ShellShock: Nam '67 - Gold and delayed

[Mr. Natural]

Story on Blues News and credited by them to our own Frans, Shellshock Nam '67 has gone gold and is being delayed on all platforms!
Linkage (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040617/175047_1.html)
On May 20, 2004, the Company reported that the recent and unexpected softness in the games market, particularly in the US, was negatively impacting unit sales of Hitman: Contracts even though it was charting well in Europe and the US (and continues to do so). Since that time, this market trend has not reversed and the industry is about to enter the traditionally quieter summer period for game sales. Given these circumstances, and notwithstanding that the game is now ready to release, the Board has decided to hold the release of ShellShock: Nam '67 until September so as to provide this important new franchise with a better opportunity to deliver its true potential.

So what they gonna do if HL2 or Doom 3 ships in September?
:doa:

[Rafal Dudek]

LOL um yea......

[Rattlesnake8]

Well if they take the extra time to make improvements then ok.. otherwise it'll turn into a Duke Forever or Team Fortress 2 where they keep making improvements, then they realise that they took to long and there are better engines and features in games already on the market so they try to swap engines and improve the game, it takes to long... repeat. The end result is the game never coming out and lots of people dissapointed.

[Mr. Natural]

I think this quote from Gone Gold pretty well sums up my thoughts:
Eidos is the same company that released an early beta (at best) of Tomb Raider in late June last year because it was the end of their financial year and they were desperate for revenue. The reviews were horrible and Eidos missed their year-end targets substantially. Then Paramount blamed the bad game for the bad box office receipts for the equally bad Tomb Raider movie. I wrote about that here and also set a single column record for use of the work 'suck.'

So June rolls around again and you know what that means.

You've got city boy hands, Hooper. You been countin' money all your life.

Eidos says that the games market is 'unexpectedly soft' because Hitman: Contracts sold poorly. So it's going to hold Shellshock: Nam '67 for another three months and release it in September.

What are you? Some kind of half-assed astronaut?

Hitman sold poorly? Wow, I didn't see that coming. From a mile away.

What could it have been--the weak reviews, the outdated graphics, the poor animation, or even the fact that you released basically the same game for the third time? Hitman needs a walker, guys. That should have been a great franchise, but you've steadfastly refused to improve it, and then you blame poor sales on us. There's no softness in the games market--there's softness in your games product.

Eidos is going to hold a new, potentially fresh game for three months because an old, worn-out game didn't sell well. Maybe that's what they did with Hitman: Contracts, because it looks like it was finished three years ago. Even better, instead of getting released at a time when there's almost no competition, Shellshock now gets to face about half a dozen premier titles. Best of luck against Half-Life 2, guys.

Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'...

I know this sounds crazy complicated, but here it is: if you make games that people want to play, they will buy them. Oh, and you should probably finish them before you release them. That helps.

Could somebody please call NCsoft and tell them the gaming market is soft? Because everybody I know, and his brother, and their aunt, are playing City of Heroes. I guess we better all stop right away.