Jim’s a bit busy this week, so I’m filling in the usual TSA Talks spot with… more TSA Talks! This week, we take a look at a big announcement, some problems with unfinished games and we also discuss if Nintendo can recover from their losses over this Christmas period, in time for the WiiU – we being Alex, Aran, Kris, Peter, Toby and myself. Also, Alex decides to do TSA Raps rather than TSA Talks and it’s rather brilliant.
Grand Theft Auto V… well, that came out of nowhere; announced on Tuesday by Rockstar themselves, we know very little about the game. So, rather than making up predictions about what could be in it – was the announcement handled well and was now really the best time for a GTA announcement, out of the blue?
Peter: I think it was brilliant. Rockstar’s obvious disregard for the usual hype circus around announcements is so refreshing. We’ve had little teases and hints in the past but no big countdown clock, no announcement of an announcement (unless you count the “Trailer coming” as such) and no glitzy press event. Just a logo and confirmation that there’ll be more soon. They didn’t even sell the official announcement to GameTrailers or IGN, just threw it up on their own blog. It was like a big cheeky “fuck you” to games reporting and I loved it.
Toby: We all knew that GTA V was an inevitability, but for it to be announced with not so much as a murmuring the day before is a testament to Rockstar’s ability to surprise. It was also a very smart move; what had previously been a quiet Tuesday morning exploded into a media frenzy, and the impending Battlefield 3 was suddenly forgotten as if it never existed. I highly doubt that any other videogame announcement will have the same effect as this did; not during this generation, anyway.
Kris: This was a pretty good time to announce GTA V, although they could have actually hit on Saint’s Row’s release day and completely stolen their thunder. To be honest I don’t like teasers that are this weak. Ok, so we know that it’s coming, but that’s about it. People might get somewhat excited for the trailer, and probably be more excited for it than if they’d just brought out the trailer with no tease, but it just sort of irritates me on a deep level. Also I know it’s not an age, but it still feels like too long to wait for the trailer.
Aran: Yes and yes. The announcement was nice and simple with just the logo and a date. That alone made the internet explode with excitement. It goes to show that the GTA doesn’t need a huge fanfare when being announced.
It was time for Rockstar to make a big announcement. The only other game that Rockstar can make a big announcement for is Agent, which seems to be stuck in some developer limbo.
Blair: A very simple announcement indeed, which took over most sites and definitely dominated the news this week – they made sure there wasn’t much else around (aside from the launch of one of this year’s biggest shooters, but that’s a different matter) and it worked very well, I think. This kind of news is my favourite: unscheduled, out of the blue news that pleases a lot of people.
(Drops a beat)
Alex: Yo. Saw it comin’
Like a beat it was clearly drummin’
Back in the US, of A,
And not gettin’ lost like needles in hay.
Gonna be massive, right?
Guns and cars plain out of sight.
Rockstar, they know their shit,
And GTA Five will be a hit.
XisTG
if anyone watches Naruto, Alex is very akin to Bee :p