The Convoluted Bundle Wars

Welcome to the Bundle Wars. The very confusing Bundle Wars.


Check out that bundle........and notice its from the previous generation...............


Currently in the lead is Sony, who seems to be doing everything right. Even though they are becoming the most expensive system out there come November, they have the mighty and powerful Grand Theft Auto 5 supporting them. GTA V will be bundling with new PS4s in the Japanese region, European region, and if we American gamers are lucky, the American region. Sony might just be waiting to see if Microsoft or Nintendo is pulling out any surprises. That being said, it should be a sure-fire deal to make this deal a reality in the North American borders….it would make sense…right?

Microsoft has a Halo Bundle…..for Japan. No announcement for the United States getting the same deal, despite being dead last in the Eighth Generation and trailing Sony by a landslide. And despite the price cut, still no big bundle announcement to become the second major blow to the main competitor Sony. Now at $350 it only trails the might-as-well-be-non-existent-yet-it-still-won’t-die Nintendo WiiU. Microsoft needs to expand its horizons and not look like just a system with shooters. With two good Forza games, a San Andreas upgrade, and Sunset Overdrive Microsoft should really consider expanding its bundle options to deliver the best deal in the market. Until then, it just looks like a less-expensive PS4 with fewer games.

Of course, Nintendo has the biggest hand of them all. Never mind Call of Duty, never mind Grand Theft Auto 5. Nintendo has the awkwardly and rather uninspiring-titled Super Smash Brothers for WiiU coming out in November (Why wasn’t it called Smash Brothers Armageddon or Smash Brothers 4?) yet there is no mention of a bundle. How incredible would it have been if Nintendo announced a Smash Brothers Melee/HyperMelee bundle that would include the game, the Gamecube controller, AND Virtual Console access to Smash Brothers Melee? How much sense would it make for Nintendo to fight Microsoft’s price cut with the announcement of the Virtual Console finally expanding to Gamecube games?

Despite all the success from the three systems, their potential is still exponentially off. Sony needs to create the GTA V Bundle and make it for everybody, don’t be exclusive. And hey, why not also throw in a Last of Us Bundle? You are now the most expensive system in the market, so you need to crank up the value of the system while awaiting the next major game. Although you are winning the indie and third-party market, that can only take you so far until its obvious you need a first-party AAA title pretty soon.

Microsoft. For goodness sakes, Halo is a beast in the United States----where is the bundle announcement?!? You are dead last, with few prospects outside the Halo border for 2015, why aren’t you…never mind, I am done with you.

Nintendo, I am also done with you. Not bundling Smash Brothers, your biggest game in about a decade and extremely crucial to the future of your system, is a silly idea. Still not having Gamecube games in the Virtual Console is also a silly, silly idea. And still charging $5-$10 for NES and SNES games when the XBox 360 got a revamped PS2 game at just south of $4 is undeniably city.

As of now, nobody is winning the Bundle Wars, because nobody has figured out how to correctly market to American gamers that have yet to make their decision. And Black Friday is just four weeks away.





Pick it up people….

The Non-Existent and Suddenly Now Required Hype Machine of Nintendo

Look at this trailer. Honestly, take a good look at it. It doesn’t reveal too much plot but unveils enough content to get you excited for a movie that is still many, many months away. And when that time finally, finally comes it will dismantle the box office and will handily walk away with millions of dollars without a single review actually affecting it. Marvel and Disney have now become the kings of hype in the Hollywood business. They have taken familiar properties and made each movie a major event, a major chapter in the comic book universe. And unless there is a total, epic flop to the likes of a Green Lantern, then we are going to see their strategy remain consistent for years to come.




Activision has essentially copied this strategy by making every November the month of the Call of Duty. They have thrown three different companies to make these games to ensure that there is no cancellation, no delay, no issue, and a meticulous consistent schedule. With the video game industry being as cutthroat as ever, Activision’s yearly delivery of Call of Duty games has been a near miracle, and the astounding success that follows shows that gamers don’t mind the product in the least bit. And with the upcoming version releasing for the XBox One, PS4, PS3, and XBox 360 we will be sure to see more great financial numbers arriving for what has become the biggest third-party publisher in the land.



Notice we are missing a company in there…





Nintendo has once again lost another third-party franchise because of its WiiU still utterly lacking in third-party sales. And this leaves Nintendo without a consistent presence in the month of November. Yes granted they do use the month often, but there isn’t an anticipation for the month unlike that of the online FPS community with their Call of Duty. What Nintendo is totally lacking is their convincing of American and European gamers to look forward to November and a consistent output of video games. Even though we have seen plenty of Super Mario on the WiiU, we have yet to see Zelda, Samus, Kid Icarus, Fox, Captain Falcon, Kirby, and even Pikachu make some noise on the system.

Nintendo needs to adapt the Marvel technique of releasing games. Nintendo needs to set release dates for popular franchises well ahead of time and build the hype through posters, through trailers, through sneak peeks from other games, and through perky rumors that will invade the Twitter and Gaming Universe. No more secret release dates, no more uncertainty until merely months before the actual release, and biggest of all no more scattered release dates. They need to realize that great games will die a quick death if given an awful release date no matter how good it might be. Eternal Darkness was a psychological horror video game released in 2002 in the month of-----June. If they had simply waited until late September/early October in the Halloween season we probably would have gotten a different result. Nintendo has a strong brand connection and needs to find a way to keep the hardcore crowd excited while entice the curiosity of those looking from outside the bubble.

Pretend like Nintendo tomorrow unveils this upcoming major gaming lineup:

Super Smash Brothers 4:
November 2014


Star Fox: Alpha Unit:
September 2015


Metroid: Extinction:
November 2015


The Legend of Zelda: Beyond the Grave:
September 2016


Super Mario World 3: Triple Threat:
November 2016


Pokemon Universe:
November 2016

Wouldn’t that entice curiosity out of you, even if it might be years before you actually see the game? Wouldn’t it stir up conversation? Wouldn’t it stir up the slightest bit of controversy seeing this lineup? Now, not all games have to attach a long-time-from-here release date, but the major franchises deserve this hype, deserve the press months before the finished product even arrives. And you and I both know that we will see most (hopefully all) these franchises on the WiiU, so why not give us some anticipation to chew on? Why not give us a couple first-looks and first-glimpses to get us excited? Give us small trailers, some awesome posters, something.

Avengers 2 is still 7 months away and it is the most discussed movie of the entire month of October. And that was all because of a trailer. Nintendo’s brands and franchises and fanbases are strong enough to draw the similar type of hype. You can’t spit a small E3 trailer and be done---remind us of what’s coming. With Nintendo pretty much being all by itself with this generation, it needs to churn out as much as possible out of the exclusive IPs that it owns. Smash Brothers this year would be the perfect jump-starter for these other franchises to grow some fans, grow some hype, grow some anticipation, and give the Nintendo WiiU some desperate life.



Nintendo, you have great ideas being done by talented people. Let the world be aware of this.

Stepping out of the FIFA Shadows

NBA Jam, now slightly forgotten by the new generation of gamers, was a massive, massive hit back in the 90s. It was an arcade gem that was easy to learn, easy to play, easy to get addicted to. It would make its way into the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, while at the same time catapulted the NBA into new popularity heights nationwide. NBA Jam turned most of these players into household names and the league experienced a nice growth of youngsters that started getting involved with the NBA season. Even teams like the Charlotte Hornets, whom was rarely ever a threat in the playoffs, were extremely popular with kids and teenagers as their logo colors became a fashion statement.

Now I bring up NBA Jam because there is a league that could benefit from such a popularity spike through the power of video games. Major League Soccer has been attempting to inch its way into the territory of the Big Four (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL) for the past several years, with its popularity remaining a bit stagnant and still not quite getting the required love of ESPN and Fox Sports. With the superior European leagues suddenly getting a boost because of the World Cup, MLS’ growth amongst soccer enthusiasts has improved but only slightly. But if there’s a way to entice a new generation of fans, the gaming industry can definitely be a starting point:



EA and MLS needs to make an exclusive game together.



Yes, MLS is on the wildly-popular FIFA franchise that has quietly emerged into the new Madden. But it has to sit on the shadows of an entourage of superior leagues with superior teams and superior players. It needs to separate itself from the pack and become its own entity. It needs to develop a brand all on its own. It needs to become an accessible, easy-to-play, arcade-gaming soccer franchise with all the big names from MLS. Not saying this will save the league, but any type of positive exposure would definitely help.

Soccer games believe it or not have always been wildly successful, even if few companies actually bother to make them. From FIFA (100 million sold) to Pro Evolution Soccer (81 million sold)  to the Mario Strikers franchise (4 million sold between two games and minimal marketing---wait, where is the 3DS version!!?!??) soccer does well considering it’s the most popular sport in the world and the one that has the attention of the most countries. Now how many of these countries know a lot about Major League Soccer? I assure you the answer is very, very little. But the NBA also used to suffer from this before the 90s when the Dream Team/NBA Jam tag team made the league an international brand. Now in the global scale, the NBA is bigger than even the NFL.

In order for MLS to grow, it needs to slowly but surely distance itself from Europe and become a more confident brand. This means less connections to the more popular leagues, from television exposure to the game industry. EA would win by becoming the exclusive shareholder of the MLS brand garnishing it the extra sales from a March soccer video game release (Before the MLS season starts) and then later in September with the FIFA annual release.

The sports gaming industry has seen better days, as even Madden has taken a few steps back in its success scale. But I firmly believe that if MLS finds a way to remove itself from the FIFA lineup and become its own gaming franchise we can see plenty of success coming from EA and the league itself. Think about it, there is very little competition in March in terms of video games; coming out with an arcade-like soccer game in the middle of spring break would be perfect to collect a new young crowd.

MLS 15 won't solve all the league's problems, but with some effort it could open the door to new opportunities.

How Destiny Went Hollywood to Survive the Negativity

So, you are a big gaming company with a big video game coming out. At least $300 million was spent on this game. At least.


You secretly realize that your game may not turn out as well as you planned.


Gaming journalists are highly anticipating getting their first look at the game before it releases to the public. So the question is, do you give it to them and absorb the upcoming mediocre reviews? Or do you limit the pre-release reviews, limit the press, and just allow for the opening weeks to attempt to win back the money coldly spent on the heavy marketing and the game itself? Well of course Bungie and friends chose the latter, launched a layer of journalism controversy when the reviews started arriving, and it overshadowed the great opening week. Also overshadowing the criticisms were the barrage of cool commercials flying left and right on all your cable networks.

Time will tell if the seemingly vengeful reviews will negate some of the sales in the long run but one thing is for certain: the 2 million it gained on opening week can overcome any obstacle leading up to it. Taking a page from the Hollywood Blockbuster, we are seeing an increase in companies releasing AAA titles with extreme hype and plenty of incentives on that opening week before anybody can realize how flawed it just might be. While smaller and indie games depend on the good reviews (more so than movies to be honest) to make its way to a successful run, the blockbuster strategy allows for companies like Activision to just have a good hype train to make back its money before the criticism can even arrive.

Call of Duty owns November every single year---no matter how bad the game may or may not be. American gamers love familiar shoot em’ up/online territory, and Call of Duty has become that go-to franchise. Selling 9 million at least per game since Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty claims the month of November, starts the hype from the summer, and allows for the dedicated fanbase to do the rest. Movies do best in the summer, while video games do best in the fall---especially in the months of September (Halo, Grand Theft Auto 5) and November.

Video game creation is tough, because making games that have the AAA look cost more than ever. They cost the amount of a summer film. So the goals in the past 5-7 years have shifted to instead of catering to the gaming journalists that can spread the good word around, they decided to invade the ad space of popular websites and invade the television sets. Long gone are the days when Mario Kart: Double Dash got a 7.9 from IGN and launched a wave of controversy. IGN and Gamespot don’t have the power of before, and we see magazines and websites like 1up and Gone Gold falling by the wayside.

The Hollywood trend has been in gaming for a while, but Destiny is arguably the first example of a game that not only managed to overcome the negative reviews, but managed to overcome the gamer outcry and gaming website’s seemingly disdain taste for the new franchise. And this might be the sign for things to come as now places like IGN don’t get the easy access to new games if the big companies don’t believe in it. Destiny survived the Twitter negativity, and few things can ever survive Twitter hate.

Although I don’t see Eastern Hemisphere gaming giants like Nintendo tread down this path (Nintendo doesn’t even really believe much in the power of having the right release date) Western Hemisphere companies like Activision, EA, and Ubisoft follow suit with focusing its budget more on marketing and less on the game itself. It might come off as cruel and misleading to the gaming public but consider this: the gaming industry doesn’t allow for you to flop and survive. Flops can cripple the biggest of gaming companies no matter what the track record is. Midway Games did amazing in the 90s with NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and Mortal Kombat. Now it’s in the middle of Chapter 11. The gaming industry is cruel, and every possible edge will be used to ensure that the companies of today don’t fall like the companies that struggled to get out of the 90s and 2000s.

Although video games make more money than movies nowadays, expect gaming companies to look as summer blockbusters when figuring out a way to churn out guaranteed hits. It has worked for Call of Duty (a franchise that never releases a game with more than 2 hours of single-player gameplay) and Destiny (A seemingly incomplete and bugged-out game)---so expect the strategy to expand.