Does this "feeling" involve a plan to raid Rockstar's main office and demand the immediate submission of "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars"? If it does, I'm in.
So does anyone think this will come out before Christmas? I am predicting a New Year/early spring release.
Rockstar is ready to release this but hates the appstore pricing model where people whine why a premium game is 9.99 and continues to go into a 'I will wait for the 99c sales before getting this' mentality. Don't you guys get it? Releasing this for the iphone will hurt the PSP and DS sales where the game is being sold for 30$ and no one is complaining! The same goes for AC 2 Discovery!
oh... so around 300-400 then since port means you lose some stuffs that you can do another thing but no on this thing...
Is this speculation or have you read/heard this somewhere? Just curious. And if this is the case, they should release it for $30. They'll get some complaints, but if a crippled version of Slingbox can stay on the top grossing list since it's release, this should have no problem with sales.
I got some contact in the biz! The FACT is most big wigs in the handheld gaming biz hates the appstore race to the bottom model!
Idk where you got the info from, but there is a possibility that it is true. And even if it isn't, I believe in this idea, because people just aren't willing to pay much w/o complaining in the Appstore.
I'd happily pay full price for a properly developed and LONG game like this. You criticise people's willingness to pay higher prices for the majority of the games on the appstore which is true in a sense, but with a very valid backing: Consider the fact that the majority of games on the appstore are from un heard of smalltime devs with no real track record OR ones who make games purley for the mobile market. Even gameloft games, despite being some of the best quality titles available still feel like short mobile games and are no way worth more than a $10 pricetag. Many devs vanish after their app doesn't do as well as they hoped, lots of apps are buggy, many promised updated fail to ever emerge etc. The bottom line is that every game you buy on the appstore is a total risk and this is why lower prices are more favourable. There is a fantastic community of customers who are happy to bite the bullet and buy a few bum games because the loss on their part is minimal. Without this cheaper pricing most of the small devs we see as successes on the appstore wouldn't even be around.... so we really shouldn't knock the pricing or the customers mentality. A game company like Rockstar comes along and releases an already established game from an established IP and charges $30 i think people would go for it. This is exactly where the premium appstore would come in. GTA has had success on the DS and on the PSP and most people know that it is well worth this price and has a tonne of depth and gameplay value.
I have to agree that although the initial media blackout was probably due to not wanting to steal the spotlight from Chinatown Wars PSP and then The Ballad of Gay Tony, now the quiet is probably over concerns of pricing. Personally, I am willing to pay $10+ for AAA console titles to come to the iPhone/iPod Touch as long as they deliver the quality and quantity of content to justify the price. And by all accounts on previous platforms, Chinatown Wars definitely should have the good story, detailed presentation, good gameplay, and lots of re-playability to justify higher price points. I always thought that if anyone could come up with a game to legitimately reverse the App Store pricing trend, it'd be Rockstar and GTA. Despite this, I can see Rockstar being in a tough spot. Selling it GTA on the iPhone for $10 would undercut other platforms and selling it from say $30 would be a huge shock for App Store users. Is the gameplay in Chinatown Wars still divided up by islands like in other GTA games with bridges being closed until a certain point in the story is reached? If so, that seems to be a good way to split up the games. Maybe Dukes and Broker are offered with the base game for $10, Bohan and the center islands together as a $10 DLC and Algonquin as the final $10 DLC. That would at least avoid the initial sticker shock without compromising price points on other platforms. And having played GTA IV, getting an island the size and detail of Dukes and Broker for $10 with all the associated side activities besides the campaign is still a good value compared to say Gangstar. Of course, I'm not familiar with the story in Chinatown Wars so perhaps this type of split is impossible without rewriting the story. Regardless, I hope Chinatown Wars on the iPhone is closer to the PSP version in terms of graphics than the DS version. The 3rd gen devices should of course get a more lively city with more cars and pedestrians. Ideally, they could get some nice OpenGL 2.0 shader effects that even the PSP version can't have, but of course writing a separate OpenGL 2.0 path may not be the most efficient use of resources right now. It'd be great if we could either get all the PSP missions and radio stations though either included in the base game or as DLC. And of course iTunes integration. It's too bad, Chinatown Wars doesn't have voice commentary on the radio, otherwise Independence FM commenting on your iTunes collection like on the PC version of GTA IV would be very interesting.
I am inclined to agree with this theories! Marketing wise it will be unwise for Rockstar to release this game and conform with the appstore premium price of 9.99 as it will kill the possible income of the psp and ds version as both are still selling at 3x the price ( esp the PSP version). I also believe that ubisoft may have also delayed the game Assasin's creed Discovery to protect their investment with the NDS platform! The sad thing is untill the appstore got out of this pricing cliche very few big games made by big gaming co. will make it's way to the appstore! To make a great game requires great investment and until we prove that we are willing to pay more for premium I wouldn't expect the likes of Rockstar to really take the platform seriously. But if anything can break this 9.99 cliche it will be GTA and I hope Rockstar stood up and test the waters with this one!
There may be something to that theory. I've been consciously holding out on buying Chinatown Wars on the PSP because I know that it's coming out for the iDevice; I'm sure I'm not the only one. A lengthy delay won't tempt me to pick up the PSP version (I have plenty of other games to play in the meantime), but I'm sure it's changing the equation for a lot of multiple-platform gamers.
too bad but i think that's the truth we should accept it but i wonder why they said that it would be out few days after the consol version even if they are already thinking of that issue they should have told us already the situation
Me too, I haven't got the PSP version , which is also the highest rated game for psp, due to the knowledge that it's also coming to the iphone. But a little more delay and I might consider getting it already I have reason the believe that the iphone version of this game will be out only after the psp sales has gone stale, which a think will be for a long long time
Mark me down as someone else willing to pay $30 for a quality iphone game developed by a proper dev team like rockstar. the reason most people won't buy apps for more then 0.99 - 4.99 is that most of the apps are pretty shallow in terms of content
I know Driver from Gameloft doesn't directly compete with GTA, but perhaps Driver's imminent release is encouraging Rockstar to put some final polish on Chinatown Wars. I can't complain about that, since I hate it when companies release games and promise pretty significant functionality in a later update. One way or another, I'm guessing that Rockstar will still meet their original Q4 release date. I wouldn't be surprised if they launched on the third week of December since both the DS (Mar 17) and PSP (Oct 20) versions had third week launches. With all digital downloads, they can launch as close to Christmas as they want without it being a logistical nightmare. And Christmas time is peak iTunes time, particularly Boxing Day when people open their iPod presents and load it up, so launching a few days before should be about right. Given the history of Tuesday launches, Dec 22 seems like a good date and would still give review sites a few days to get out their reviews before going off for Christmas. It's all speculation on my part of course. There's supposed to be a Red Dead Redemption trailer coming out today so hopefully we'll hear something in the next week once that's out of the way. EDIT: Actually in regards to Driver, given GTA's history of making fun of Tanner from Driver, like the Two-Faced Tanner mission in GTA III, maybe Rockstar is rushing through a parody mission, rampage or easter egg in Chinatown Wars?
