Take Two's Carnival success
Most of the attention on Take-Two this year has understandably been on the takeover drama with Electronic Arts and the record breaking launch of "Grand Theft Auto IV."
But in looking over its earnings yesterday, it struck me that the success of "Carnival Games" in the past
year really has been impressive and, more importantly, overlooked. The original game for the Wii sold over a million units from last August through March, which is pretty good for any new IP, but especially a casual one on a single console. It and the new version for DS, which launched in early July, sold another million through the end of that month. (I should note that Take-Two actually said it "shipped" over two million copies, meaning they haven't all sold through at retail yet.)
Given the trouble that most third party publishers have had in creating successful titles for the Wii (save, of course, for "Guitar Hero"), this is a pretty good achievement in a year. Not to mention creating a new casual franchise, which lots of companies with a background in more hard core titles are talking about but haven't accomplished yet. Even the much heralded (and, I'll venture to say even though I haven't played "Carnival Games," much better) "Boom Blox" hasn't sold close to a million units last we heard.
Even if most of us in the gaming press aren't taking notice, since this is not the kind of game we typically play, it seems other publishers are. It's probably no coincidence that Warner Bros. recently announced a Guinness World Records game, while Brash is doing a game based on the Six Flags theme parks. Both are for the Wii and DS, but not 360 or PS3, of course.
Of course, I can't totally forget about "Grand Theft Auto IV," which has gone from 8.5 million units sold as of May 31 to over 10 million as of July 31. With a PC version and new downloadable content coming for the holiday season, I'd bet this monster still has a few million units left in it.
No word from Take-Two, however, on how July's "Civilization: Revolution" sold. Which means it probably didn't come out of the game incredibly strong.
Chris Morris reports on the business and culture of video games and offers analysis of recent events and industry trends.
Subscribe to this blog's feed
I always heard something from my neighbor that he sometimes goes to the internet bar to play the game which will use him some habbo credits，he usually can win a lot of habbo gold，then he let his friends all have some habbo coins，his friends thank him very much for introducing them the cheap habbo credits，they usually buy habbo gold together.
Posted by: buy habbo gold | March 11, 2009 at 09:45 PM
It's weird how it did do so well. I mean, the controls and gameplay are utterly horrible in it - No one in my family could really stand it for too long since they felt it was too complicated and not really that fun to begin with.
Posted by: Frank | September 08, 2008 at 01:15 AM