Is Sony Hurting Horizon Sales by Releasing it so Close to Breath of the Wild?

[A Link In Time]

The new IP from Guerrilla Games, Horizon: Zero Dawn, releases tomorrow, and I'm concerned its launch will be dwarfed by Zelda's. The game looks absolutely beautiful, possibly the best graphics we've ever seen in a console game. The gameplay looks exciting as you aim to take down a variety of monstrous machines. The story seems sufficient if reviews are anything to go by. But gamers may eschew Horizon in favor of Zelda this week and not look back.

Zelda is a 30+ year franchise with a proven track record of success. Breath of the Wild is generating the most hype for the franchise in over 10 years with its changes to the traditional Zelda formula. After the success of Skyrim and The Witcher 3, many people are curious to see what Nintendo can do with a massive open world. The hype is increased even more with it being the major launch title for the Switch. Since Super Mario Odyssey and Splatoon 2 are probably going to be the only other exclusive multimillion Switch sellers this year, Zelda will especially see another large sales boon this holiday. Even after the initial excitement fades, Zelda is sure to have the strong sales legs of all major first party Nintendo releases.

In comparison, Guerrilla Games doesn't have the same consistent quality in sales and reception. They hit their current peak with Killzone 2, which has a 90+ Metascore and over 3 million worldwide sales. But that was in a relatively noncompetitve year for the PS3 with Uncharted 2 and Demon's Souls being the only other major exclusives for the system. Compare that to this year for the PS4 with major bombshells like Persona 5 (yes, it's also coming to the PS3 but hardly anyone will buy that version), Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 Remix, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, Gran Turismo Sport, and Ni No Kuni II, not to mention already released games like Gravity Rush 2 and Yakuza 0. And even though it may not be exclusive, people craving for a large open world will be greeted to Red Dead Redemption 2 at the end of the year.

Of course not everyone who's interested in Horizon has interest in Zelda. There are some people who play PS4 only or who have never paid much attention to Zelda and Breath of the Wild still doesn't draw them in. But for lovers of open world games and for the larger gaming comminity, the comparisons between the two games are inevitable.

Horizon looks like a great game, but it seems Sony is leaving it out to dry. What do you think? Am I overexaggersting or will Horizon be overlooked?

 

[Spirit]

As far as the UK goes its the other way around.

I was in a conversation the other day and when i said a certain game 'plays like Zelda' they asked 'whats Zelda?'.

So no, Botw, at least in the UK will not hurt Zero Dawn at all. If anything Zero Dawn will hurt BotW.

Most stores here are expecting the Switch to flop and are only getting single figures of BotW and Switch consoles, whereas they get tens of Zero Dawn.

Nintendo isnt popular in UK. BotW wont even be a factor in anything Zero Dawn does.

(The concept of this thread is actually hilarious to me, it'd be nice if BoTW or Nintendo as any kind of entity had the following or hype to make something like Zero Dawn even glance in its direction, let alone worry about its sales being hurt. The situation in UK is pretty much the exact opposite of what this thread is about. Saying the Sony has a stranglehold would be an understatement.)

 

[Ventus]

aBSOLUTELY they think HZD is gonna be the Zelda Killer. And it will be. See that mountain? You can climb it. but the difference is HZD is a mature game for mature gamers such as myself. It features actual graphics instead of water pastel trash in full 4K. It has realistic character proportions instead of Japanese kawaii moe blobs, and it has realistic character motiviations instead of LOL MUH TRIFORCE MAGIC.

HZD unfortunately is "owned" by Sony and because of that massive funding, they send it like sheep to a slaughter. Sony is ****ing stupid.

 

[Kylo Ken]

The short answer is yes. The only thing Zero Horizon has going for it to appeal to people is robot dinosaurs. Now, that's a great idea, if they weren't releasing it right before one of the most hyped games since 2015. I'm not saying it's gonna be Overwatch vs Battleborn levels of destruction, but I'm pretty sure Botw will cause Zero Horizon to lose a lot of sales. But there's another factor that will eat Zero Horizon's sales.

It's a mmo called Ark: Survival. It's like if Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Mincraft had a baby. It's growing in popularity and offers everything plus more than Zero Horizon.

There's also the likelyhood of people just buying all 3, but of course that won't happen...right?

 

[Scribear]

So which came first chicken or the egg...i mean, Zelda or Horizon? Which announced their release dates first?

EDIT:
I ask because if Horizon was set to release first and then Nintendo said, "Oh I see, let's put Zelda a few days later." I'd say Nintendo was smart.
vs.
Zelda first then Horizon. I'd say Sony was dumb.

 

[Castle]

I've entertained this same question. They'll interact with each other's sales, sure... but how much? I don't think it'll make a difference. I certainly doubt that one will do in the other.

Frankly put I don't think enough people will be making the choice between one or the other. Zelda players aren't interested in Zero Dawn and Zero Dawn players aren't interested in Zelda. Zelda will appeal more to parents and kids which will benefit sales (this is what ninty does after all) and HZD will appeal more to big boys and girls looking for something new and fresh looking. There will be little overlap between the two consumer markets, not enough to make any difference.

The biggest potential issue HZD faces is that Zelda is bound to garner more press attention. It isn't even uncommon for the nightly news to have brief blurbs mentioning high profile video game releases from long running series even before sales have eclipsed anything and I'm sure Zelda will get a brief mention. I remember NBC did this with Fallout 4 and they've done so repeatedly anytime GTA releases. Zelda will see more mass market purchases from non-gamers (aka parents and kids) than HZD will because of mainstream media attention. Even gaming centric outlets will be overrun with Zelda talk. This can potentially grant Zelda longevity in sales and HZD could have a difficult time being heard above the noise.

Ultimately however, I don't think these two will compete much with each other.

 

[DoomDash]

Mutual. The reviews for HZD are already out and stellar, I'll probably pick it up.

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

I'll pick it up sometime later.

Not for lack of quality. Horizon looks spectacular, but I've too many games for my PS4 that I've played too little of. That's even taking into account the Breath of the Wild copy with my name attached to it that I'll be marathoning my way through come this weekend.

 

[Castle]

Another thing you have to consider is HZD is releasing on PS4 which has sold over 50million units to date, whereas Zelda is releasing on Switch which has sold exactly zero units to date because the system will be releasing alongside the game obviously and WiiU which has sold 13million units in its lifetime. For most players the cost of BotW is in addition to the MSRP of the Switch system which I'd hazard the vast majority of consumers will be wary of after getting burned by the Wii/U. Meanwhile tens of millions of people already have a PS4 just lying around.

So really a whole other matter entirely is if the Switch is going to hurt Zelda sales or is Zelda going to help Switch sales. Regardless, this factor severely handicaps Zelda compared to HZD.

 

[the8thark]

Mutual. The reviews for HZD are already out and stellar, I'll probably pick it up.

The IGN review (on youtube) is far from stellar. The only stellar thing about it was the score. To me her review made the game worth about an 8/10.

 

[DoomDash]

The IGN review (on youtube) is far from stellar. The only stellar thing about it was the score. To me her review made the game worth about an 8/10.

I picked it up anyway since I got it on sale for $47. I guess we'll find out. I think I was impressed by the amount of content from the reviews I saw. Plus IGN sucks, they gave Doom 2016 a 7.1 when all the user scores on that site are a 9.1, and that's far below the meta. Meanwhile they praise CoD games that do basically nothing new, while Doom 2016 basically reinvigorated the entire FPS genre/was the most refreshing FPS in a long long time. And they stole from me technically .

 

[the8thark]

I picked it up anyway since I got it on sale for $47. I guess we'll find out. I think I was impressed by the amount of content from the reviews I saw. Plus IGN sucks, they gave Doom 2016 a 7.1 when all the user scores on that site are a 9.1, and that's far below the meta. Meanwhile they praise CoD games that do basically nothing new, while Doom 2016 basically reinvigorated the entire FPS genre/was the most refreshing FPS in a long long time. And they stole from me technically .

The meta critic user average is 8.8 last I checked for HZD. I think that's a fair score. I do think the average user score there is a good reflection of how good most games are.
I don't bother too much with the metacritic critic average because it's a sea of paid reviews and sucking up to the big developers so their stream of pre-release games keep on coming.

I would give HZD an 8/10. But I can see how 8.8 is fair. Totally not worth a 10 though.
I do agree with you IGN does suck. Their review of this game was much more critical of the game then what they scored it. They were basically saying "HZD has all these flaws but we ignored them because we want to give the game a higher score" HZD is still a very fine game. It's really one of the best in it's genre. It's not revolutionary at all but it does take good graphics and does everything games before already have but does them very well. 8 to 9 is a fare acore range I think. Most fo the revirws I have said are not praising the game enough (in their reviews) for this to be worth more than 9.

I totally would still recommend it for all PS4 owners because it's exactly what a PS4 owner would like.

$47? At that price it's a must buy. Totally worth that.

 

[Jamie]

I was in a conversation the other day and when i said a certain game 'plays like Zelda' they asked 'whats Zelda?'

This is astounding to me. I have never met someone my age who doesn't know what Zelda is.

 

[DoomDash]

The meta critic user average is 8.8 last I checked for HZD. I think that's a fair score. I do think the average user score there is a good reflection of how good most games are.
I don't bother too much with the metacritic critic average because it's a sea of paid reviews and sucking up to the big developers so their stream of pre-release games keep on coming.

I would give HZD an 8/10. But I can see how 8.8 is fair. Totally not worth a 10 though.
I do agree with you IGN does suck. Their review of this game was much more critical of the game then what they scored it. They were basically saying "HZD has all these flaws but we ignored them because we want to give the game a higher score" HZD is still a very fine game. It's really one of the best in it's genre. It's not revolutionary at all but it does take good graphics and does everything games before already have but does them very well. 8 to 9 is a fare acore range I think. Most fo the revirws I have said are not praising the game enough (in their reviews) for this to be worth more than 9.

I totally would still recommend it for all PS4 owners because it's exactly what a PS4 owner would like.

$47? At that price it's a must buy. Totally worth that.

Have you beat it already?

 

[the8thark]

Have you beat it already?

No. That does not matter. I just gave my opinions. Many reviews review games without finishing them. I just gave my opinion. It's your choice if you agree or disagree with me. Either is ok by the way.

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A fair analysis. The only issue, is some of the things said minor here are more an issue than the analysis is willing to admit.

There is more to complain about than what this analysis says. Since this is not a review I will say though this is far from perfect, and many of the negatives will affect the player more than this analysis will accept, the game does look very good and plays very well. The info shared here is all good and correct. Sure it's emphasis is wrong at times but that's something DF need to learn, less spin on the facts and more sharing the facts to let us make our own opinions on them.

Overall the game does look pretty good. Well worth the praise it gets on this front. As a side note I believe the game is only worth an 8/10 due to other issues the game has. But as this is not a review site I don't hold DF to account for that. Apart from not focusing on some of the negatives as they should have this DF tech analysis is sound and mostly fair.

I will also say some of the graphical code invented and refined for this game is quite groundbreaking. Especially with the base game engine they are using. This is a good step forward.