Sunset Overdrive: The Overlooked Exclusive Part 2 – The Road to Release October 14, 2016

This is the second of a three-part article discussing the marketing and release of the game Sunset Overdrive. If you missed part one, you can read it here.

It was early 2014 and it was clear to gamers and publishers that the Xbox One was not selling anywhere near the numbers it should have been. Even with solid hardware and tons of great exclusive launch games, the PS4 was outselling the Xbox One by huge numbers.  However, Microsoft was in for the long game and they still had some new cards to play. About a month before E3 2014, they released this preview for Sunset Overdrive.

If any Xbox One exclusive games had a chance to sell, Microsoft needed to rethink their strategy to increase their console sales. Two things were clear to anyone with a passing familiarity with the new console war, the Xbox One was $100 more expensive than the better selling PS4, and it came with a peripheral that a majority of consumers just didn’t want.  At E3 2014, without notifying their Xbox One developers in advance, Microsoft announced they were no longer bundling the Kinect sensor with all Xbox One consoles. That meant that new Xbox One consoles unbundled with Kinect sensors would sell at the same price as the PlayStation 4, and while gamers would still be able to buy the Kinect separately, many gamers just didn’t want to due to privacy concerns.

But just hardware and price changes aren’t enough to sell a console, you need to show great games and Microsoft was ready to do that.  Ted Price’s Sunset Overdrive gameplay demo would later be reported as one of the highlights of E3 2014.

Microsoft rarely throws advertisement money behind a new intellectual property if they don’t own it, but Sunset Overdrive was going to get their full support. I mean, just look at what Microsoft did to promote the game at E3.

After E3 concluded, the hype train for Sunset Overdrive officially kicked off.  Things were looking better for Microsoft. They re-priced their hardware to better compete in the console war and they had a unique exclusive game that was getting ready for release the holiday season.  Tons of plans were being discussed on how to promote the new IP.  Everything from T-Shirts, a viral marketing campaign, branded energy drinks, to a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade were being discussed.

Meanwhile, Insomniac started their weekly Sunset TV webseries.  Like their Full Moon Show Podcast, Sunset TV would keep players up to date with the latest Sunset Overdrive news and updates. In fact, new episodes of Sunset TV could be broadcast in-game.

As the months passed, Sunset Overdrive was gearing up for release and Microsoft was putting a lot of money into promotion for this game.  Just take a look at this live-action commercial.  You can see the high production values on it from a mile away.

That’s not even my favorite trailer for the game. After discovering they couldn’t get a balloon in the Thanksgiving Parade, they invited gamers to pretend it was.

This kind of interactive marketing really works for me, and Sunset Overdrive was certainly on my radar as the game lead up to launch.

By October 2014 the game was ramping up for launch.  There was even going to be a coveted Day One edition of the game, offering exclusive DLC to anyone who got one of the first copies.  Here’s the game’s official launch trailer:

Sunset Overdrive launched at midnight on October 28th, 2014 and things were not looking well at first. Only five Microsoft stores across the US participated in the Sunset Overdrive midnight release and based on the reports I’ve heard, the ones who had were mostly empty.  Initial retail sales estimates for the game’s first week range at about 138K in the US.

Was Sunset Overdrive destined to fall into obscurity after being such a promising new title?  Was the Xbox One’s low sales to blame?  Could Sunset Overdrive come back?  This story isn’t over, so stay tuned for Part 3 where we will discuss the game’s postlaunch promotions, its DLC expansions, and the unique content it inspired.

Sunset Overdrive is out now exclusively on Xbox One.

Sunset Overdrive: The Overlooked Exclusive Part 1 – History and Announcement October 7, 2016

If you’re a long-time PlayStation fan you’ve probably heard of the name Insominac Games.  Over the past twenty years they’ve developed some of the finest games avalible for Sony’s game consoles including Spyro The Dragon and Ratchet and Clank.  With each game, Insomniac has always been able to deliver solid gameplay sprinkled with a quirky sense of humor.

I first became aware of Insominac Games right around the time of the PlayStation 3’s release. A cover feature in Game Developer Magazine which has sadly not been re-published online as of the time of this article talked about the development of a PS3 launch game called Resistance: Fall of Man. After reading the postmortem, I did some of my own research on the game and by the time I eventually bought a PS3 in summer 2007 I made sure to pick up a copy of Resistance: Fall of Man with it. I wasn’t disappointed because it was without a doubt the best launch game for the fledgling PlayStation 3. In fact, I stand by the statement that until Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was released, Resistance: Fall of Man was the best game on the PS3, and it would remain the best PS3 multiplayer game for quite some time after that.

Since playing Resistance: Fall of Man, I became a die-hard Insomniac fan and began to pay close attention to their work. I would even regularly listen to the official Insomniac podcast, The Full Moon Show, for news about their upcoming games.  Years passed and Insomniac released two more Resistance games which I greatly enjoyed.

In early 2013 Sony announced their next console would be the PlayStation 4, and Microsoft announced their next console would be the Xbox One.  Months later, at E3 2013 Microsoft made it clear to consumers they were going to release as many exclusive new games on the Xbox One as they could.  Third party publishers and independent developers were lining up to produce exclusive games for Microsoft including Dead Rising 3, Titanfall, Quantum Break, and D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die.  However, I think everyone was most surprised when Microsoft revealed this trailer brandishing the Insomniac Games logo.

That’s right, you’re seeing the teaser video for a colorful open-world action game with a sick sense of humor, and it was only coming to the Xbox One.  Turns out that was a big problem.  When it was first announced, the Xbox One held a $100 price premium over the Sony PS4.  Microsoft planned to force anti-consumer policies in the Xbox One’s operating system, although they were keeping hush about the details unless the gaming media directly questioned them about it.  Then there was the fact that a new Kinect was going to be included with each Xbox One, fueling every wild conspiracy theory you could imagine, and probably some you couldn’t.

Microsoft would go on to reverse the anti-consumer policies they had planned before the Xbox One launched, enabling players to trade and resell their Xbox One game discs, but consumers didn’t trust Microsoft would not reinstate their policies later on.  The Xbox One launched in late 2013 and languished on shelves.  Even with all the great exclusives, gamers were overwhelmingly choosing the PS4 for its lower price and improved performance for multiplatform games.

Months passed and the third party publishers who developed Xbox One exclusive games were not happy. The console was not selling as well as the PS4 and gamers were not buying the Xbox One’s exclusive games regardless of their quality. To make up for lost sales, some publishers ported their Xbox One exclusive games to the PC, but they could not bring their games to the PS4, which had a commanding market share. Things were not looking good, Sunset Overdrive was still a year away from release and there was no way to tell if it could compete as an Xbox One exclusive.

Stay tuned for next time as we continue talking about this overlooked gem!  Sunset Overdrive is out now exclusively on the Xbox One.