you would expect to see a significant jump in sales anyway. How significantly this benefited GT5 is open to debate.
But really, the sales numbers is not the most important point I would suggest. Surely it's the critical decline? We know people were disappointed (a mild way of putting it) with GT5, and so they're going to take a lot of convincing to go out and buy GT6. That's the real challenge.
Zer0
(Banned)
- 1,624
The increase in the EU sales are compensating the US and JP markets. EU is the most important territory for modern GT games. The actual sales in GT5 are having the same behaviour than the Prologue and the game had no problem to accumulate sales year after year.
If you want to look at the sales as a simile of disappointment people think mainly of the US territory. The people in the EU zone does not seems disappointed sales whise. To me is clearly a change in the tendency and US consumer tastes, more towards to arcade racers and having fun with cars than playing boring realistic sims, that would explain why Forza is so interested in that market. Car games in general are becoming less popular in asian markets, not only affects GT but a whole genre. Anyway the Japan territory is about the 10% of the total in GT, not a big deal.
Also you can expect new releases of GT5 with all the updates in a package, a la Prologue Spec III in Japan, and the previous mentioned Platinum edition.
To see the GT5 tail effect you will need to wait at least 1-2 years and compare totals, the tail is known because its moderate numbers but constant sales over the years. If you expect big numbers or see the title in the top charts every week you don't know how previous GT games have reached its totals. That's not how it was done.
GT sales don't know of dates, the game sells the same in the long term. Remember that GT has a life span much longer than the typical NFS, Forza or the most common game sequels and its popularity is also much bigger.
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- BEMBEMBOWBOW
I hate to ruin the perfectly good excuse you guys found to argue about something but, since when was crack and weed in competition?!?!? They're only in competition if you're a total junkie and do both(Most crackheads think weed is a joke and vice versa, but I digress..)
How can they be competition if they have two separate markets? Forza is a 360 exclusive and GT is a Playstation exclusive. Yes, there is a small group of people that have both systems, but that just it a small group. Both companies can gain more if the tend to the two ends of the spectrum, not the hazy middle. That's why PD is going on like they no competition(in actuality, they don't. Its not question where you're gonna go if you want a serious driving game on PS3), and T10 is just copying aspects of GT(Hell, someone has to do it for the 360). I think its silly to even suggest that the average Joe Shmoe racing gamer is going to go out and buy another console because this game did this aspect better, and Sony knows this.
Yes, you could say Shift is competition for both, but Shift is a racing game with sim aspects. GT, on the other hand, spells it out all the way for you on the box, "Gran Tursimo 5: The Driving Simulator". The last console game I can think of that had the word "simulator" on the cover was Flight Simulator for the SNES.
Fact: There are more casuals then there are hardcore. When you get to talking about simulators, you're talking about the hardcore(if not gamer, car enthusiast) , money isn't even in the conversation. That's not GT's MO. If profit is not a concern, competition is not a concern.
I just think this whole little discussion is kind of silly.
How can they be competition if they have two separate markets? Forza is a 360 exclusive and GT is a Playstation exclusive. Yes, there is a small group of people that have both systems, but that just it a small group. Both companies can gain more if the tend to the two ends of the spectrum, not the hazy middle. That's why PD is going on like they no competition(in actuality, they don't. Its not question where you're gonna go if you want a serious driving game on PS3), and T10 is just copying aspects of GT(Hell, someone has to do it for the 360). I think its silly to even suggest that the average Joe Shmoe racing gamer is going to go out and buy another console because this game did this aspect better, and Sony knows this.
Yes, you could say Shift is competition for both, but Shift is a racing game with sim aspects. GT, on the other hand, spells it out all the way for you on the box, "Gran Tursimo 5: The Driving Simulator". The last console game I can think of that had the word "simulator" on the cover was Flight Simulator for the SNES.
Fact: There are more casuals then there are hardcore. When you get to talking about simulators, you're talking about the hardcore(if not gamer, car enthusiast) , money isn't even in the conversation. That's not GT's MO. If profit is not a concern, competition is not a concern.
I just think this whole little discussion is kind of silly.
- 40,822
I think all of this sales discussion is rather moot. GT5 would have been a massive success even if the game was unequivocally terrible, so the fact that it is selling similar to how GT4 doesn't mean much.
GT6 sales are going to be the determining factor about whether the GT series is declining financially, and we can't even begin to guess what the situation will be when GT6 comes out.
GT6 sales are going to be the determining factor about whether the GT series is declining financially, and we can't even begin to guess what the situation will be when GT6 comes out.
- 1,466
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- mikethehockeyfan
Man, the last couple pages of this thread is a major
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- THE_LAST_FAOLIU
I don't know why you guys bother bringing up sales from 7 years ago... this a "troll tactic" if I've ever seen one. But just for the benefit of the non-troll people, this is why it doesn't matter: electronics and video games has got to be one of the most volalite, ADHD markets there are. You might as well compare apples and oranges...
Fact is, there is far too much competition for GT to make the same strides as in the past - not because it's "outdated" but because focus is always changing. I mean the only way it will ever be 10 million strong is if we were navigating through dungeons and killing monsters in a raid group.
All driving games in general are taking hits, I'm sure. However, no other console driving game has had the same success as GT. Even when PS3 had a ****** launch, even when GT5 took 5 years to develop, even when every single gaming magazine or website gave it mediore ratings... it is still the number one series today.
Gaming industry is about what's happening now and what's happening tomorrow... whatever is in the past is done - especially when it happened 10 years ago. This isn't a consistant enough market. So lets lets just burry it in the hole deep_sky keeps digging himself into.
EDIT: holy **** Wii games are blowing everything out of the water. LOL. You can't tell me Wii Fit in 1998 technolgoy would be the same thing it is today. I mean they tried it and it failed horribly. Just another reason why you can't compare 1998 to 2011, I guess.
Fact is, there is far too much competition for GT to make the same strides as in the past - not because it's "outdated" but because focus is always changing. I mean the only way it will ever be 10 million strong is if we were navigating through dungeons and killing monsters in a raid group.
All driving games in general are taking hits, I'm sure. However, no other console driving game has had the same success as GT. Even when PS3 had a ****** launch, even when GT5 took 5 years to develop, even when every single gaming magazine or website gave it mediore ratings... it is still the number one series today.
Gaming industry is about what's happening now and what's happening tomorrow... whatever is in the past is done - especially when it happened 10 years ago. This isn't a consistant enough market. So lets lets just burry it in the hole deep_sky keeps digging himself into.
EDIT: holy **** Wii games are blowing everything out of the water. LOL. You can't tell me Wii Fit in 1998 technolgoy would be the same thing it is today. I mean they tried it and it failed horribly. Just another reason why you can't compare 1998 to 2011, I guess.
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- 1,466
- Canada
- mikethehockeyfan
Casual gaming, man.
It's the reason why the iOS App Store is raking in millions in revenue for Apple, and why the Wii has outsold both the Playstation 3 and 360. People bought a Wii, played it solidly for about 4 months, then it just became a once in a while thing in the living room.
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GT5 is selling better than GT4 in the same period of time.
GT4P sold 1,4M, GT5P 5,2M
GT5 sold in the first weeks 6,4M and there are no updated sales numbers since dec. 2010.
There is no Platinum yet and the total sale data of previous GTs are in the range of the full life period of the game. Many years of sales.
And yes GT games keep selling over the time year after year until the next title appears. Just research your facts!
Actually, I stand corrected, I did the daft thing and jumped on the 'totals' sold, but you are right, align the launches, and it's not been too bad at all in those terms, so I apologise for that.
I still feel that with the surely unprecedented amount of complaint, and the not too raving critical reviews, that GT5 traded on the success of previous GT's, and Kaz needs to step up and pull it out the bag for GT6, or does anyone seriously want to put their head in the sand and say that all the disgruntlement around over GT5 won't manifest itself in hesitancy or even reduced sales for GT6?
I desperately want GT to be that ambassador it once was, where everyone loved it, and you where guaranteed a pleasurable experienve no matter who you where or what you did in it.. I don't want to see GT get even more out of touch with it's userbase, that would be terrible, and leave the genre's biggest fans much less credible alternatives to keep them happy..
You sometimes can't argue with cold hard numbers, but I've never seen such community unrest, and it's manifested in the critics reviews too, I think it's a dangerous line to pretend that all is well and nothing needs to be done IMO.
And most people are are not trolling, the are concerned after what an undeniable swell of people seem to class as a disappointment.. If PD don't hear the disappointment and react, then I'm afraid IMO the writing is on the wall, and as a non-troll, that would sadden me..
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Zer0
(Banned)
- 1,624
Again forum noise. If all the happy people would bother to discuss with the more active critical people your image would be much different. So much newcomers to the series expecting a sum of all its favourite games in GT5 and being disappointed.
For example this poll does not reflect the forum general ambient since day one:
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=184706
Site Reviews is another history, most of them were from people used to arcade racers or console videogames and did not know what they are reviewing, not what you would expect for the specialized game that GT5 is becoming. Personally I'm not going to trust anyone that reviews GT5 with a pad, play in back view and gives more credit to a fancy menu than the options on it. At the end of the day is a personal opinion based on the reviewer tastes/knowledge. The game was punished mostly by the big delays and the hype, the reviews were reflecting that angry casual player view and tiresome.
Sim sites reviews were giving more justice to GT5. Also people tend to forget that the review copy of GT5 with 0 updates is not the same as the GT5 that we are playing now, not even mechanical damage existed. People like to judge GT5 as a finished product without knowing how good would be the final game once all the updates/goals ends. There are still much features being addressed. As KY said the game was developed like an OS structure to allow updated or new features in the system like apps and he did speak of one year more to full finish the game. There's no precedent in such game development aside of GT5.
About all the drama and concerns of the future of GT and KY not bothering what people really wants:
KY: Now it's released we're going to have several million people who'll become citizens of Gran Turismo. From here on we have to listen to their voice and see what they want and change the game accordingly to match their needs. So Gran Turismo really is just at the starting point, it's really the beginning and we're just going to evolve from here.
link
That was in the same day that GT5 was out.
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- 5,672
- Edison NJ
- jdmking13
- Lucid killer 58
Nice zero never saw that before I always felt they where going to constantly update the game but seeing that makes me even more confident. I really appreciate PD effort. I was watching LeMans and they where interviewing a Japanese driver and the biggest attention grabber for me was he was constantly asking for help from the disaster they faced. I don't know what's going on there but I know their problems are more important than ours.
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Look at the participant rate of that poll, it's shockingly low, perhaps the only people really looking at the site around then where all the satisfied people, all 2-300 of them...
Seriously, I really don't think that poll is representative of much, it clearly had such a tiny tiny sample size, something isn't right.But none the less, it sounds very much like you are saying GT5 satisfies the majority of it's customer base, and any reviews or community that say otherwise are just noise or don't get the advanced simulation that GT offers?
Sounds rather too convenient to me..
And as for Kaz.. You could say he is listening to the community now, but he must very exceedingly out of touch, because helmets and race suits would seem rather low down on the communities priority list..
I just don't see/hear or feel like Kaz/PD are actually in touch with the gaming industry at the moment, and the reviews, community 'noise' and actual lack of industry standard features would act as a good barometer in saying there is no smoke without fire.
Kaz lives in his only little fairytale land along with the rest of Polyphony Digital. All the GT butthurt fanboys take offense what guys like Toronado says but in reality, the truth hurts. Just accept GT5 for what it really is, mediocrity at its finest. I give much respects to Toronado and a few others who have to put up with brainless people on these boards.
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- Spartan0189
I can accept the fact that GT5 is broken in some aspects, but just having a little war because of this or that in a racing game is just ridiculous. There will be Forza fans and Gran Turismo fans. Sales are declining, that means only the real fans are actually buying the game now instead of all the little kids who think they're cool with their car and whatnot.
That's just my two cents.
That's just my two cents.
- 10,403
- GTP_Spag69
- spagetti69
I think previous Gran turismos were judged by previous gran turismos.
I mean as long as PD improved on previous releases then things should be ok.
That was fine back in the day as GT was a standard bearer for the console racer. They really had no or little competition.
I think adding the online to this series and graphical improvements along with physics was seen to be enough for the series.
The days off them being the only kids on the block has passed.
They really do need to look outside for ideas and inspiration. There's no shame in that. After all they were the ones at one time providing inspiration for others.
As much as I am disappointed in there recent release I wouldn't want a world without GT.
I really hope they can get back to their lofty heights.
I mean as long as PD improved on previous releases then things should be ok.
That was fine back in the day as GT was a standard bearer for the console racer. They really had no or little competition.
I think adding the online to this series and graphical improvements along with physics was seen to be enough for the series.
The days off them being the only kids on the block has passed.
They really do need to look outside for ideas and inspiration. There's no shame in that. After all they were the ones at one time providing inspiration for others.
As much as I am disappointed in there recent release I wouldn't want a world without GT.
I really hope they can get back to their lofty heights.
I don't know if the competition ever crosses PD's mind or not. All I know is that GT5 is my favourite racing game of all time at the present moment. Forza 3 is in second but it still doesn't do it for me the way GT does. Sure, it may have more supercars, it may have Porsche, it may have cockpit view on all cars but it just doesn't have something that GT5 does. I can't quite place or explain what that thing is but I just know it is something all GT games have that other driving/racing games don't 👍
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- GTP_Spag69
- spagetti69
It surrounds us...... penetrates us........ binds the galaxy together......
- 22,551
- Arizona
- HamiltonMP427
Though this is an older comment, I will say you're right and but someone may not know that or realize it from the actual Top Gear.
- 22,551
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- HamiltonMP427
Great point here, I dont think metacritic is a reliable source. First off the do a multiple critique on entertainment type things and to rank racing sims...well is funny on there part. To be honest, All the games listed here are more realistic in car physics and track layout than GT and far more realistic than Forza has been in the past three games combined. I see more bias toward games that are just easy to plug in and play and not games that teach you how to actually drive a car like a racer, but more of something at the local pizza/b-day arcade place.
- 22,551
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- HamiltonMP427
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Metacritic combines all the mainstream gaming reviews, hence all games will be reviewed as general console games.. i.e. not just about simulation, but about the game as a game..
The thing is, only the minority are into the whole 'simulation' thing, the vast majority of people that buy the game, buy it as a game and expect enjoyment from it, and it has to pass muster as a game for it to be well received by reviewers and the majority of it's customers..
It is false to think GT somehow doesn't fit into the same review system as every other console racer/game IMO, the notion that GT5 stands head and shoulders above everything else on consoles in simulation terms is absurd, it's only just sneaking ahead on some aspects of the physics, but it lacks many many simulation features (as does Forza btw, I'm not pushing an agenda here)..
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- GTP_Daverytimes
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