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Top Spin 4 yet to sell 1 million copies WW, will we see Top Spin 5?

40K views 138 replies 43 participants last post by  Htom Sirveaux 
#1 ·
Since it's release in March 2011, Top Spin 4 is yet to sell even 1 million copies over the 3 gaming formats. In comparison, Top Spin 3 has sold over 1.5 million over the 3 gaming formats.

TOPSPIN 4 SALES to date..

Wii....115,660
Xbox...335,057
PS3....535,515
______________
TOTAL..986,222

Will we see a Top Spin 5? Is this considered a flop?
 
#2 ·
Top Spin 4 was supposed to have lots of new playable characters via downloadable content but they canned the idea soon after release. The online is also terrible and they never did a proper job of improving it.

Despite these flaws, the single-player aspect of the game is by far the best ever released. It would be a shame if they don't make a fifth one. Virtua tennis just isn't the same (although their online is good).
 
#3 ·
Top Spin 4 was supposed to have lots of new playable characters via downloadable content but they canned the idea soon after release. The online is also terrible and they never did a proper job of improving it.
The online was terrible. I remember getting stuck on the 'looking for opponents' page for 10 minutes before it would say there are no suitable matches :lol:

The roster was an issue in my opinion - particularly the women. Why get Chang, Davydenko, Rafter and Courier - but not Sharapova?

The perfect roster would be:


8 Male - Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Tsonga JMDP, Dimitrov, Tomic (6 top players, 2 up-and-comers)
8 Female - Serena, Sharapova, Azarenka, Radwanska, Ivanovic, Li, Stephens, Robson (6 top players, 2 up-and-comers)

8 Spare Spaces for Downloadable Players from...

12 CURRENT - Wozniacki, Errani, Kerber, Kvitova, Bartoli, Stosur, Kirilenko, Lisicki, Jankovic, Kuznetsova, Hantuchova, Zheng
12 PAST - Hingis, Davenport, Capriati, Kournikova, Evert, Navratilova, Graf, Seles, Henin, Venus, Clijsters, Mauresmo
12 CURRENT - Berdych, Ferrer, Gasquet, Wawrinka, Nishikori, Haas, Raonic, Janowicz, Almagro, Gulbis, Monfils, Matosevic Querrey
12 PAST - Agassi, Sampras, Borg, McEnroe, Kuerten, Hewitt, Lendl, Connors, Safin, Roddick, Moya, Edberg


------------------------------------------------------------------


I feel they haven't capitalised on the biggest tennis countries, especially China with Li Na. If they cover...

UK with Murray and Robson
Australia with Tomic ( + free downloadable Stosur and Hewitt)
US with Serena, Stephens ( + free downloadable Sampras, Davenport, Capriati and Agassi)
China with Li ( + free downloadable Zheng)
France with Tsonga ( + free downloadable Bartoli and Gasquet)
Russia with Sharapova ( + free downloable Kournikova and Safin)

That's your grand slam markets and other big markets covered. People love free shit - or the idea that they're getting something for free.

With the European countries, offer corresponding free players...

Switzerland - Hingis, Wawrinka
Spain - Moya, Almagro
Germany - Lisicki, Haas
Denmark - Wozniacki
Poland - Janowicz
Czeck - Berdych, Kvitova
Slovak - Hantuchova
Italy - Errani
Sweden - Borg
Serbia - Jankovic
Belgium - Henin, Clijsters
etc etc etc

Japan - Nishikori
Brazil - Kuerten

ETC!

All regions that don't have a player, offer Kournikova. :lol:

I just think region specific free downloads, promoted just with a sticker for each different country - could boost sales :shrug:

I don't know, what does everyone else think?

You'd think with Li Na in a video game, they'd do well over a million copies just there :lol: Do people have game consoles there? :confused:
 
#4 ·
Make a good online setup, make it for PC and I'll buy it.

It's silly to not grab the PC online gaming community.
 
#11 ·
I used to like TS4. After playing Tennis Elbow though, I know I'll never touch it again. The dearth of tennis games used to bother me, I wondered if there'd ever be one with a satisfying, comprehensive career mode. Then I found Tennis Elbow, what a joyous day. Seriously, they could get to TS8, and it still wouldn't be as good as TE. Can't speak highly enough of it, sports gaming at its best. Beats the others hands-down, and makes the supposed simulation style of TS feel more like Virtua Tennis.
 
#12 ·
It's hard because they have to pay each player individually to feature in the game and then also pay for the rights for many official tournaments which costs them a lot.

2K Czech's main next-gen game now is clearly Mafia III, maybe after that their attentions will switch to Top Spin 5 or maybe 2K will just give it to another studio of theirs to develop. Wouldn't really even be that surprised if 2K ditched Top Spin altogether, NBA 2K is clearly their main sports game.
 
#13 ·
My ideas for a new top spin...

Roster:
For the mens, they should have the top 8 players today plus 8 legends. For the womens, they should do the same, which means you get 16 playable characters from both tours. Also, make the animations realistic of those players.

Then have some unlockable players or DLC players which you can unlock through career mode or download. They can be past or present players.

Also, make the editing better, so you can create better pro's. In addition to that have the ability to upload & download created players like you can do with EA sport games.

This allows you to have a wide roster of real players from the tour without the need to get liscense for everyone.

Also, add more 'fake' players for career mode so it doesn't get so repetitive and allow them to grow as players too. One problem with TS 4 is that everyone stays in the same positions year in & year out. Nobody declines or develops.

Courts: Bar the obvious lack of Wimbledon, the liscensing for the tournaments is pretty good. You get some masters the WTF & 3 Grand slams. What i would like to see is perhaps 1 more court from those Grand slams if possible.

Apart from that they could at least make the other courts more like their true forms. Not exactly like them, because of liscensing issues, but at least something that resembles them more. Dublin open is an example. Why not call it the 'British open' or something and have it look something similar to Wimbledon.

Career mode: Make it more realistic. Like i mentioned above, players should grow & decline instead of staying in the same place. The Calender should go from a week by week basis instead of month by month, giving you an oppertunity to play more than 1 tournament a month.

Also, level shouldn't factor what tournaments you should be able to enter. That should be based on rankings or something. I don't like the fact that i can't enter Grand Slams for a while despite my ranking being high enough. It's stupid tbh.

Game modes: A tournament mode like GST 2 would be good as it would allows for more offline features. Also a challenge mode or something would add to the offline experiance.
 
#16 · (Edited)
I've long thought that the ATP and WTA player councils should band together so that there can be upwards of 60 players in each game, and all with their unique motions and apparel. Of course, it will never happen, and the most realistic game in terms of large roster and every tournament is Tennis Elbow.

I wish they would make a Smash Court Tennis 4 (or x year). SCT2 was excellent, and they had all the motions spot on. I get that the engine used in TS4 didn't allow for individual animation (that's the only reason they have for being so lazy) but it feels the same playing with all the players except for Nadal.
 
#20 ·
While that's true of some games, I find that playing people online is altogether more frustrating. From the point a game is released, there's a progression: glitches are found by sad bastards that play 24/7, they are exploited, and then the practice is perpetuated - taking most, if not all of the fun out of playing. I don't even have an Xbox Gold Account, I miss the good old days of Mario Kart/Goldeneye 4 player on N64.

It's hard to believe that it was even possible to win GS SF/Finals on the highest difficulty! Was bloody difficult on Hard, and I think there was a level higher than that. No doubt there's a way to exploit the CPU player as you say, but who wants to play like that? Point is, it was so imbalanced that it became a tedious exercise winning the rounds leading up to the SF. Because there was no way, just no way in hell you would lose. And Masters events... you just won every single match with ease.. Whereas on TE I've suffered a couple of massive GS upsets to the likes of Benneteau & Bellucci in beast mode. It's rare, but it can happen, which is just right.
 
#22 ·
There are some people who abuse online play and ruin it for a lot of people yeah, but if you have a group of trustworthy people to play with, it's the best mode for sure. I can safely say that playing other MTFers online regularly on TS4 is the best tennis video game experience I've ever had. Before that, I usually played random people online and it could get quite frustrating for sure, but if you have people to play with it's great. For me at least, playing people is way more interesting than playing the CPU: like in every game, once you reach a certain level beating the CPU becomes piss easy because their patterns are always the same. Just wait until you improve some more on TE, you'll stop being upset by Benneteau and Bellucci. I remember on Smash Court Tennis when I initially lost to Hewitt and Safin at Slams, then after a while I barely lost a point to them. Offline mode is basically only fun until you become good enough to own it completely, then there's nothing left to do.

Unless the CPU can 'evolve' or have some sort of intelligence, every game will face that issue, TS4's greatest strength is its online mode, it's highly enjoyable.
 
#28 ·
Hope there is. TS4 has a few fixable flaws that would make it an amazing tennis game.
 
#29 ·
Sadly as others have mentioned, Tennis is not something people go out of their way to play or watch.

Unlike Soccer, Football, Basketball; which all have millions of fans tuning in every day.

In the end it is about $$$$. So why would 2k spend the time and money on TS5, when they could make NBA2KXX, Borderlands 3, etc; which would bring in double the money?
 
#31 ·
I thought for sure I have discussed this before here, but yeah, perfect tennis game would have GST2 slams, graphics and downloadable players (It has EA share so all the players were created by people and uploaded online, even if they aren't officially in the game), and TS4 gameplay, that would be great.

I'm less worried about licensed non masters events.. I mean I can live with "German Open" rather than "ATP Halle" for a grass court minor tourney, long as it looks similar, just licensed slams and masters are a need be.
 
#33 · (Edited)
I still play this game all the friggin' time. I solely play in 2K mode on Xbox Live, though. Created players can be so unrealistic and hard to beat, I like playing as the real guys.

I'm ranked #250 in the world! heh. But to get to number one, you'd basically have to play the game all day every day, the #1 player's overall score is insane.

(i'm also pretty excited about NBA2k14, which comes out next Tuesday. Even if you don't care about basketball, the games are fun to play)
 
#35 ·
I owned all of them, but I definitely feel as though they have gotten worse in realism and worse in player choices. The first one was great and I still play it from time to time. Either way, I doubt they will have a 5.
 
#38 ·
Er what? TS4 is by far the most realistic version to date. TS1 was stupid based on the risk shot mechanic alone.
 
#36 ·
My Gael Monflis was #4 on WT for like 2 hours. I made it to the final of Australian Open with a cake walk draw, only to lose to a perfect ballbasher. I also won two small tournaments somehow. But literally people who are way too good at the game suck to play, also there is an abundance of cheap created players. Either big serving, ballbashing; or stupid angles.

I really do hope they come up with TS-5, but it ain't going to happen :(
 
#41 ·
Great shame if a 5th never gets made, i was world number one a few times on the xbox
 
#42 ·
I feel like TS4 didn't sell that well because it wasn't that fun for the average tennis fan and there was barely any replay value. I just want to see a console tennis game that puts the same kind of devotion to realism that the Tennis Elbow community does. If a smaller company with less advanced technology can make a game that good, then certainly a big company like 2K can make a game where every player has their correct animations, tendencies, and stats (TS4's stats were beyond stupid). Players should feel unique. If 2K can do it with NBA, where LeBron looks and feels different to play with than Kobe, then they can certainly do it with tennis. The motions of Federer, Djokovic, Nadal, Delpo, Berdych, Tsonga, Gasquet, Wawrinka, etc, are very distinct and a game needs to implement that.
 
#45 ·
It was a shit series

Now, shame is there isn't anything on the horizon that's good

Grand slam tennis 2- a shit game, but some fun to be had. EA will never make a great tennis game

Virtua tennis series- needs a Ge overall, arcades gameplay is no gameplay fit for a true tennis fan. A true tennis fam expects nothing but absolute realism or absolute gameplay, virtua tennis has neither

Smash court tennis 3- far too easy, but one of the finest tennis games I've played. Only problem is the game play is too easy.
There is no one online, so after a while there is no challenge to it, however, it's a brilliant game

Top spin 4- an excellent sim, however there is a shallow feeling to it. The career mode is nothing compared to, say, virtua tennis 3
There is a delay in the movement, a lack of punch in reactions. There is a l

Everybody's tennis- ps2- excellent game. Gameplay is top notch, a must have game. There is a newer version on the psp. It's as good as any tennis game I've played
 
#46 ·
It was a shit series

Now, shame is there isn't anything on the horizon that's good

Grand slam tennis 2- a shit game, but some fun to be had. EA will never make a great tennis game

Virtua tennis series- needs a Ge overall, arcades gameplay is no gameplay fit for a true tennis fan. A true tennis fam expects nothing but absolute realism or absolute gameplay, virtua tennis has neither

Smash court tennis 3- far too easy, but one of the finest tennis games I've played. Only problem is the game play is too easy.
There is no one online, so after a while there is no challenge to it, however, it's a brilliant game

Top spin 4- an excellent sim, however there is a shallow feeling to it. The career mode is nothing compared to, say, virtua tennis 3
There is a delay in the movement, a lack of punch in reactions. There is a l

Everybody's tennis- ps2- excellent game. Gameplay is top notch, a must have game. There is a newer version on the psp. It's as good as any tennis game I've played
You are kidding, right? It's as bad as any tennis game I've played.
 
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