411 Games Fact or Fiction: 11.15.11 Saints Row: The Third, Deus Ex, Metal Gear Solid HD and More

Posted by Adam Larck on 11.15.2011

Will we be buying Batman: Arkham City, Battlefield 3 or Gears of War in the Black Friday sales? Will Saints Row: The Third will get overlooked? Will Modern Warfare 3 easily surpass Black Ops in sales? 411’s Todd Vote and Mathew Sforcina debate these questions and more in this week’s 411 Fact or Fiction: Games!

Welcome back to another week of 411 Games Fact or Fiction. I'm Adam Larck, and I'm fully delved into Skyrim. Also checked out Fusion: Genesis last week, which has proved fun as well.

This week, we have Mathew Sforcina and Todd Vote going head-to-head. Let's see how these two do. Time for banner!





1.) Ubisoft accidentally revealed that Black Ops has sold 15M copies. Modern Warfare 3 will easily surpass that.

Todd Vote - Fact: Absolutely. Modern Warfare will outsell any game in the franchise thus far. The tradition of Call of Duty selling better than any game that year is only outdone by Call of Duty breaking its own record each year. It has already shattered Black Ops first day sales record. I don't see that changing this year. Or any year for that matter.

Mathew Sforcina - Fact: COD is showing no rate of slowdown in terms of being one of Video Games Cash Cows. Like Halo and Valve in general, COD just sells like hotcakes regardless of quality. Which is not a knock on the game, you understand, just an obvious observation. MW3 will sell more than 15M. That's just common sense.

Score: 1 for 1 - Considering the numbers MW3 moved in the first day, I think the game will easily surpass this number.



2.) Saints Row: The Third will get swept under the rug because of MW3 and Skyrim last week.

Todd Vote - Fiction: Can't imagine the cross over fan base is extremely high for these games. But I don't think it will be hurt by either game really. It will at least do as well as Saints Row 2, did in my opinion. Besides, this is the holiday season, if it suffers first week sales, it will make up for it by Christmas.

Mathew Sforcina - Fiction: But only if you take the long view. Sure, I'm picking it up day one because I'm a juvenile bastard, but Saints Row is a long haul game in the terms of that fact that if you look at SR2, it came out, didn't do much and then over time people found it and it got big. I think 3 will have the same thing happen, in that the launch will be slightly low key but then as word gets out that the game actually is as insane as it appears, it'll get picked up. So sure, short term it's screwed, but it's a long view game...

Score: 2 for 2 - I know I'll be getting this before month's end, but I just wonder how many will check it out while they have other big titles to keep them occupied.



3.) You're not surprised the Call of Duty Elite program had problems out of the gate.

Todd Vote - Fact: Not at all. That many people all trying to sign up and use the service at the same time? Bound to cause a few problems, right? At least they immediately started adding more servers to try and fix the problems. I don't think this was anything to get up in arms about if that is what you are asking.

Mathew Sforcina - Fiction: Actually. I tend to assume that when you have that amount of money and you have a very hot property you expect that there will be, you know, huge interest and large amounts of use for a program such as that. And you would plan accordingly. But apparently not...

Score: 2 for 3 - Considering the problems EA had with Battlefield, you figured Activision would try to make everything perfect for MW3. Instead, we have a flop of a launch for Elite.

---

*~Twitter Break!~*

My own Twitter
411Mania
411Games
411Wrestling
411Movies & TV
411Music
411MMA

---

4.) With Deus Ex: Human Revolution selling 2.18 million units, the series is far from over.

Mathew Sforcina - Fact: The dedicated fan base was there, and the game didn't suck/turn people off the franchise. Sure, it wasn't anywhere near the original, but it was still a pretty cool game. So why wouldn't you make another one? Do you hate money?

Todd Vote - Fact: You have to be happy with those kind of numbers, right? They found a formula that seemed to have clicked with a lot of gamers. I believe it got mostly favorable reviews, correct? I see no reason for the franchise not to continue. Go for it. Just have to remember to extend it because it makes sense, and not to grab the cash.

Score: 3 for 4 - After Invisible War, this has to be what Square was looking for with HR.



5.) You realized that the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection actually released last week.

Mathew Sforcina - Fiction: Of course I knew. What with nothing else coming out, and all the hype and advertising, plus my long and well known adoration for the series, of course I knew it was out...



Todd Vote - Fiction: Well, I guess I sort of did. Once I started seeing reviews pop up online. But I've not been a fan of the series so my care factor was extremely low. It wasn't really heavily publicized. So no, I guess not.

Score: 4 for 5 - I knew maybe a few days before it released, it just seems like a poor time for it to come out. A few weeks later would have been better.



6.) With Black Friday approaching, Wal-Mart has shown that they're discounting Arkham City, Battlefield 3, Gears of War 3 and more to $28. You'll be picking something up that weekend.

Mathew Sforcina - Fiction: Well for starters I'm Australian and thus I'm nowhere near a Black Friday sale. But even if you ignore that, if you transplant me to Ohio or New York, I still wouldn't be getting anything since I already have Arkham City, I have access to GOW3 and no interest in Battlefield. I'll be too busy playing Saints Row the Third to pick up any new games, thank you.

Todd Vote - Fact: Provided the sale lasts all weekend. There is absolutely no way in hell I am going to go to Wal-Mart on Black Friday. No chance. So if the sale is going on that whole weekend, and the store in my town has enough copies to support the demand, yeah I might just pick up Arkham City.

Score: 4 for 6 - I'll probably sneak into the local Wal-Mart Thursday night at 10 to get Battlefield and Gears 3 before calling it good for that weekend.



Bonus Question) Gearbox really shows a commitment to their Borderlands fanbase.

Mathew Sforcina - Fact: Very cool. Dangerous in terms of fans becoming complacent and then getting pissy when their own little causes or requests don't get answered, but so far it's damn cool of them.

Todd Vote - Fact: That is really cool to eulogize the fan, and to make them an NPC in Borderlands 2. Not much else needs to be said. It was a great gesture, and a way for Gearbox to show the fans that they do care.

Adam Larck - Fact: They've helped a community member propose before, and now they've given a eulogy to a fan. Gearbox has done a great job communicating and supporting the community, and this really shows that off.

The pair finish this week going 4-for-6. What do you think? Agree or disagree with their answers? Let us know. See you in seven!