Halo 3, Madden NFL 08 And Grand Theft Auto IV Are Most Anticipated Titles According To IGN Entertainment's GamerMetrics
Upcoming Titles Have Potential To Account For One Third Of All Console New Release Sales In The U.S. During The Second Half Of The Year
BRISBANE, Calif. - July 9, 2007 - IGN Entertainment's GamerMetrics, the video game industry's leading business intelligence tool, revealed today that Halo 3, Madden NFL 08 and Grand Theft Auto IV will be the most sought-after and purchased games for the second half the year, according to the site's proprietary data. Just in time for the year's biggest gaming conference, Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), GamerMetrics has put together a "Half-Year Preview" guide, which includes predictions for the highlights and lowlights of the coming months.
Among the highlights for the upcoming months, GamerMetrics predicts that Halo 3 will take home the prize of best-selling title of the year. While many analysts are accounting for a sure-fire hit with the upcoming Halo 3 release, GamerMetrics has also compiled a list of titles hoping to survive the pressure from Halo 3, Madden NFL 08 and Grand Theft Auto IV. With over 300 titles fighting for the remaining 70% of new console release sales, GamerMetrics is predicting the survivors will be: Guitar Hero III, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Half-Life 2: The Orange Box.
"While many analysts and journalists are predicting Halo 3 to dominate the market once it is released, GamerMetrics is also focused on determining what games will thrive in spite of the hype and emerge as winners in the second half of the year," said Nick Williams, analyst, IGN GamerMetrics. "As the gaming industry continues to grow and develop, GamerMetrics will continue to evaluate the games and trends that are driving forces behind the video game industry's success."
Beyond highlighting the most anticipated games of the coming months, GamerMetrics' "Half- Year Preview" also distinguished some key findings, including:
Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft has a lineup with plenty of depth beyond Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV, including a diverse mix of console exclusives such as Mass Effect, BioShock, Too Human, and Two Worlds PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system has flaws in its lineup as it has yet to provide gamers with that killer application for the PLAYSTATION 3, and -- with the exception of Grand Theft Auto IV, which is not console exclusive -- it looks like this will not come until early 2008 Also with flaws, Wii video game system from Nintendo has a lineup that is extremely top heavy and does not feature the depth of content that might be required to reach the console's expanding audience demographics The Super Smash Bros. franchise's latest title, Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii), is poised to repeat the success of Super Smash Bros. Melee, which happens to be the best-selling Nintendo GameCube title of all time Nintendo DS title, The Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, is scheduled to launch in October and is the runaway favorite to be the best selling Nintendo DS title of the second half of the year Electronic Arts' second-half lineup accounts for almost 20 percent mindshare on IGN over the last 90 days with key titles, including: Half-Life 2: The Orange Box, Army of Two, Need for Speed Pro Street, Mercenaries 2, Medal of Honor: Airborne, and Rock Band Action/Shooter titles account for almost 50 percent of mindshare with the exception of Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV, a title releasing in these genres will experience tough competition regardless of platformThe 27th Issue of the IGN GamerMetrics Industry Report features insight into gamers' awareness and purchase intent for over 300 video game software releases of the second half of 2007. The titles within the report are ranked by Mindshare, an aggregate metric reflecting the relative share of awareness and purchase intent generated by a specific title on IGN.com. Awareness data is based on the traffic patterns of the 16 million monthly visitors to IGN.com, while Purchase Intent data is based on the activity of over 600,000 IGN.com registered users who regularly update their Wishlists, Email Alerts lists, and Collection lists. For the "IGN GamerMetrics Half-Year Preview," Mindshare is relative to all titles scheduled to launch between July 1, 2007 and December 31, 2007 and is based on a 90 day period of IGN.com data ending on June 24th.
For more information on GamerMetrics or to obtain the complete GamerMetrics "Half-Year Preview" Guide, which includes the winners and losers for the upcoming months, please visit http://corpmedia.ign.com/corp/press_assets/GM_2H07Preview.pdf.
About IGN Entertainment
IGN Entertainment, a unit of Fox Interactive Media, Inc., is a leading Internet media and services provider focused on the videogame and entertainment enthusiast markets. Collectively, IGN's properties reached more than 30 million unique users worldwide in the month of May 2007, according to Internet audience measurement firm comScore Media Metrix. IGN's network of videogame-related properties (IGN.com, GameSpy, FilePlanet, TeamXbox, Direct2Drive and others), is the Web's number one videogame information destination and attracts one of the largest concentrated audiences of young males on the Internet. IGN also owns and operates the popular movie-related website, Rotten Tomatoes and one of the leading male lifestyle Websites, AskMen.com. In addition, IGN provides technology for online game play in videogames. IGN is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices throughout the U.S. and in Montreal.
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