Analysts split on April game sales

god of war 3 was not a blockbuster? its an awesome game.

I'm considering being an analyst - it's easy money earned for predicting sales figures. And so what if I'm wrong ???

who's this Pacific Crest Securities? never heard of them and they reckon they knows everything. anyway Splinter Cell still have what it takes. got mine and reckon its awesome. can't wait for Split second

Go MONSTER HUNTER TRI

Also Split/Second and ModNation Racers in May....whoop whoop what a month :)

They should make their predictions at the beginning of the month about sales for that month so if there terrible they won't look as bad, compared to two weeks into the next month and a few days before the sales results "US retail gaming sales tumble 26%"

Splinter Cell is such a gem, haven't stopped playing it next to the Halo Reach Beta. Only quibble is that once you get used to the controls its just way too easy even on Realistic difficulty :(

Splinter Cell: Conviction was the only big name game to come out last month so I'd be surprised if its not #1.

Pachter is such a tool.

@monson21502 there is nothing wrong with your idea m8 but ive been down that road already twice! and they both ended in failure and all i saw was red if you know what i mean:( ive locked the gate on that path i wont be walking that way again :(

The good news is this month is seeing many great titles, some that could really boost game sales. unfortunately, something the analysts don't put in mind that could really freeze sales is the early bad reviews, games like Lost planet 2 and others that could've been hit titles were given low scores, thus making gamers think twice about the purchase. games and new releases are not living up to their reputation and promotion recently, and that's a disappointment.

gamespot should run a monthly feature that lets you guess next months sales . It the average gamespot users guess is closer than the analysts we could put the analysts out of a job

Red Dead Redemption should drive sales up, waaaaay up

these guys could see the sales numbers a day before their report and still get it wrong. thats how bad they are lol

I enjoyed splinter cell actually, its a pretty enjoyable game, and co-op is a blast. My biggest criticism though is that the controls and mechanics take some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, deep down youll find the stealth action masterpiece we all love.

"The next biggest new releases in his estimation were Capcom's Monster Hunter Tri and Super Street Fighter IV with 150,000 sold each..." I was hoping for better sales performance for these two games. I don't have the platforms to play them (yet), but these are two games that I have genuine respect for.

Finally picked up my copy of SC today. So far I like it a lot! I agree with you bleedvideogames, Iron Man 2 looks horrible! It looks like a first gen Xbox game! Unacceptable.

Splinter Cell in Co-op mode and Multiplayer? Definitely a must buy.

tell companies to stop making half ass crap games and over charging for them. make great games thats worth the money and see what happens. cause im sure iron man 2 and kick ass games are gunna go just great. such a waste of games its only for merchandising for the movies, so they rush out crap games

why are they holding the numbers for may untill july and not june? wow try reading that 3 times fast :lol:

@Quezakolt You could just stop reading these articles... it isn't like they tricked you into reading it

whatever month Reach releases in (probably in september) will be the highest scoring month :)

Please stop posting "analysts" news. everyone is tired of them and we all think they are crooks. on another scale the European Union wanted to try to find out who the "speculators" of the financial markets are, because they are largely responsible for insecurities and unstability. i wholly agree that they are criminals.

My problem with these "analysts" is: They're wrong so damn much of the time, it makes you wonder what the Hell they're getting paid for! Maybe the gaming industry would have more money if they weren't blowing it on these guys. Good thing I'm more of a DS and PC gamer. Analysts rarely even deal with those platforms. Thank heavens...

Everyone should own Super Street Fighter IV

@aGiantSquirrel I know, its basically a kart racing version of little big planet and that game sold over 3 million units.

Tauu is right. Michael "Pac-attack" Patcher IS the man! His show owns!

"2K Games' Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City for the PlayStation 3, each expected to sell 100,000 copies for the month." Are you on crack? not even the 360 version sold that much. I hate these analysts they know s***! It's only fun watching Patcher's show pac-attack cuz he's interesting but these predictions are retarded. Wanna know how much Splinter Cell sold? Wait for the results! It's like as if each person wants to show off how many right ones they predicted. Am I the only one who thinks this is stupid?

Very true that alot of factors affect game sales. Well I try to do my part :)

Also a major factor in today's gaming economy is the length of time it takes to make a AAA title. Lets be honest, if the game sees less than 3 years of dev time its just not up to the increasingly ridiculous standards we as gamers set for ourselves. I got my first nintendo in 1985 so i've been through all the console generations and i can tell you firsthand that what i look for in a game gets more and more strictly laid out every few years. It really does take insane production values for us to feel we wisely spent our hard earned $60.

Red Dead Redemption = millions, and don't forget that towards the end of this year we'll have Halo Reach, so what do we have to worry about again?

@green_dominator You're pretty much dead on. Only problem is, investors listen to them, mainly because they don't know anything about the area either. Totally pisses me off, but the analysts tend to predict something, then invest counter to their prediction as soon as the effects are seen. Now we also have this really annoying computer predictor thing that simply says "oh well the stock was down at this specific point in the past so let's tell everyone it's going to be down again" (called BuyIns). It predicted EA would lose 7% today... guess what, EA lost 5% today. You end up with a total confirmation bias because the people act on the analysts predictions, causing them to come true. It's really pathetic how much control an analyst has over investors.

Oh man i pre-ordered Shrek 4 about 6 months ago. The wait is finally over!! .........wtf really? Even the youngest gamers out there know such a bargain bin piece of crap is not worth more than a rental.

The GameSpot editors write too much about sales. It almost seems like they are constantly in their headlines.

The major problem with the current state of the industry is these so called experts who probably don't even play the games they talk about and most likely don't even own a videogame system, I'm just guessing really but my point is who gives a flying @#$% what they say or predict??? I think if these analysts were to just shut up maybe business wouldn't be so tainted by early guesses on how a particular game will sell and maybe big publishers would be surprised when numbers start to turn in their favor. What I'm trying to say is let the industry do business in peace, their projections are only hurting sales and business......

"Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City for the PlayStation 3, each expected to sell 100,000 copies for the month. " And yet PS3 fanatics said that this belonged on the PS3, yet on the X360 The Lost and Damned alone sold over 2 million copies/downloads, since it's release and the combined two DLC's sold 4 million copies/DL's on the 360, in a bit over a year's time.(TBOGY , 8 months) I guess MS's $50 million to lock down the rights to the DLC's for a 1 yr span, worked out to near perfection, ha? And i personally like the PS3 as i do my X360, but the GTA gamer has moved from the PS2(last gen) to the X360 for this generation. The sales of Red Dead Redemption should be very interesting.

Red Dead Redepmtion, thats where I would put my money

Michael Pachter is the man. Watch his show on Gametrailers.

If I had a wii I would buy Mario Galaxy 2.. everyone that I know raves about the first game..but I dont own a wii and never will. So that leaves me with Alan Wake and Red Dead Redemption this month. God of War 3 and FF13 still not finished and still playing alot of Bad Company 2 multi on the pc.. along with the halo reach beta and SC2 beta... I have to cut some genre's away because there are just too many games.

Ahhh =( Gamespot removed that crazy guys comment. You guys should have left it, if only for comedic value. lol

I would not be surprised to see April sales fall, I mean in March you had several big blockbuster titles while the games in April were not as big, with the exception of Splinter Cell (which I think will top the April charts due to it being released early in the month than anything else). I'm very happy to see that Monster Hunter Tri will like make the 150k range. That correlates pretty strong to the VChartz numbers. Nice to see a 3rd party hardcore game sell decently on the wii after so many failures. In terms of Super Street Fighter IV, 150k seems kinda low but it was released in the last week of April, had it been released the same time as Splinter Cell it probably would have more like 200-250k. Fighting games are more of niche market compared to the latest Splinter Cell that strives to be assessable, at least among hardcore standards. Oh and I think that May will be big based on Super Mario Galaxy and Red Dead Redemption alone, but you have a lot more other titles this month compared to last month so I do think that May will go up. Too bad about the delay in the release of numbers for this month, I guess I'll be looking at VGChartz for May.

Why are these analyst being paid to guess wrong about the gaming market. I think Pachter gets it right maybe 1/4 of the time. I make better analytical guesses then this guy. I predict these guys will be wrong again, yet still get paid their big checks. lol!!

@issa3703: Have you ever considered writing poetry?

look this game splinter cell is good for every thing but its short and boring game

What? No Modnation Racers listed in the top May releases. That game should easily sell over a million copies. Well, I guess it does release late in the month. Is that the reason for not including it?

I wonder how much more money the industry would have if people like this weren't getting paid to "guess" what they think is going to happen.

Check out last year's PS3 sales to the sales of these days .. PS3 is on the rise .

And we care because?

yea i think u can take lost planet 2 considering the reviews it got

@MrBubbles 59 You forgot 3D Dot Game Heroes! I'm skipping Red Dead. Don't care for GTA, not a fan of westerns.