Ahead of Electronic Arts' fiscal 2008 Q1 results expected on August 1st, Mike Hickey of analyst group Janco Partners has predicted that Q2 will see the publisher execute a "quantifiable cost reduction plan," as well as look more strongly at acquiring IP rather than producing it internally, with Take Two noted as a recommended target.
Q1 Performance
Hickey expects the publisher will report Q1 results in line with its guidance and continue to maintain its fiscal 08 goals, with strong performance of Harry Potter, Command and Conquer 3, and titles from its Sims franchise.
"While we believe their operating prospects look exceptional deeper into the current console cycle, they have suffered in the near term from poor product quality, escalating operating costs, and a misaligned resource allocation focus," said Hickey, adding that fiscal '09 might change that with a lineup of potential big earners including Spore, Sims 3, Rock Band 2, Warhammer Online and a slate of casual content for Wii, DS and online. The titles are in addition to perennial hits like Madden.
TheGamer Writes "Harmonix has proven plenty of times it can make Rock Band work without instruments."
I mean, yeah, but was anyone saying otherwise? The fact is people liked the plastic instruments rather than pressing buttons on a controller. They enjoyed the simulated experience.
"Work"? No, but to be good? It's absolutely necessary. Not having the accessories is like playing a lightgun shooter with an analog stick sure it works, but one experience is completely unique and fun as hell, and other is torture trying to make do playing in a way it was never meant to be played
I think CHEAP plastic instruments is THE reason why the instrument-genre ‘died’.
People invested in buying the game AND the peripherals, so the guitar, the dj-set, the drum, whatever, and the experience was absolutely fantastic. Great fun, great music, etc.
But then the instruments would break. A button would stop working, or your hits wouldn’t register, and that kind of hardware failure would end in you not being able to play the game as intended, and thus you not getting the scores you deserve.
So, now you had a great game, but a broken instrument, and nobody is gonna buy a new plastic instrument every 3-6 months in order to keep playing the game.
A solution would have been to release better quality instruments (obviously), at a slightly higher price, so you could have kept the new games coming and the genre alive, but sadly, that didn’t happen.
Bust a Groove, Gitaroo Man and Parrapa the Rappa were such good games. Neither needed any extra peripherals
Player 2's long-form feature about kids and video games continues with a look at introducing toddlers to games for the first time.
Music rhythm games dominated the video game market in the mid-2000s. Unfortunately, the genre would fall from grace shortly after finding success.
More like faded away than failed. Failed implies it was new and didnt take off... that is not the case. Rhythm games were hugely popular but the lights dimmed and the show is over.
You would think the current situation would cause a resurgence but im actually seeing more people picking up real instruments and learning to play. My son is one who started out on GH and now he plays real guitar.
I lost interest when they stopped allowing you to use the controller to play with, just couldn't get into playing with the guitar.
Not the sole reason, but over saturation by Activision releasing 5 GH games in one year, charging full price for all of them while only Metallica and GH5 were worth it.
I dont think these games failed at all. People aren't going to keep buying games and peripherals over and over. All songs need to work on either rockband or guitar hero thru updates. Guitar hero live was actually good but rockband with all its songs and same equipment killed it.
I'm sure part of the reason they faded away, at least over the long term, was that you couldn't download them digitally.
Whatever EA touches either turns into crap or get destroyed.
if EA buys take-two,then it's downhill from there.look what happened to criterion.EA bought criterion to get black(damage technology),burnout(started to surpass N4S series) and renderware(almost every dev house used it).
and now they are starting that downhill spiral.now black is nowhere to be found,burnout looks weak and no one uses renderware anymore.now devs have to use the buggy but great looking unreal engine 3.
i don't fully hate EA.but their size is ruining the industry.they either buy you,out advertise you with bucket loads of cash,out license you or put you out of the market or business.
sounds like walmart.
i wonder what their thoughts are on the NFL license $$$$.... here's to APF cutting deep into madden's pockets this year.
And none of that seems to be have spent on making quality games, people just buy the games because of the name of the game but it might look pretty on the surface but until you get into it then you see how rubbish it can be.
Also people buy EA games out of desperation because there arent enough games out, people like me and the NFS series - Most Wanted was poor and Carbon was even WORSE!
So if EA cut costs then I guess its Xbox 1 and PS2 quality games on the 360 and PS3 then.
nothing new but ubisoft anyone? a studio with lots of ips and current history with ea ubisoft seems like a good candididate.