I thought I might mention it anyways, since certain keywords in resumes really stand out to me.

Sometimes nothing turns to be nothing and sometimes it turns out to be something.

Wallace D. Robinson is Lead Lighting Artist for Rockstar Toronto.

He worked for Rockstar San Diego for more than 5 years, where most of his time was spent on Red Dead Redemption.

Max Payne 3 was announced in 2009, when he was still in SD working on RDR.

When he moved to Rockstar Toronto in August 2011, he started work on an "Undisclosed Project". Apparently, R* Toronto is working on another project and it's not Max Payne 3.

Also, pay attention to his job description:

* He copied-and-pasted his RDR job description to his Undisclosed Project.
* Developers use "Unannounced" and "Untitled" for game names that haven't been selected yet or announced. "Undisclosed" typically means existing franchise.
* He has RAGE experience with RDR and R* Toronto has also been working with the RAGE Engine for Max Payne 3.

I don't see why RDR would need a lighting artist (unless it was more than a PC port) though, so this could be Bully 2 using the RAGE engine, or another game they're working on besides Max Payne 3.

I've always found that Rockstar employees are even more careful than Blizzard when it comes to posting online information, but I'll dig around to see if I can find out anything else. It's probably too early into the project to find anything though.

The RockstarToronto.com and RockstarVancouver webpages are no more, they've taken them down and are now being re directed to the main Rockstargames.com website. Those are the only two sites I had followed, but if there were any other independent Rockstar websites, they would all have been changed as well.

The new Rockstar Toronto website has also been updated with the following statement: "Presently, Rockstar Toronto is working away on multiple titles, including the forthcoming Max Payne 3."

They been hiring many new employees over the past few months, for both console and PC positions. Once Max Payne 3 is finally completed, we'll have a much better idea of the other titles they're working on. Hopefully RDR PC.

The Rockstar Vancouver page mentions that they're only working on Max Payne 3 right now. Rockstar has been very quiet about the MP3 development progress and there hasn't been a release date although it's suspected to be late 2012. It's been delayed multiple times so far.

Rockstar Vancouver has been hiring for Audio/Gameplay Programmer and Level Scripter/QA positions over the past several months. I can't tell if they are hiring for the same position over and over though. All of the other Rockstar divisions are currently hiring, but Vancouver has nothing on their job board as of today. Rockstar Toronto, though, has been on hiring blitzes all year for several different jobs and they're still hiring.

That raises an eyebrow. Everyone is hiring except for Rockstar Vancouver, they're only working on Max Payne 3, possibly hiring for a couple replacement jobs only, it's been delayed multiple times, and Rockstar doesn't like talking about it.

Rockstar just announced (a day before the webpage changes) that they'll be presenting at the upcoming 8th Annual Equity Growth Conference. It will be taking place on September 13, 2011. I'm not expecting any big announcements from this conference.. the only thing that came out of last years talk was that "Kids Are Embarrassed To Play Wii According To Take-Two". However, a few weeks later there were huge shake ups within Take Two, and Ben Feder (the guy who gave the talk at G7 Equity Growth) stepped down as CEO of Take Two.

I wonder if there will be any other shake ups (e.g. firings or layoffs) this coming October or sooner. September might be a good time to sell stock and then purchase back in November at a lower value. :)

So Homefront launched today, I forgot all about it actually. =]

It will be a couple days before THQ releases sales figures information (if it's not doing so well, though, they won't release many details or even make an announcement at all.) The revelation of the Single Player mission being only 5 hours long couldn't have helped matters.

I'm always interested in future predictions made by industry experts, but that sort of information is very difficult to come by. No one wants to make educated guesses any more (for fear of being incorrect), and most analysts wait until the last minute (eg 24 hours after launch to make a "prediction of first week's sales") or wait until they can see Pre-Order numbers before making any predictions.

Here are the most prominent sales predictions for Homefront, for example:

1. Lazard Capital analyst Colin Sebastian predicts 1.5 million sales by the end of this month.

2. Michael Pachter doesn't expect Homefront sales to do very well, but he never provided any figures and kept his comments as vague as possible (he's been doing this more often unfortunately).

3. And then there's "HULIQ", they forecasted that sales figures for Homefront will hit 1.25 million in the first 6 months and 2 million by 12 months. Provided, of course, that they release one high-quality DLC, and offer a stable multiplayer experience, etc. I've never heard of HULIQ before, but the webpage looks a little sketchy and needs some major updates.

Most recent reviews of Homefront have made one thing very certain: the multiplayer experience isn't anything like Black Ops. In BO, an inexperienced camper can just stand in one place and get a 20-kill streak. Homefront is different, leaving brainless gamers very frustrated with the game since they won't survive as long as they could in BO (or earn achievements as quickly). Experienced players are finding the multiplayer experience quite refreshing and fun however. It's like Cataclysm Heroics for FPS players.

So, although initial sales won't be as high during the first week - I think the game can have some real staying power thanks to it's multiplayer experience (the "perk" system looks very cool too).

I wish that there were more industry experts out there predicting this kind of stuff though, even if they're wrong at least they can give a reason as to WHY they made their prediction. The best articles I've read are the ones with figures, past comparisons, trends, and logical reasoning as to why they picked that number.

For example, consider LA Noire.

I make a lot of decisions based on what people are saying about the game, and the general consensus is that LA Noire is going to be an awesome game. But, I'm getting a very bad feeling about what people are really saying about it.

Most are saying it awesome, but they're not saying the gameplay or story is awesome, they're praising the setting and new facial capture technology. It's not, "You gotta play this game, it's brilliant and so fun!", instead it's "OMG. Check out that facial capture technology! Look at their faces, they're so real! The faces! The faces!".

For those fortunate enough to have played the LA Noire demo, they played the best parts: the clue gathering and interrogation mini-games. However, 20 minutes isn't enough time to make a decision about the game.. did they consider that they would be playing the same mini-games over and over and over throughout the entire length of the game?

The game has been described as Rockstar's most adult oriented or "serious game". It's a slower paced game than their other lineups, and a lot of time has been spent on facial capture and voice acting. So, you can anticipate a LOT of cut scenes and player conversations.

From what I've seen, it appears to be a very linear (and slow paced) interactive detective novel, with conversational mini-games, and a lot of cut scenes that could potentially interfere with gameplay. Once the novelty of their faces and voice acting wear off, that's what you're left with.

Word is that it's impossible to fail a case too (all of the cases are pre-determined too, it's not like Clue where there are random killings, random scenarios, and random evidence.)

I know that I'm going to enjoy the game myself, but I'm getting a bad feeling that many players are going to be disappointed after playing the game "for real". Re-playability is also a big concern in it's present state, but it can be solved through DLC.

Bethesda's games for example (Fallout 3, Oblivion, Morrowind, etc.) I absolutely loved, but I _hated_ the same old NPC interactions and vendor menus (which they replicated across all of their games). It's the one thing I never really like about the game, but fortunately they weren't a significant part of the game. In LA Noire, player interactions ARE a big part of the game. When questioning suspects, I suspect that players will start seeing the exact same facial cues and "looks" over-and-over, which kills a lot of the fun in try to determine guilt, innocence, or deception (of course, they need to dumb it down though so as not to frustrate inexperience players.)

Pachter said that he would never underestimate Rockstar again, so whimsically predicted that LA Noire would sell as many games as Red Dead Redemption had. Problem is, Rockstar is publishing the game this time around.. Team Bondi is developer. The reason he underestimated RDR the first time is because he thought the genre/setting was too limited. I think this is true for LA Noire though, a western shooter has a tremendous market size compared to a detective game.

Is it mostly an interactive detective novel though? Do most people realize that it's not like GTA/RDR in terms of gameplay? I don't know.

What I do know is that I'm getting the same old SPORE-like vibe from this upcoming game release. Screenshots and demos are showing off the best parts (to control perception of the game), there's a huge amount of hype, gameplay videos are limited, players are expecting one thing (but they're going to get something different), and gamers are forgetting about re-playability and repetition (e.g. mini-games) within the game.

Anyways.. I think there's going to be a big explosion of sales during the first month, as people will be expecting the currently promoted game (the perception is RDR in the 1940's), but they'll be getting something completely different out of the box. Once the initial novelty wears off though, sales will decline and I don't think they'll reach the same heights as RDR. Either way, though, first day sales are definitely going to be highly successful for Rockstar.

There's another western FPS coming out (presumably for the PS3, XBOX360 and PC.)

Ubisoft is currently developing a new game in the Call of Juarez series, entitled "Call of Juarez: The Cartel". It hasn't been officially announced yet and there are no more details at the moment.

New domain registrations (and slip by one of the 3D artists) has confirmed the existence of the game. (Thanks to supererogatory for the news.)

If you read the artist's resume (check out the Google Cache to see the original), you'll notice that the game is being created under an "extremely compressed timeline" and they're trying to get a game trailer out as soon as possible. So you can bet that this game is meant to compete with Red Dead Redemption and you'll see some similar gameplay (e.g. free roaming horseback riding action and mini-games.) =]

Should be interesting. And it might even convince Rockstar to rush development of the PC port if their competition's game trailer looks amazing. (Although.. this isn't a new IP, and it could just be a shameless attempt at capitalizing on Rockstar's recent success. You'll know for sure based on the trailer - if it contains a lot of gameplay visuals, that is.)

UPDATE (02/07/11): The official announcement has just been made on Facebook.

It will be coming out this summer (the last Call of Juarez launched on June 30 by the way) and they're apparently taking a "modern day" approach in the new game (ie, Old West in present day.) EGM has an exclusive look at the game, so you'll see more details emerge on February 9th.

The Ubisoft store has confirmed that the game is available on PS3, XBOX 360, and Windows PC. They're offering a digital download ("PC Download") that you can Pre-Order.

They mention in the Facebook comments, "Worry not PC users! We have something exclusive to PC coming your way very soon!" I assume that's what they meant - that it will be offered as a digital download for PC users.

Red Dead Redemption has been doing exceptionally well and Rockstar just didn't anticipate how successful the game was going to be. But, there's still no update or confirmation from Rockstar whether there is going to be a Red Dead Redemption PC Port or not.

Recently however, I noticed something a little interesting from our favorite little team in Oakville, Ontario.

Rockstar Toronto has been seeing a lot of action these past few months and they're on a hiring spree for new talent. Now, job postings are worded in such a way not to reveal any games that they're working on.. but a recent Senior Animator posting (Dec 17) caught my attention.

Here's what they wrote:

"At Rockstar Toronto, we provide a highly creative work environment and develop some of the most respected and widely recognized titles in video games for current and next-gen consoles including: The Warriors, ManHunt 2, Bully, Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption."

The reason that this is so interesting is that Rockstar Toronto has NEVER been associated with Red Dead Redemption.

If you've read my earlier post on RDR, you'll know that Rockstar Toronto did indeed do a little outsourced work for RDR. However, they were never recognized for that work by anyone, Rockstar Toronto is NOT listed in the credits, and even the R* Toronto and the HQ websites do NOT attribute RDR with R* Toronto in any way! If you check out R* Toronto's release list - Red Dead Redemption is NOT listed. Officially, RDR is not linked to R* Toronto in any way.

This is actually the first time Rockstar Toronto has officially associated themselves with Red Dead Redemption, and Rockstar claims that it's "future" work (ie, "next-gen consoles") too. =]

Very interesting..

Not only that, check out that "At Rockstar Toronto, we provide.." line - it's actually a standard recruiting post that they have used many times. HOWEVER, all of their past job posts only stated "The Warriors, ManHunt 2, Bully and Grand Theft Auto IV." It's suddenly changed in the past week to include RDR. Hmmm...

This all might just be an accident by their recruiting department (ie, either they weren't aware that RDR shouldn't have been associated with R* Toronto OR they accidentally revealed that R* Toronto is working on it.) With RDR being such a huge success though, I'm going to remain optimistic that they'll be working on RDR PC once they get LA Noire out of the way.

In related news, Take Two just filed trademarks for LA Noire related merchandising (e.g. "ring tones, wallpapers, screensavers, graphics, digital music files, videos, films and other multimedia materials" etc.) I guess they're expecting it to be a pretty big hit. I just can't see it though, even the title alone targets a niche market of gamers.

At the same time, they have also filed two other trademarks. The big one was "ROCKSTAR FILMS", a new division of Rockstar that will be producing animated motion pictures starting with Red Dead Redemption machinima. The third new trademark was for Red Dead Redemption films (Note: animated motion picture, not live action). It looks like Take Two wants to do the same thing Bobby Kotick mentioned a few months ago.

* Update:

They've also updated their Rockstar Games and R* Trademarks to include "Animated motion picture films". They have trademarked an animated series, film and "TV programs" planned for LA Noire if it's a big hit.

There's also a trademark for a Bioshock Infinite "live action motion picture", as well as videos, films, and an animated series. (Rockstar has a webpage planned where users can watch animated and live-action series based on their games.) The Line has also been trademarked for films, an animated series, and TV programs. Bioshock was the only one with "live action" mentioned however. =]

It's a good business plan.. might as well utilize those hundreds of idling Cinematic Artists rather than the seasonal firing-and-rehiring process.

With everything Blizzard has been bragging about over the past several months (e.g. successful WOTLK China launch, largest ever "12 million subscribers", huge number of people returning to WoW in anticipation of Cataclysm, etc.) you would expect this quarter's World of Warcraft earnings to be highly successful.

I think you'll be shocked by the results:

World of Warcraft revenues were $289 million for the 3rd quarter.

That's the exact same amount of revenue as their previous quarter.

In 2009 during the same quarter, they made $306 million (even though they have much larger subscription base in 2010).

During the 2nd Quarter (Ending June 30 2010), they released the Celestial Steed, the RAF Flying Mount, and introduced the Remote/Mobile Auction House service at the end of the quarter (so revenues for that new service actually carried over to the 3rd quarter.)

To help put things into perspective: even with ALL OF THAT FANFARE, the China launch, the "huge climb" of subscriptions, and Cataclysm coming soon, they still only made the same amount of revenue that they did during a quarter when absolutely NOTHING happened.

This is bad news indeed.

It gets much worse though. According to ActiBlizzion, they raked in $745 million in revenue with only $51 million in actual profit. That's a huge amount of expenses that cut deep into their revenue. (Although, they put a very positive spin on their Q3 results.)

World of Warcraft generated $289 million in revenue but their own expenses (staff costs, server operating costs, etc. according to Blizzard) were only about $13 million for that quarter.

So, WoW generated over $270 million in profit - but the Activision side of the family laid a gigantic smackdown on their overall profit, They must have some pretty insane expenses and I wonder what the investors feel about this? Look at it this way: if there was no "Activision", that $51 million profit would have been over $270 million instead.

World of Warcraft, by the way, is ActiBlizzion's flagship product and amounts to almost 40% of the entire company's revenue stream. You can see that Vivendi is incredibly dependent on Blizzard, but without WoW there would be a massive deficit. (See "What Vivendi Fears Most".)

* Addendum: Back in March 2010, Kotaku had an interesting article.. Activision's reports pointed out that World of Warcraft amounted to 98% of Blizzard's revenue which was up from the previous two years (97%). WoW also accounted for ~70% of Activision's net revenue. 'nuff said.

During the Q3 earnings presentation, Activision also kept bringing up Starcraft 2 and how successful the launch was. They mentioned everything else I said they would, but I was surprised they kept talking about Starcraft 2. Details had already been announced during the previous quarter and was talked about at great length at the time. But, I didn't think they were desperate enough to bring it up again ("SC2 launch! SC2 launch everybody!".. you know, even though the information was released already last quarter.)

Starcraft 2 sales figures were also very disappointing. They only sold 3 million units to date. By comparison, Red Dead Redemption (a more recent release) sold 5 million units in less than a month and it was considered a moderate success. Using that same time frame as a basis of comparison, the original Starcraft sold almost 2.5 million units (SC1 launched in 1998 plus BW units which launched 8 months later during that same year). Tiberian Sun (1999) sold 3 million units by year end, and Red Alert (1996) sold 1.5 million in under 4 weeks - and another million more over the next few months.

Keep in mind that those sales were from over a decade ago, and they're comparable to Starcraft 2 sales as they are now!

Worldwide, the video game industry revenues in 2007 were about $41.9 billion, in 2004 they were $25.4 billion, and in 1994 they were $7 billion. So, since 2001 video game revenues have almost tripled in size (2.7x actually), and even with that explosive growth, SC2 still only sold the same amount as Tiberian Sun from over 10 years ago (within the same timeframe, the only difference is that SC2 sold more on opening day).

"Professional Analysts" had initially predicated that SC2 sales would be significantly higher: 7 million sales within the first 5 months, 4 million within 3 months, 6.5 million within 5 months, 5 million in 5 months, and finally 6 million in 5 months. Apparently, Cataclysm is also supposed to sell 6 million copies on the first day, according to one of the analysts.

Keep in mind that these "professional analysts" are the best and brightest in this field. Man, were they off.

So anyhow.. overall the Q3 conference turned out just as depressing as Blizzcon 2010 - no news, no major announcements, just very boring and disappointing. If I was a major investor in the company, I would be very angry and asking a lot of questions.

* Quick Update:

One of the readers didn't understand the comparison of Blizzard's "3 million in the first month", compared to analyst predictions of "7 million sales within 5 months", etc. If you read back over past posts, this makes more sense as I've talked trends and sales figures.

What happens is that the largest amount of sales occur on the first day. And then the numbers steadily drop each follow day. SC2 for example sold 1.5M on the first day, on the next day they sold half that amount, and then 50% of that figure, and so on.

Almost all game releases follow the same trend, here's an example:

5 million during the first week (largest amount on the opening day)
800,000 during the second week
600,000 during the third week
400,000 during the fourth week
200,000 during the fifth week
150,000 during the sixth week
100,000.. 70,000.. 50,000 etc.

As of right now (4 months after release), Starcraft 2 is at about 3 million units sold. With only 1 month to go, there's a very unlikely chance that SC2 will suddenly sell 4 million units within the next few weeks. I hope that clarifies.

It appears that there has been another "confirmation" (but this time in the UK) regarding the next title in Rockstar's RDR series.

As mentioned previously though, the game is not currently planned for existing consoles and was intended for next-gen consoles. Due to successful sales (6.9M), however, that certainly won't stop Rockstar from starting work on RDR3 right now.. after all, RDR2 (aka Red Dead Redemption) was originally developed for the PS2 & XBOX and then they updated the graphics and migrated it to the PS3/XBOX360. If the PS4/XBOX720 doesn't hit their release targets (2011-2012), Rockstar may just release RDR3 for existing consoles.. doubtful though.

You can definitely assume, however, that there will be a lot of DLC releases for RDR3 and the series. Most game developers have already jumped onto the DLC-bandwagon.. and others are joining (well, the greedy ones anyways). It's a great way to rush a game to retail, release half a game, and then release the rest of the game (incl. story endings and "closure") in small parts that you can charge money for. =]

Note: "Revolution" was actually a subtitle used for a demo video showing off RDR2 in-game content (fictional Mexican revolutionaries and missions). Although, the official RDR3 title could just as easily be changed to Revenge, Rebellion, Reckoning, Remembrance, Revelations, etc. etc.

In one of my previous posts, I had mentioned that Rockstar Toronto would most likely be the team doing the Red Dead Redemption PC Port.

Well, there's been some minor activity there.. finally. They've closed off their IT Manager position offer, and have opened up a new position: User Interface Designer.

Here are the current positions that they're hiring for:

1. Character Artist
2. Game Programmer
3. Gameplay Scripter
4. Graphics Programmer
5. User Interface Designer

The artist/game designer positions haven't changed in years mind you.

On the Rockstar Toronto homepage, the IT Manager text was quietly swapped out with UI Designer. And the new position was posted on Monster a couple days ago, and on Craigslist just yesterday.

There has been some concern from the employees at Rockstar Toronto because of Take-Two/Rockstar's many lay-offs and uncertain future. Whether the UI Designer position is because of attrition or because of a new project - it's still a good sign.

The reason that this is a good sign is because RDR requires a new user interface for Windows (the current UI isn't designed for keyboard/mouse interaction). All of the voice, music, and graphics content and assets have been created already. In order for a PC Port to be created, the development team will need a couple designers, a few scripters, a project lead, and a lot of programmers. Maybe a level designer and a few artists too if they intend to add extra content to the RDR PC version. Rockstar Toronto already has the required team members, except that they were missing a UI Developer. =]

Also, Jerome Lacote was the User Interface Artist at Rockstar Games (San Diego) who did all of the UI design and artwork for Red Dead Redemption. He left the company just last month (July 2010), and they're looking to hire someone with the same qualifications in Toronto. Here's a link to his resume if you're interested.

We should know more by the first week of December 2010 (when Take-Two makes their official announcements), unless there's an early leak from the next Quarterly shareholders meeting.

* UPDATE (08/27/2010)

They've just updated their website again (www.rockstartoronto.com), and have removed the "Gameplay Scripter" position. This is probably the most activity the webpage has seen in several years.. =]

Take-Two has confirmed that they just laid off 30 staff from their Visual Concepts studio (they are the developers of the 2K Sports titles). (Link)

The reason for the lay offs?

"In order to properly align its resources with its current and future goals, and to continue to develop games as efficiently as possible, 2K Sports has eliminated approximately 30 positions at its Visual Concepts studio. These reductions will not affect 2K Sports’ ability to create and deliver AAA titles, including its upcoming release of NBA 2K11."

This is some of the activity I've been on the lookout for since my earlier post on the Red Dead Redemption PC port. Could this be a sign of Take-Two trimming the hedges with future lay-offs on the way? Many of the Rockstar offices have been pretty scared the past several months waiting to see what their future holds.

The reason for this might simply because of the amount of money they can potentially lose because of the franchise, Gamespot explains. It makes sense though, based on the timing. Next quarter is probably when we'll see some more activity.

Will there be a PC port and if so, when? This is the big question on everyone's mind.

The official statement on Rockstargames.com on June 10, 2010 was "As of now, there are no current plans to bring Red Dead Redemption to the PC platform. If that should change, we will let you know."

Which basically means, "we're not sure right now, we're still deciding whether to release it or not and who will be porting it."

This actually fits in with something that I learned from a source about 3-4 weeks before the announcement. I can write about this now that I'm doing the blog-thing. :)

When all of those mass layoffs occured at Rockstar, most of the positions impacted were animators, technical/graphic artists, tool developers, and audio techs. Basically, the grunt workers, content and story creators. Although it wasn't announced, Rockstar Toronto also lost some people in Jan/Feb 2010 (I'm not sure if those were included in the official "40 laid off" figure).

Rockstar Toronto is the team that ported GTA IV from console to PC (with a little help from Rockstar North.) For the GTA expansion packs (e.g. Lost & Damned, Gay Tony), North did the console version and Toronto did the PC version.

What you didn't know is that Rockstar Toronto was actually involved in the development of Red Dead Redemption too. They did a lot of the graphics work and correction of assets and props provided by San Diego (had to be updated from their PS2/XBOX counterparts.) You wouldn't know this, though, because they weren't listed in the game credits. =]

Matt Kazan's blog also has some other juicy insider details about Rockstar. He worked on a game called "We Are The Mods" when he joined Rockstar in 2006. It was a follow-up to their hit game "The Warriors". Check out his blog if you're interested in more details about that cancelled game.

As it stands, Rockstar has let go of the content developers since they already built the game and were no longer needed.. but they still have the PC porting team. Rockstar Toronto is the primary team for PC ports and they have working knowledge of RDR, so it stands to reason that Toronto will be the group doing the Red Dead Redemption PC port.

RDR Sales Figures - Does it makes sense to port?

Red Dead Redemption sold 1.8M on their opening week and approx. 5.2M have been sold as of today. Their return on investment was roughly twice what they put into development (it cost $80-100M to make).

By comparison, GTA IV had $100M development costs (7x return) and MW had $50M development costs (20x return). And then there's WoW. Development costs, server upkeep, staff payroll, hardware support, customer service, etc totaled $100M for the first 4 years of operation. (Kotaku has conflicting sources for this information though, in one article they say it cost $100M and in the other article it says $200M). Either way, the return has been tremendous. =]

So, RDR really hasn't even come close to the success of GTA IV but it did still make an operating profit of 50% which is pretty good. The cost of porting the game from consoles to PC is just a fraction of the original development costs too, so it will be highly profitable even if they only sell 500,000 copies. (Note: PC sales will never even come close to the console sales for various reasons.)

PC ports from Rockstar have had many issues (which have significantly impacted sales), but they're getting better. For example, PC versions are very late on delivery and everyone would have bought a PS3/XBOX360 version by then. The other reason for poor sales was because of buggy ports and bad reviews (GTA IV was called "the worst release" and "worst PC port" by many, but I think Rockstar Toronto has learned from their mistakes. Most bugs have been fixed, and their expansion packs have been successful.) And then there's the piracy scapegoat. But, it's still in Take-Two's best interest to push Rockstar's PC port forwards.

When Will There Be An Announcement?

There was a 8 month gap between the announcement and release dates of the GTA IV console vs. PC port. Unfortunately, there are really no trends to compare to, but there could be an announcement made before November of this year.

The reason I selected November is because there has been something interesting going on the Toronto office over the past couple months. Apparently, there has been a fear of job loss, there has been some "preparation" going on, and some employees have been putting out their resumes. The impression I received was that Rockstar HQ hasn't decided what exactly to do with Rockstar Toronto and they're currently taking a step-back to re-evaluate their offices, projects and expenses. My guess is that there is probably pressure on the other Rockstar offices as well.

(Addendum: Take-Two's fiscal year will be ending on 10/31/2010 and typically their announcements are made a couple months following - meaning the first week of December 2010. If there's bad news, it will probably be made in November, but if it's good news it will be on target for the first week of Dec. I'm hoping for good news. =] Now I suppose the decision could have been made in Q3, meaning an official statement at the end of Aug / start of September but it would depend on the development status of Max Payne 3.)

Toronto is currently assisting with the development of Max Payne 3, so I'll learn more once that project is cleaned off of their plates.

If the Rockstar Toronto office gets the axe though, it will result in either the cancellation or severe delay of RDR PC development. We'll probably see something happen before November though, as it never looks good to lay off people right before Christmas. If they don't get shutdown, though, their next (most likely) project after Max Payne 3 will be RDR PC. Guess we'll see..

Another delay in the Max Payne 3 development might push these estimates back though. (Then again, there was a 2 year difference between Bully PS2 and the PC port. So, if nothing happens with Rockstar Toronto this year and they work on a different project after Max 3, I'll have to change my forecast to a date much farther away.) But still, these are a lot of "signs" to work with and it's interesting information to know.

Other than that, if you're a console user and waiting in anticipation for RDR3 (internally, Redemption was actually called RDR2), you're in for a long wait. There's nothing currently planned for a PS3/XBOX360 sequel, but Rockstar does have some intended DLC releases though (worked well for GTAIV), and RDR3 (aka Red Dead Revolution) will be eventually developed for the PS4 and XBOX 720.

Will update as I learn more.

* UPDATE: As predicted, something BIG did happen and just a couple days before November (3 months after this post). =]

Take Two has MOVED their Fiscal Quarter (very rare)! Not only that, but MAJOR restructuring has taken place and even their CEO has stepped down. Big news indeed. Because of this massive shift, all of their announcements will be impacted as well (ie, moved to the next quarter.)