Tag Archives: Doug Creutz

Rockstar’s favourite number is going to be four – with a bunch of zeros at the end -  if analyst Doug Creutz is correct.

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Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has chorused Cowen’s Doug Creutz on predicted StarCraft II sales, saying the imminent PC RTS will move a quick 5 million units and could eventually outsell the original StarCraft.

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With the announcement of a date for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, comes a probable analysis from Cowen group’s Doug Creutz.

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A Cowen Group survey has revealed that game reviews are the “least important factor” to consumers when deciding on which title to purchase.

Instead, according to analyst Doug Creutz, gamers rely mainly on word of mouth and publishers should stop focusing on scoring a high review.

“We believe that while Metacritic scores may be correlated to game quality and word of mouth, and thus somewhat predictive of title performance, they are unlikely in and of themselves to drive or undermine the success of a game.

“We note this, in part, because of persistent rumors that some game developers have been jawboning game reviewers into giving their games higher critical review scores. We believe the publishers are better served by spending their time on the development process than by grade-grubbing after the fact.”

More through CVG.

Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz has stated that “EA has largely missed this console cycle”, while lowering sales estimates for the publisher’s games citing that Dead Space: Extraction and Dragon Age: Origins will under perform at retail.

Need for Speed: Shift is not expected to do as well as planned either, according to Creutz, predicting that the racer will move less than 900,000 units in the US during its first year at market.

Creutz has lowered sales expectations of Dragon Age: Origins by 550,000 units to less than 1.5 million.

“We continue to believe that EA has largely missed this console cycle, and despite recent speculation, we believe it is highly unlikely that EA will be an acquisition target due to a variety of factors,” wrote Creutz in his note to investors.

On a brighter note, Cowan feels that The Beatles: Rock Band will outsell Guitar Hero 5 in the US, selling over 3.5 million units and Rock Band 2 will move 2.2 million.

Thanks, GI.biz.

Price cuts for consoles may not stimulate hardware or software sales in the US, says Doug Creutz of Cowan and Company.

Due to economic pressures, Creutz does not believe that despite historically working in the past, a price cut will not boost the games market this time around.

“We are concerned that, given pressures on the consumer, price cuts may not have the stimulative impact to hardware and software sales that they have had in the past,” wrote Creutz in a note to investors.

“We expect hardware price cuts on all platforms by September, with announcements possibly as early as next week’s Gamescom.”

Creutz has suggested that a $100 cut to PS3, $50 off Wii, and the Xbox 360 Elite dropping to $300 would be a major benefit to both the consumer and the console makers.

More over on GI.biz.

Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz isn’t impressed with Natal. In fact, he reckons Sony’s motion-sensing set-up for PS3 is a better propostition for the hardcore gamer.

“Natal appeared to me to be a technological solution in search of a problem,” said Creutz, speaking to Gama.

“I had a very hard time envisioning playing Modern Warfare 3 using Natal,” he said, adding, “By contrast, I had a very easy time envisioning it (and enjoying it) using Sony’s control/motion capture scheme.”

Creutz added that Microsoft is aiming at Wii’s casual audience with Natal – “a difficult proposition given that you’re essentially asking casual gamers to upgrade twice during the cycle.”

Thanks, Joystiq.

Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz has predicted that Guitar Hero will be the sole winner in the music genre category, and beat out all others this year.

“We believe music genre sales for the company will be driven by an expansion of the release slate in 2009, which should broaden sales to core consumers,” Creutz told Gamasutra. “We also believe that Guitar Hero is likely to face less competition from Rock Band this year, driving a gain in market share for Activision Blizzard.”

Creutz does not see The Beatles: Rock Band as being a threat to Activision.

This is mainly due to the high price point of the collector’s edition. Creutz said it will do nothing to help out peripheral sales.

He does, however, believe that Acti’s DJ Hero will freshen up the genre and cause a surge in peripheral uptake.

More through the link.

This has got to go down as one of the biggest “whoopses” in recent memory. Cowan analyst Doug Creutz has predicted GTA: Chinatown Wars will only be “marginally” profitable, after the game – the highest rated in GTA’s history – managed to secure only a woeful 89,000 sales in the US last month.

“We believe the experiment was a worthwhile one for Take-Two, and still expect the title to be profitable (though likely marginally so),” he said.

“However, the disappointing first month sales reinforce our view that achieving meaningful success on Nintendo platforms remains a very difficult proposition for third party publishers.”

Creutz added that the game had heavily failed to meet expectation.

“Despite a strong critical reception, Take-Two’s GTA: Chinatown Wars sold a very disappointing 89,000 units in March, well below our more recent 200-250,000 estimate and far below the 400-450,000 we thought the title might sell upon its release,” he said.

“Take-Two exported their most valuable IP onto the most widely distributed gaming platform, and created the most highly-rated title in the history of that platform. We knew there were some uphill challenges due to the demographics of the platform, but believed there were enough core gamers/adults owning a DS that the title could still perform very well.

“However, either the demographics are more challenging than we thought, or core gamers did not view the title as an essential purchase due to the nature of the platform.

It’s almost as if all that growth came from “non-gamers,” or something.

Thanks, GI.

Cowen analyst Doug Creutz says he has lowered his expectation to toward PlayStation 3 for the year ahead as he doesn’t believe the console has any bona fide system sellers.

“Although there appears to be a reasonably robust slate of games for the PlayStation 3 this year, Sony continues to lack a clear ‘must-own’ title that will drive sales, while its platform continues to be the most expensive in the market in the midst of a consumer slowdown,” he said.

“Meanwhile, highly publicized platform initiatives such as Home have failed to get off the ground.”

His overall assessment of 2008 was just as damning saying: “Following another year in which PS3 unit sales lagged behind the Wii and Xbox 360, it is now clear that Sony has failed to establish the PS3 as the console of choice among hardcore gamers this cycle.”

Creutz now expects PlayStation 3 to sell 4 million units in 2009, compared to his previous forecast of 6.25.

Read the public resaerch note in full at Gama.

By Mike Bowden

Cowen analyst Doug Creutz reckon that Saints Row 2 publisher THQ is “likely miss its guidance” of breaking even for the second half of its March 09 fiscal year.

Creutz says the company won’t hit its target “due to the declining performances of key franchises in the December quarter.”

He says that recent NPD data shows WWE sales were down 22% in the December quarter compared with the previous year. Also, its SpongeBob franchise was down 19%.

He also cut his estimate on first year sales of the company’s flagship title Saints Row 2 to 900,000 from 1 million.

For the forthcoming financial year, Creutz sees profits to fall from 44 cents to 30 cents per share, with revenue of $985.3 million, down from $1.03 billion.

“We think THQ share performance is unlikely to improve unless the company demonstrates renewed earnings stability,” said Crutez.

Thanks, TechTrader.

By Mike Bowden