Could The Gran Turismo 5 Delay Hurt Sony Sales This Christmas?
Recently, Sony came out and stated that Gran Turismo 5 would be yet again delayed from it’s November 5 release to “Holiday 2010”. With just three weeks to go, there is speculation aplenty as to what is causing this many times delayed game to be pushed back at the last minute.
According to VGChartz, Kazunori Yamauchi posted on his Twitter, “Apologies for the delay, It’s because time and labor were spent ironing the kinks out of [the game’s] complex system. I’m really sorry. Everyone, it’s inexcusable… Wait a little longer.”
Gran Turismo 5 Is A Very Highly Anticipated Christmas Release
It kind of sounds like they found a pretty critical issue with the game at the last minute. But only time will tell. But what does this do to their Christmas lineup?
VGChartz has listed over 200,000 pre-orders for GT5, so while it’s not a blockbuster game for the PS3 like Call of Duty: Black Ops, it’s still a flagship title with a lot of anticipation and buzz about it. And with any flagship title, any console maker can be guaranteed that many of those pre-release orders will also come with game sales.
Sony’s 2010 sales lead has been precipitously slipping ever since Microsoft released the Xbox 360S this last June. And while the Move has already garnered 460,000 sales in it’s first month, the highly anticipated Kinect sensor is expected to do far better, even more so with the recent news that major retailers globally have been selling out of their allocated pre-orders. Sony needs to bolster their holiday lineup if they’re going to maintain the ever so slight sales lead that was at one point over a million unit gap.
Looking at the presales charts so far, Sony could very well lose out to Microsoft at the end of the year if it’s only exclusive in the top ten pre-sales is pushed back too far. Those software sales may be reduced with people opting to purchase different games instead, or even worse, forgoing the purchase of a PS3 altogether for one of its competitors.
Hopefully we’ll hear some new news soon. But if Sony doesn’t get GT5 out of the door by Black Friday, I think it could very well have an impact on their year end sales.
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