GTAIV sales: it's the attach rate, stupid!
Not to be outdone by the Pach-attack, UBS analyst Ben Schachter has his own Grand Theft Auto IV predictions to lay down. Schachter is keen to point out that one cannot measure the success of GTAIV by comparing its sales to previous iterations of the game, the reason being that there just aren't as Xbox 360s and PS3s in people's homes as there were Playstation 2s and Xboxes back in the heyday of the series. The key then, according to Schachter, is to measure the number of copies sold versus the number of consoles out there. In other words, GTAIV's success will be a measure of its attach rate.
Said attach rate could hover around or over 30% (representing 7-8 million copies) should GTAIV's metacritic average remain above 95% (which is looking good so far). He notes that an attach rate higher than 26% "would beat expectations." Assuming the game reaches the mark of 8 million copies sold, we're talking around $480 million in sales. And that's before you factor in Europe, which Schachter believew "could do similar numbers."
Schachter concludes his remarks by noting that a potential delay caused by an (in his view inevitable) EA acquisition of Take Two is "extremely unlikely," so all you worriers out there can rest easy.
[Via Joystiq]
