The last few weeks have seen a flurry of AAA game releases with
Battlefield 1, TitanFall 2, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and Dishonored
2 all releasing one week apart. Early sales for TitanFall 2 and Call of
Duty: Infinite Warfare have according to some reports fallen below
expectations which has had some announces that the franchises were losing
their fan base and would be major disappointments.
The problem with this is that it is like calling a race before the first
turn. Over a four-week span, gamers saw four major titles released all
with a $59.99 street price and higher if you wanted Special Editions and
other enhanced versions that were available.
Even at the basic price by the time tax and/or shipping is applied this
comes out to roughly $65.00 a title. Yes, I know some get a lower rate or
do not play sales tax, but for most gamers, all four titles would come out
to an investment of $250.00.
Combine that with the release of the Playstation Pro, the Playstation V.R.
and people starting to budget for the Holiday Season and you can
understand that for many, there are only so many ways they can slice the
gaming pie up and still stay within their budget.
As I said on radio the other day, I would be curious to see where the
sales numbers are after the first week of the year, when people have
received new games and consoles as gifts as well as hardware updates for
their PC. Let us not also forget about the number of gift certificates
that will be given out as well which all combine to give gamers more
options.
It is the natural order of things that some titles simply will not catch
on as expected and will be overlooked, but this release cycle was unusual
in that there were four games of a similar style all released on top of
one another which meant that many gamers had to make some hard choices and
as such it is only natural that some would fall by the wayside. Time will
tell what were the hits and misses, but for now, let us all enjoy the fact
that we as gamers have some great gaming choices available to us as we
wrap up the year.
