Results tagged “Spider-Man” from Birmingham Mail - Technobabble

SO the latest 'next big thing' has arrived - and already Grand Theft Auto IV is making the news.

The BBC reports that it has already smashed through all sales records.

Not only has it beaten any previous video game with UK sales of £24 million on the day of release, but it's already been critically acclaimed with huge review scores.

I've been off work this week - but hopefully on my return a review copy will be waiting!

Mind you, there have also been many reports of faults - suggesting Rockstar might not have tested things propertly before going to release.

Some PS3 owners haven't been able to install it on their hard drives, with others revealing crashing problems on the same system.

It's not confined to the PS3 either - on the XBox 360 a 'faulty batch of disks' (according to Rockstar) mean that it freezes every time you leave the base apartment.

The slightly ironic thing is that now that consoles can connect to the internet, they're getting the same half-finished releases that PC gamers have been putting up with for years - after all why test something properly when you can get it in the shops asap and then cure the many bugs with a host of 'patches'?

One more thing - games are still somewhat ghettoised. Compare the sales of GTA IV to many cinema releases.

The simple fact is that games are bigger business than films these days. But if you look at the coverage in newspapers you would still think it was the other way around.

My own games review column in Saturday's Birmingham Mail is dwarfed by the film coverage.

But consider this - in the link it shows that top UK opening WEEKENDS(not days) for films as of 2001 was Harry Potter £16.3 million, Fellowship of the Ring £11 million, and The Phantom Menace £9.5 million. For a more recent update Spider-Man 3 took £11.5 million on its opening weekend.

GTA IV's £24 million puts it all in perspective - and shows how what used to be a genre for nerds and children is now for the mass market.