[E3 2019 Speculation, Rumour, & Discussion Thread]

Van Joel Sandwich said:
what about January? Or December?
(The date isn't probably changin I know)
We better roll with it and do our best to help.
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December is generally not considered a good sales month. I dunno why, something to do with Black Friday? Don't quite understand it personally, but it's definitely a bit of a black hole for a reason.

January might be okay at the minute but I expect it to fill up over time. Plus the PR impact of another delay.
 
Off topic, is there anyone else who has every single one of these 'big' November games pre-ordered? It would be interesting to see what people's buying habits are like to determine how much of an issue it really is.

I have them all pre-ordered, but I might cancel Star Wars... I'm not sure based on what I've seen. Sticking with the others for now though... (that's Shenmue, Death Stranding, Pokemon and Doom Eternal).
 
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Spaghetti said:
December is generally not considered a good sales month. I dunno why, something to do with Black Friday? Don't quite understand it personally, but it's definitely a bit of a black hole for a reason.

January might be okay at the minute but I expect it to fill up over time. Plus the PR impact of another delay.
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I'm not any gaming sales expert, but the thought that it should release in a somewhat less stacked month makes sense to me.
With a propper marketing campaign December could be good, but I don't know.
Maybe Deep Silver knows what they're doing maybe they don't. Results will tell.
 
Reprise said:
Off topic, is there anyone else who has every single one of these 'big' November games pre-ordered? It would be interesting to see what people's buying habits are like to determine how much of an issue it really is.

I have them all pre-ordered, but I might cancel Star Wars... I'm not sure based on what I've seen. Sticking with the others for now though... (that's Shenmue, Death Stranding, Pokemon and Doom Eternal).
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Not me. I'm just buying Shenmue.
But I definitely what DS is all about.
 
Yeah, like I said before, Horizon Zero Dawn, Nier Automata, the Nintendo Switch (!) and Breath of the Wild all launched within a week of one another in 2017. Then Persona 5 came out a few weeks later. Mass Effect Andromeda was in March too. There was a few other games around that time too (iirc) like Yooka Laylee, Ghost Recon, For Honor etc.

Unfortunately, crammed schedules happen, but it doesn't mean all games can't survive in their own right. The most important thing is not to get negative reactions. As soon as ME Andromeda got the crap faces meme doing the rounds and reviews came out giving it 6 out of 10, it was game over for it.
 
I never preorder. I haven't really had the time to play a lot of games in the past couple of years but I still tend to buy games spontaneously out of excitement or being in the mood for a specific experience. It just takes me a while to finish them, and I definitely only play one game at a time.

If I had unlimited time to play, out of the "big" holiday games I'd pick up The Outer Worlds (25th Oct), Shenmue III, and possibly Pokemon Sword, if I was really in the mood for it.

I still haven't played the vast majority of Metal Gear games so Death Stranding has limited appeal, and Star Wars should in theory appeal to me but at the moment it just doesn't. I don't really play shooters so stuff like Gears and CoD don't even enter my radar.
 
Metal Gear Solid 5 was really bad in my opinion. I'm fully in the minority with that opinion, I know, but it just felt unfinished to me. It seemed like they made a big open world playground for the player and forgot about the story and what made the first few MGS games so good...
 
Reprise said:
Metal Gear Solid 5 was really bad in my opinion. I'm fully in the minority with that opinion, I know, but it just felt unfinished to me. It seemed like they made a big open world playground for the player and forgot about the story and what made the first few MGS games so good...
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That is an opinion shared by many, me included! Heck, I even went out of my way to buy the Special Theme console Edition, it was a really big deal for me and equally one of the biggest let downs I've ever experienced in gaming. Most of the missions felt like padding with no real character involved and.... well I could go on slating that game for hours.

I look at Death Stranding and I do find myself concerned by it's open world nature, most of the gameplay we've seen focusing Sam traversing open landscapes - I fear it will be like Final Fantasy XII again, landscape after landscape but barely any proper decent scenario writing. I know we've seen many cutscenes within the trailers but so did The Phantom Pain - That particular shot of him kneeling on the ground in agony is what sold me and it wasn't even in the game!:
30093008
 
Van Joel Sandwich said:
I'm not any gaming sales expert, but the thought that it should release in a somewhat less stacked month makes sense to me.
With a propper marketing campaign December could be good, but I don't know.
Maybe Deep Silver knows what they're doing maybe they don't. Results will tell.
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Sure, a less stacked month would be great... but you'll be hard pressed to find a month like that for a while. Even the emptier months right now might not look like that as we get closer to 2020. Everything is hitting at once. People were even getting weird about August because of launching the same day as Control and WoW Classic.

There's nearly 100 million PS4s out there alone, and if any of those big games get even a tenth of that it'll be considered an absolute smash mega-hit. Shenmue can get by on much, much less of that market; so the numbers are still in our favour. Not even counting potential success on PC, or in China. Deep Silver will do their part, we'll do ours, and if the vibes and word of mouth are good enough I think we can make a success of a competitive part of the year.

And @Reprise brings up a good point in asking us if we've got any of those other games pre-ordered, because although we're Shenmue fans first and foremost (I think?), we're also just gamers generally. It should help illustrate that not everybody cares about these big games or are drawn to them as fiercely as we might initially think.

Personally:

Death Stranding - Will buy and borrow a friend's PS4 for. Have no doubts I can finish it before Shenmue III, because it's probably a lot shorter and linear than some people are expecting.

Jedi: Fallen Order - Don't care.

Pokemon Sword & Shield - Maybe in a quiet year, but even then would defer to near Christmas.

DOOM Eternal - Don't care.
 
Reprise said:
Off topic, is there anyone else who has every single one of these 'big' November games pre-ordered? It would be interesting to see what people's buying habits are like to determine how much of an issue it really is.

I have them all pre-ordered, but I might cancel Star Wars... I'm not sure based on what I've seen. Sticking with the others for now though... (that's Shenmue, Death Stranding, Pokemon and Doom Eternal).
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Apart from Shenmue , the only other game I’m truly excited about is DS. If what Hideo says is to be believed, it’s going to be a significant departure from anything else out there.

Having said that, I’ll most likely get Fallen Jedi too.
 
Reprise said:
Off topic, is there anyone else who has every single one of these 'big' November games pre-ordered? It would be interesting to see what people's buying habits are like to determine how much of an issue it really is.

I have them all pre-ordered, but I might cancel Star Wars... I'm not sure based on what I've seen. Sticking with the others for now though... (that's Shenmue, Death Stranding, Pokemon and Doom Eternal).
Click to expand...

I'll grab Death Stranding; Doom Eternal and (of course) Shenmue III

Death Stranding -- I'm interested purely because of Kojima...but at the same time, I think it looks kind of pretentious as all hell. I'm a bit mixed on it to be honest, but I'll grab it for sure just to see what it's all about.

Doom: Eternal -- YES PLEASE! I LOVE DOOM. Have loved Doom ever since I was a kid so YES PLEASE!

Shenmue III -- No explanation needed! I've been waiting for this game for near 20 years like the rest of you...it will be the only thing taking the bulk of my time in November.

I have zero interest in Pokemon and what I saw of that Star Wars game really didn't impress me so I don't know if I'll bother with it.

But I'll be grabbing Death Stranding, Doom Eternal and Shenmue III without question.
 
Reprise said:
Yeah, like I said before, Horizon Zero Dawn, Nier Automata, the Nintendo Switch (!) and Breath of the Wild all launched within a week of one another in 2017. Then Persona 5 came out a few weeks later. Mass Effect Andromeda was in March too. There was a few other games around that time too (iirc) like Yooka Laylee, Ghost Recon, For Honor etc.

Unfortunately, crammed schedules happen, but it doesn't mean all games can't survive in their own right. The most important thing is not to get negative reactions. As soon as ME Andromeda got the crap faces meme doing the rounds and reviews came out giving it 6 out of 10, it was game over for it.
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As a counterpoint, Blur and Split/Second: Velocity released in the same month, and as a result both studios were shut down because arcade racing fans only bought one of them. A niche audience being split means almost guaranteed failure.
 
Reprise said:
Off topic, is there anyone else who has every single one of these 'big' November games pre-ordered? It would be interesting to see what people's buying habits are like to determine how much of an issue it really is.

I have them all pre-ordered, but I might cancel Star Wars... I'm not sure based on what I've seen. Sticking with the others for now though... (that's Shenmue, Death Stranding, Pokemon and Doom Eternal).
Click to expand...

I dont pre order games. I pay for them when they release after I do research on bugs, offline playability, DRM, etc.

BUT I am interested in most of the games set to release in November.
 
DigitalDuck said:
As a counterpoint, Blur and Split/Second: Velocity released in the same month, and as a result both studios were shut down because arcade racing fans only bought one of them. A niche audience being split means almost guaranteed failure.
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Never heard of them. Is Shenmue 3 really comparable? Plus, I think what goes in Shenmue's favour is there isn't really anything else like it. It's not derivative of any other experience you can get and really is unique, with a special charm.

I can see what you're saying though.
 
There are no games that directly compare to Shenmue -- I do think that's a big plus. Judgement is probably the closest thing and now they're releasing 4-5 months apart. It also seems like there are no gigantic open world games, which is also a plus.
 
Spaghetti said:
You must have read wrong or gotten mixed up with something else.

The Day One edition has been known about for a while because of a listing on Koch Media's store page, and details of a CE leaked through Amazon Italy a month or two back. The new preorder website has buttons for both in the code/assets that haven't been activated yet, plus the Day One version box art.

We're just sat on our hands waiting for it all to go live. Same with Steam pre-orders.
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I'm going to have a lot of Shenmue III copies if this is true. 3 from Kickstarter plus D1E, CE, and maybe standard edition too if it has separate boxart. More sales!
 
Still hoping for delay. No point fighting an uphill battle when you dont have to. Average Joe only has 60 bucks to spend on a game and is spoiled for choice in November. I really hope Deep Silver know what they're doing. Would be a crying shame for shenmue to flop due to a miscalculation of the market.
 
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