Yep. And if not enough customers buy what they are offering, they won't make it again.

One reason why SH5 is being aimed at the casual gamer is SH4 did not sell well enough. And how many here refused to buy SH4? Enough, obviously. Granted, SH4 was unfinished, but wait till you see SH6. It will be 100% unfinished.

My personal opinion,

After seeing the videos posted , i think the majorit will buy SH5, and all the grandstanding on SH5 will tend up being alot of hot air. SH5 looks like its going to be Das boot the video game. People on subsim tend to focus on the uboat romance and "these poor men" who are the underdog's that they like to root for. They won't be able to resist, because SH5 will deliver exactly what they've been wanting for all these years.

"The Das Boot Experience".

Seriously, how many times have you heard that expression? Seems like alot. The thing is, the culture here, your cool if your hardcore simulation grognard. So i think people will complain about it being gamey to save face or maintain impressions in the community, but end up buying it anyway because it has the experience they've really been looking for.

hehe :up:

Agree with aim.
 

I agree that not buying is really the "killing-field" for the franchise.
I mean it's a sitting on 2 - chair approach; Not buying with get a, like Neal said, a 100% unfinished SH 6.
Buying we push this "3 - letter" thingy forward, for worse or good??:hmmm:
( I am buying for support , but with mixed "3-word thingy" feelings)

(( BTW,, (tiny out of topic warning) I saw the rampange that came now about Bioschock 2 with having to reg. through Live and have to save with Internet hooked up, and it sounded/gave the impression to have this all the time while playing.
I bought the game and of course it was all of this the very first time starting the game to do the upload of profile, getting save going through profile etc,etc, but then it was "offline" for save and normal gaming and so on in "normal off-line mood".))

Who knows.....SH5 may only appeal to the casual gamer. For the diehard realism fans there is always SH3 and more mods to make it even better than it is. The same may be also true for SH4. These two games are already years ahead of SH5 with respect to the above. But then again, someone, someday may put the mods to SH5 and turn it into a really historic and fun sim.

SH3 sold well didn't it? If SH4 didn't it's because it was unfinished and very buggy. If SH5 fails in sales it will be because of the DRM/OSP. So in my opinion, if the SH series ends, it will be squarely the fault of Ubisoft and its decisions. Not the customers.
Like with any other thing, give the customers what they want (within reason needless to say), and you'll have great sales. What would've happened to Coca-Cola if it decided to stick with its 'new coke' even though the customers disliked it? And if Coca-Cola went down because of it, who's fault would that be, Coca-Cola or the customers?

You bring up a good and easy to understand point. I guess all the games had bugs and flaws which the modders turned into great artwork. Take SH4, out of the box, and to a casual game player it was a great game to many from that perspective. The historic diehard simmers viewed it dirrerently. Having said so, SH5 to the majority of the general game playing populus will be a great game out of box, and those people exist in far greater numbers than the majority of members on this forum. That is I believe where Ubisofts target and numbers are.

All I want is a highly tuned SH3 with better graphics and lots of depth. If that's delivered in the final product than I'll buy it but if not than I'll wait and see what the community does with it.

So far this game hasn't crossed into 'must buy' territory, I just keep thinking how many man hours were poured into, say the reloading animations and how lackluster they look, where could those man hours have gone instead? I hated the TDC of Sh4 and I could NEVER be as successful as I was with the SH3 TDC.

If I can input a single solution and fire at multiple targets with it than I'll be happy.

Now, this is the first time I see this mentioned here, plainly. And now that you mentioned it, Neal, could you please elaborate on why SH4 was not a top-seller?

I have my own ideas, but I would really like to hear those of others, especially yours.

Maybe this is the market/product analysis Ubi never cared to do.

BTW, I believe SH4 was such a disappointment in sales because it was the same in terms of gameplay and even moddability. Instead of building upon its famous predecessor, it tried to reinvent things and failed in a lot of aspects (ships physics and interface being just two such examples).

No one is rooting for Ubisoft's failure. What we are saying is ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. :stare:

It has become obvious that the die-hards here will buy the game no matter how badly Ubisoft screws them over, but the rest of us have had it.

Excellent and refreshing posts that are easy to digest.

:up: and a :salute: to you all.

I agree.:up:

[QUOTE=dcb;1270341]Now, this is the first time I see this mentioned here, plainly. And now that you mentioned it, Neal, could you please elaborate on why SH4 was not a top-seller?
I have my own ideas, but I would really like to hear those of others, especially yours. End QUOTE.


It is fact that Pirated Ownership outnumbers Legal Ownership. The game was a piece of crap out of the box when viewed by the die hard purists, but when viewed by the casual gamer it was fantastic, but the "shareware" community destroyed sales, and not one thing else, as evidenced by the number of pirates playing.

Ubisoft is targeting the casual gamer and no one else. I know they have got to do something to protect sales. Speaking of pirates; I believe more than 65% of members on this forum play with pirated game copys.

And you are basing that accusation on what evidence?:nope:

I believe that 100% of the statistics in the quoted text are fabrication.