14 DAY TRIAL // A new study offered by OTX through its GamePlan Insights service shows that a lot of those players who have picked up the new Halo 3: ODST are also set to buy Modern Warfare 2 when the title is released on November 10. This is good news for Microsoft and Activision and might prove to be pretty bad news for other publishers and other video games, which are set to be released in the run up to Christmas.
OTX is estimating that the average gamer will be buying three full-priced video games for this holiday season. This means that there's a lot of competition between franchises and publishers and creating associations between two series can be beneficial to both sides. Nick Williams from GamePlan is saying that, “Data collected in the first two weeks of September suggests that more than half of ODST intenders also plan to purchase Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which is indicative of the strong overlap between the two franchises.”
Those who have bought Halo 3: ODST, which is seeing a strong performance despite the fact that it is priced as a full title in spite of offering limited content, are also interested in other titles coming out this year. Assassin's Creed 2 from Ubisoft is the second in purchase intentions, with 41%, while Left 4 Dead 2 from Valve is the third, with 35%. The following spots are being occupied by BioShock 2 from 2K, which has been recently confirmed as coming in February 2010, GTA IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony, Final Fantasy XIII, Mass Effect 2 and Guitar Hero 5.
Interestingly, those who are fans of Halo 3: ODST are not interested in Starcraft II, showing that the crowd that bought Bungie's latest work is dominated by first-person-shooter enthusiasts who are not interested in broadening their gaming horizons to include strategy games.