Oh god please, get out of my face with that crap. A hit title like Smash Brothers Brawl is going to sell well, with or without any advertising or fake shortages, or any other kind of bullcrap. It is one of those must have titles for a system. There is no good reason besides debugging, to hold back a done title for nearly a year.
And I don't want to hear any of that crap from you Falcon, because your the last person I want to hear about buisness tatics from. Stop with your conspiracy theories and get back to real life.
Again, you're being naive. Hits like SSB can't afford to have a ton of bugs and glitches when the game comes out. Isn't it supposed to be online? Regardless, it has to go through extensive testing to make sure the game is good to go. Optimization is also an issue. Even though they are constantly testing the game as it is being developed, they are also constantly changing the code. They need to make sure everything runs smoothly.
About advertisement, Nintendo is becoming more and more based around the casual gamer, and the newer crowd of gamers may not know about SSB. Let me explain this a little more. The longer you make people wait for the game and the more you advertise it, the more the people want the game. As a game is out for longer, the price drops and these game companies eventually start making less and less money on their product. So, it's better to release it later and make a lot of money than it is to release it earlier and have less and less people buy it over time as it becomes cheaper. It's also good strategy to make sure that you release a product as soon as you know sales will be great and many people have the opportunity to buy it, y'know, make sure you release it when console sales are getting better. It's for the same reason--games lower in value over time. | |
As much as it pains me to say this, Revenant Jesus is right. A company loses money for as long as a game has been printed and is not yet selling, because storing things costs money.
If the game has hit its gold master copy, that means development stops and they try to print off and distribute as many copies as possible before their target release date, where all stores then release concurrently -- not as an effort to build hype, but as an effort to prevent instability in the market. The idea of printing off copies of a game and then leaving them sitting in a warehouse for a year is pure fiction. No company in their right mind would do that. If they've printed off copies, they've already evaluated the market and will have printed one copy for each sale they predict they will have. | |
Most titles have testers who report bugs and suggest improvements throughout the entire process phase, from start to finish, a lot of people consider being a tester the first step into getting into the industry.
There would be no reason for them to complete the game and then test it for a year when they have already had people testing and debugging the title from day one. Besides, in this new day with internal saving and updates and patches, much like a computer game, small glitches can be easily fixed with an update. Anyone remeber the bad glitch that destroyed your save file on Dead or Alive for the Xbox 360? So, you aren't giving me a good reason to begin to believe that. | |
Well, for one, not everyone has access to updates like that. Also, as I've already stated, they optimize the code and such towards the end of development and need to test it all to make sure everything is running flawlessly. That could take a while.
I'm also pretty sure he was over-exaggerating when he said "year" to place emphasis on that particular detail, as I was. | |
This makes me wonder how long before we will have to validate our video games online before we're able to play them. Windows already does it.
I doubt they'd get away with it right now, unless they included a 'key' that would enable you to unlock the game and they only sent it out on the actual day of the release. So all first-print copies of Halo 3 require you to either go online and validate that it's past release, or enter a key that's kept secret until the day of the release. After the first-print there's no point in such a protection (apart from ensuring that it's not a pirate copy and that as many XBOX 360 units are online as possible). | |
I was just reading this today...
..Toys R Us is boned big-time now, considering they would have to pay fines of $5000 per unit sold, with the possibility that 2K Games will never send them pre-orders again.. Also, good news for those with modded Xbox 360 units, the game has been leaked for download as well. | |
Ooo! Heh, I think this is the first time I've seen Nadrew make a mistake! Why would they mass-produce millions of copies before/whilst they were still testing it in testing groups? That'd be pretty expensive if a single error was found... he he! I don't think they start producing the game in bulk until all the testing is completely finished, and I don't believe that would be until two weeks, maybe three, before the release date.
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Ease wrote:
Ooo! Heh, I think this is the first time I've seen Nadrew make a mistake! Why would they mass-produce millions of copies before/whilst they were still testing it in testing groups? That'd be pretty expensive if a single error was found... he he! I don't think they start producing the game in bulk until all the testing is completely finished, and I don't believe that would be until two weeks, maybe three, before the release date. I thought this was all about games getting completed and tested THEN being stored in warehouses? | |
I know nothing about the gaming business or what they do when they come towards the end of the development, but I suppose the idea of perhaps advertising for a year after the game has been completed is a good idea. Not a year maybe, but somewhere around that perhaps 6 or so months.
Anyways like I was saying. Like Revenant was saying about SSB would make plenty of sales with or without advertising, but I guess he isn't in the shoes of the SSB developers and Nintendo managers. I presume owning a business has it's effects. Like for example becoming money hungry or greedy as people would call it. So technically advertising would bring more sales so more money. I personally think Nintendo would like to squeeze every penny we have out of us so that they can prosper and make a fair profit. I can't see why they would mass produce while actually still developing the game :S That is a complete waste of money :S So I am pretty confused if Nadrew actually meant that. | |
How much money does it cost to burn a single DVD? Keep in mind that they buy lots of DVDs at once, and thus get discounts.
They wouldn't mass-produce millions, but a few thousand? It'd cost them like $10. | |
Jp wrote:
How much money does it cost to burn a single DVD? Keep in mind that they buy lots of DVDs at once, and thus get discounts. I hope they get a machine to do that. | |
Then you are quite naive about business.