USA Today also had it on the cover of the paper with accompanying picture.
Ah, interesting, I don’t get Time so I didn’t know they got a big piece there. But we saw how well that Sims Online cover story in Newsweek turned out for them, right? I’m not sure of the impact of those types of stories on sales.
TV commercials reach more people and have more of an impact, I suspect. It’s certainly more targeted: EA Sports runs tons of ads during sporting events.
And are those million Maddens across all platforms or just PS2? If so, that’s sort of a “3 on 1 pile-on,” but I wonder what the breakdown is? If it really is all three platforms, a more fair comparison is looking at them individually. 600,000 PS2, 300,000 Xbox, 100K Gamecube? (I’m guessing the Gamecube number is too high.)
The other interesting thing about Madden versus other games is that it sells insanely for its few months and boom!, it’s pretty much done. Other types of games probably have more continual sales, but I doubt they sell many Maddens in March.
Well yeah, Madden is available for what, 3 consoles AND the PC?
The PC version isn’t coming out for another month, but it’s still 3-on-1.
Anyway, comparing any game to Madden only shows how much bigger the sports game market is compared to most individual genres. Outside of a Grand Theft Auto, few games or genres really compare.
Every store I have been to since last Friday has tons of copies on the shelves. It’s possible that a lot was ordered, but sales aren’t as high as orders.
The same argument could be made about Doom 3 which has had tons of copies in every store I’ve been too.
Considering previous Madden track record EA likely has a damn good idea of how many copies they will sell. They don’t need to do an initial run to estimate demand. We’ll have to see how first month numbers compare to previous years but I don’t think EA has anything to worry about.
TV ads will appear when the XBox version is released. Got this info from one of Activision’s trade magazine ads someone scanned in back when everyone was speculating when Doom 3 would ship.
Is there a reason why that Doom 3 sale, it says “IMPORT” in big letters next to the title name for Doom 3?
That’s nothing. If you factor in all the pirated copies of Doom 3, it’s well over a billion served.
<ducks, runs away>[/quote]
Well considering warcraft3 hit the net a whole 3-4 weeks before retail…
The same argument could be made about Doom 3 which has had tons of copies in every store I’ve been too.
Considering previous Madden track record EA likely has a damn good idea of how many copies they will sell. They don’t need to do an initial run to estimate demand. We’ll have to see how first month numbers compare to previous years but I don’t think EA has anything to worry about.[/quote]
Sorry, I sould have been more specific. I was talking about Doom 3.
Just to clarify, I didn’t make this thread to convince people that Doom 3 was going to be the biggest seller of all-time across all platforms or anything of the sort. Surely a sci-fi/horror game that’s very demanding hardware-wise and that has been thus far released for only one platform that is admittedly not as prolific as it has in the past, is not going to sell as well as some other types of games. But still, it almost seemed as if some people around here were almost expecting it to tank, and that doesn’t seem to be the case so far.
Is there a reason why that Doom 3 sale, it says “IMPORT” in big letters next to the title name for Doom 3?[/quote]
Probably because that’s exactly what it is. GoGamer can only run these sales because they get a lot of product from other territories and sell it here. Probably a BeNeLux release or something. Definitely won’t be the US release if it says IMPORT on there.
–Dave