Silent Hunter has only really been a pure Ubisoft project since SH3, they were involved with SH2 but only near the end of it's development, previously the SH series was published by SSI / The Learning Company/Mattel

I would like to see some sales figures.

So would I! But the fact that they are happy with the results is a good omen for the future of the series. Maybe they could revist Destroyer command or head to a battle outside of WW2/ American and germany???:hmm:

I think a "success" in sales terms for a subsim usually means over 300,000 copies sold. It would be interesting also to know if SH3 or SH4 has sold more copies.

Here is an interesting quote on the original Silent Hunter by Joel Billings from the book "Interactivity in action"...

The product with the most potential for SSI is "Silent Hunter" , it's a world war ii submarine simulation, and submarine simulations sell really well. - Aces of the Deep sold a ton. Silent Hunter is an outstanding product in every way and we are thinking it may well become our all-time biggest seller.

That's quite a compliment and an eye-opener considering SSI's output at the time.

Thats what I am talking about, cold hard numbers!

SH5!

back to Atlantic please :D

Realistically, in terms of mod'ing and the work of 3rd parties to improve the game?... I would think that contribution is relatively insignificant when it comes to gauging the success or failure of a release.

How big is our little mod'ing community here and at other major SH4 web sites? 1,000? 10,000? Out of how many total? Somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 maybe? And how many of those even bother to apply the official patches to the game?... never mind mod'ing!

I would guess that the vast mjority of sales go to folks who play an out-of-the-box version of the game for maybe 10 or 20 hours tops, then move onto something else.

Let's be real... we few are among the last hold-outs in an X-box world.

JD

Yep, I tend to agree, this is not the world of Microsoft Flight Simulator. I remember when it was all Freeware and now they sell an AC addon for $39. No one so much as blinks or complains. Each time they release a new version, all the Addons get re-written and re-sold as new. There is power in numbers that is for sure.

Totally Agree
 

There can be no doubt, that without the Modding community this game would not have been succesful. To the Modders:up: You guys rock:rock:


And as for a Destoyer Commander 2 Man I pray they will it would save me alot of work !!

Ubi said it was a success? HA! Let me see how this goes now. Ubi releases a very buggy game- check! Then they released a patch which fixed SOME things- Check! Then some smarty pants decided to release 1.5 with U-boats!- check! Did they mention the hard work Mr. Leo and others did to keep the game 'floating'? Personally I believe the reason SH4 is a success is the mods. Period! Ubi should not take any credit, they already have our money!- RANT OVER!:yep:

I can only imagine what Dan, Mihai and the rest of the team must think when they read some of the comments in this thread. Hopefully they won't decide that it's really not worth the effort after all.

For all of the senseless ranting at Ubisoft people should remember that they are Ubisoft.

JCC

Oh man, oh man! Let this be the little push we need for Destroyer Command 2.

Just imagine how awesome convoy escort missions in the Atlantic gale could be with the new engine.

Yup, its getting old.

In my opinion, the devs are unsung heros. They didn't make the deadlines, they had to meet the imposed deadlines. Having gone through this games files again, and again, and again, looking for ideas or things to fix; i can tell they had ALOT more in mind that they wanted to do, but wasn't given the time to do it. Its the stuffed suits that set the mandates, the devs had to jump through the hoops to meet them, and then THEY take the flak for it when the mandates prove to be too aggressive and unobtainable.

Trust me, Nobody wants a polished, finished game more then the devs. One thing i find ironic, is how folks are so quick to praise the modders, and equally quick to denounce the devs. They irony? In modding Sh4 and having worked on/created a package like TMO, it has only given me an appreciation for all the headaches and heartaches the developers experienced or have had to put up with.

I personally don't trust this, since it seems like it was taken out of context. But hey, I won't believe Ubisoft cares for or even remotely likes Silent Hunter until they allow the devs to withdraw a $100,000,000 dollar check in their name to develop an SH themed web mini game and then follow it up by having Yves Guillemot run accross a field, stick his head between his legs and kiss his own ass. I AM WILLIAM WALLACE! :D They may take our textures, and they make take our gameplay depth, but they will never take OUR WHINING!