The first place to test drive the 2009 Nissan 370Z won’t be at your local Nissan dealership. It won’t be at the Los Angeles Auto Show next month. It’ll be on the game console of your choice on November 18 when Need for Speed: Undercover is released. Nissan and EA have teamed up to provide Undercover gamers with the world premiere of the new car, which will be finding its way to dealerships in early 2009.
It’s boldly claimed in the press release that “[t]his marks the first time an auto manufacturer has partnered with a videogame company for the world premiere reveal of a car.” We’ve seen similar reveals before, though — specifically with Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The GTbyCitroen and the Nissan Skyline GT-R were both available to drive in-game before you could find them at dealerships.
Keen on finding out exactly how they could make such a claim, we contacted EA and a spokesperson told us, “This is the first time that a car has been exclusively revealed in-game before it has been shown in real-life.” The 370Z won’t be publicly shown until November 19, a whole one day after Undercover is released in North America.
Still, the fact that Nissan decided to even do this suggests that they’re actually getting something out of deals like this. Clearly, Polyphony Digital and Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi aren’t the only ones forging close relationships with car manufacturers. Don’t be surprised if we continue to see more deals like this in the future.
The father of Gran Turismo, Kazunori Yamauchi, has suggested that we might not see the full Gran Turismo 5 before 2010. Continued support for GT5 Prologue becomes even more important as a result. We’ll be seeing the first wave of that support tomorrow when Sony launches Gran Turismo TV in full force, which will consist of both free and pay-per-view programming, including Top Gear, Super GT, and Best Motoring. (You can find the full listing of content here.)
For the first two weeks, all of the PPV content will be available for the discounted price of $.99 before shooting back up to the regular pricing, where content “will start at $1.99.” You can draw your own conclusions about how expensive the programming might become.
Aside from the Gran Turismo TV updates, the game itself will be updated, too. Changes to penalty judgments, additional tire choices for Time Trial mode (I can only imagine how insanely boring that must sound to non-hardcore fans), and improved physics during collisions while playing online. Nothing game-changing from the sound of it, but tweaks are more than welcome.
You can find out more about Gran Turismo TV and tomorrow’s update on PlayStation.Blog.
The title of this story sure is a mixed bag for Gran Turismo fans. Joystiq got to speak with the father of Gran Turismo, Kazunori Yamauchi, and he revealed that Polyphony Digital is focusing on Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. He suggested that the proper version of Gran Turismo 5 might not be released before 2010, which somehow wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
Prologue should continue to see significant support, with new cars, tracks, and features. So there’s at least some consolation for GT fans.
But that’s not all — Yamauchi confirmed that Gran Turismo for PSP is still in development, although you shouldn’t expect that until after Gran Turismo 5 is released. So, yeah, it might be a while.
It has been one crazy week, and the craziest thing happening at home base while Jonathan and Shawn were in LA was the amount of assets we received in our inboxes on a daily basis. I have decided to post the lonely screens and trailers that did not get their very own post into one large post full of links. There’s just is not enough time to post them all, so this is the best way I know how.
While this is not a comprehensive list of what was not covered, it is close. There are more screens floating around out there that we have yet to get, but if or when we do, we will do our best to wow you with them.
Below you will find a list of games from A-N and a link to the trailer or screens for it. Be sure to look over the list carefully, because something you are interested in may be included. I have highlighted ones that may be of special interest.
There was bound to be a long tail on a game like Grand Theft Auto IV and its impact on hardware sales. It’s already been a month since the game was released, and we’re beginning to see some of the post-launch numbers that we couldn’t get from the April NPDs. According to Chart-Track, the Xbox 360 has sold 18% more consoles than the PlayStation 3 in the UK since GTA’s launch, Eurogamer reports.
In addition, sales of the game are also higher on 360, with a 57% share of sales for the game in its first four weeks of availability. Approximately 1.3 million copies have been sold between the two consoles, which would place it as already having outsold last year’s best selling game, FIFA 08.
There’s a good point that Eurogamer made which is worth keeping in mind. You should take these numbers with a grain of salt because the PS3 already saw a boost in its sales from the release of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, so there was only so much more GTA IV could do. For the full year thus far, the PS3 has sold 10% more systems than the 360 has; prior to GTA’s release, it was twice that. So while the numbers may be a bit misleading, it does seem clear that GTA has been extremely helpful to the Xbox 360’s case in the UK.
Okay, with Microsoft out of the way, it’s now Sony’s turn to give their spin on the NPD Group’s data for last month. Of the three current-gen consoles, PlayStation 3 sold the least in April (albeit by an extremely slim margin) and, overall, Sony platforms didn’t have a particularly good month. So what angle would Sony take?
The main talking point focused on year-over-year sales growth. The PS3 sold 127% better than last April, which isn’t huge, but software sales were up 410% to over two million units, thanks in large part to Grand Theft Auto IV.
Sony was also proud that, with 1 million copies of GTA sold, 23.6% of PS3 owners in the U.S. had purchased a copy, which is a 29% higher attach rate than GTA had on Xbox 360. (According to their math, the game had an attach rate of around 16.75% on 360.)
I found it somewhat amusing that the press release claims the PS3 “continues [its] blockbuster year” when, from a hardware standpoint, it really had a poor month. But that’s a minor gripe; what else do you expect from a press release.
As it turns out, GameStop’s claim that 64% of all copies of GTA IV sold were on Xbox 360 was spot on — 64.9% is the exact number if you do the math with NPD’s numbers for the month of April. Between the 360 and PS3 versions of the game, GTA IV managed to sell 2.85 million even though it was released on April 29 — not too shabby.
Mario Kart Wii, meanwhile, sold more than a million copies. That’s a million plastic wheels out there in the wild, imparing people’s ability to control the game properly. And of course, with the number of Wii systems that sold in April, you know you’re going to see a lot of Wii Play sales, and that we did. Smash Bros. had a big drop off, from 2.7 million in March down to 326k in April. Not that Nintendo should be complaining, with five of their games in the top ten, with six of the top ten on Nintendo platforms.
April 2008 Software Sales
GTA IV (360) – 1.85M Mario Kart Wii w/ wheel (Wii) – 1.12M GTA IV (PS3) – 1.00M Wii Play (Wii) – 360,000 Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) – 326,000 Gran Turismo 5: Prologue (PS3) – 224,000 Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness (DS) – 202,000 Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time (DS) – 202,000 Guitar Hero III (Wii) – 152,000 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360) – 141,000
Call of Duty 4 on 360 continues to do its best Mustafa impression, as it just refuses to be kicked out of the top ten. Could next month finally see it kicked out? I’m going to go ahead and predict a bold “no.”
Sony announced today that the cumulative worldwide shipment of the Gran Turismo franchise has exceeded 50 million units as of April 30, 2008. This sales figure was achieved over the past 10 years and 4 months since the launch of the first title in the franchise – Gran Turismo, in December 1997.
The Gran Turismo franchise, from the original Gran Turismo to the latest Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has received high regard not just from game fans, but also from professional racing drivers and people in the automobile industry.
The seventh installment, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, has recorded strong sales since the first launch in Japan in December, 2007, followed by North America and Europe in Spring of 2008, with more than 2 million units of cumulative shipment worldwide and contributing to the further expansion of the PS3 platform.
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has been a huge success, particularly in Europe, but Sony has told GamesIndustry.biz that it expects LittleBigPlanet to outsell the first significant GT game to come out in over three years. (Sorry, Gran Turismo HD simply doesn’t count.) I don’t think anyone is doubting the success of LBP, but outselling Gran Turismo is no small task.
“We’re hoping sales will be higher than GT5 Prologue,” said SCEE prez David Reeves. Kaz Hirai also spoke at this week’s PlayStation Day, and was quite high on the game.
“These are genre-defining titles, something we’re very proud of, and just one facet of the rapidly growing world of PlayStation,” said Kaz Hirai, president of SCEA.
“[LittleBigPlanet] will completely revolutionise the way gamers interact with their games, especially through the community functions and the ability to interact with LittleBigPlanet lovers around the globe,” he added.
So, anyone want to place any bets? How many sales do you expect to see LBP sell in its first few months at retail?
I guess this was to be expected, but it’s still nonetheless very impressive. GTA IV is just one day out of the gate and already it’s smashing records. Early sales figures are showing that 609,000 copies of the game were sold on day one, edging out the previous record-holder, GTA: San Andreas. But the one piece of data that’s sure to have the fanboys arguing for awhile is that the Xbox 360 version accounted for 55% of sales, narrowly edging out the PS3 version. That’s hardly a win though, considering the millions that Microsoft pumped into promoting the 360 version, compared to Sony’s much more humbler promotions. GTA IV’s sales however did substantially surpass each console’s previous “day one bestsellers”: Halo 3 for Xbox 360, and Gran Turismo: Prologue for PS3. Either way though, it’s looking to be a very good week for both Sony and Microsoft. And yes, I’m sure every single person who bought the game is a minor with psychotic tendencies.
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