Do you think that pressure from net people made the reconsider the online
play? All those "liars" claiming they won't buy the game if it doesn't have
online play actually achieving something?
I can understand GC/Hasbro leaving some features out of the game so they can
sell GP4 ( BTW if you try to type gp4 with capital letters and you don't
release `shift` for 4 you get GP$ :-)))). But on the other hand, online play
and other candies in GP3 would sell even more copies of GP4. Why?
With full-feature GP3 you sell A LOT of copies. You get a large base of GP3
sim enthusiasts and GP3 players ( we all know that GP series attracted both
simers and more arcade players ) all getting the taste of online thrill ( if
FIA won't give them permission for official online play they can leave the
code open for somebody else to do it ).
Now, 1 year later we have GP4 out with some small improvements but
incompatible with GP3 for online play. As a lot of GP3 owners buy GP4 the
rest will follow so they can race other folks on that new Indianapolis track
or whatever... Will they feel they got ripped by Hasbro? Maybe. But not more
than all those EA Sports NBAxx/NHLxx players!
I heard that Hasbro got licence for 98,99,2000 seasons ( is that true? ) and
the way they are doing it now they will have a good/perfect sim based based
on 2000 season out in 2001/2002 that will sell very well but they will lose
on GP3 and GP4 ( i would say that many people from North America will not
buy GP3, GP4 as they want online play ( better connections ) and will stick
to Nascar3/4, GPL, maybe even that horrible EA F1 2000 ). And they say it's
a pretty big game market over there :-)
On the other hand, GC and the team were maybe just lazy and are trying to
earn as much as they can with as little effort as possible. That, however,
would/will get them in trouble soon.
There, i've jumped on the GP3 frenzy train, too.
Borut
