Perfect Dark Zero - Marketing and Release

Marketing and Release

Perfect Dark Zero made its first appearance at Spaceworld 2000, an annual video game trade show hosted by Nintendo in Tokyo. The demo briefly showed a 3D real-time render of Joanna Dark. Some reports further suggested the development of the game with Rare applying to trademark the names "After Dark", "Perfect Dark Evolution" and the phrase "Shot in the Dark". The next year, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June 2001, Nintendo advertised the title "Perfect Dark Zero" on a list of upcoming GameCube releases, but it was quickly removed. In January 2002, it was allegedly announced that its release was pushed back to 2004 due to internal team problems at Rare.

When Rare was purchased by Microsoft in September 2002, several cartoony images of Joanna Dark were released, but few other official announcements were made in the following years. On May 10, 2005, one of the rewards in the OurColony viral marketing campaign for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console was a new image of Joanna Dark. At the official unveiling of the Xbox 360, it was revealed that Perfect Dark Zero would be a launch title for the new system in the fall of 2005. A demo was shown during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2005 shortly afterwards. Prior to its release, Microsoft arranged several deals with different publishers to promote interest in the game. Two novels, Perfect Dark: Initial Vector and Perfect Dark: Second Front, which were written by Greg Rucka, and a comic book, Perfect Dark: Janus' Tears, which was written by Eric Trautmann and illustrated by Cold FuZion Studios, were released before and after the game. Around the same time, Joanna Dark made an appearance on the cover of FHM magazine. An official soundtrack produced by Nile Rodgers, Perfect Dark Zero Original Soundtrack, was also made available on November 8, 2005.

The first release of the game came on November 17, 2005 in North America. The game was subsequently playable at the Xbox 360 Zero Hour Launch event, along with other Xbox 360 launch titles such as Rare's Kameo: Elements of Power and Activision's Call of Duty 2. Other releases followed on December 2 in Europe and on December 10 in Japan. In Europe, Microsoft organized a party by simulating an apartment as Joanna Dark's home, where several journalists could try out the Xbox 360 and the game. During the Japanese launch weekend, Perfect Dark Zero became the second best-selling 360 game with roughly 15,000 units sold, behind Namco's Ridge Racer 6.

Perfect Dark Zero was released in two forms: the standard version and a "Limited Collector's Edition". The collector's edition features a second disc of content, a black metal game case, images of the staff and most of the in-house testers which gave a glimpse behind the scenes at Rare, a special-edition comic booklet which sets the scene for the game, titled Hong Kong Sunrise, and one of nine holographic collectible cards. The game has reportedly sold in excess of one million units worldwide. As a result, it was one of the first games to be re-released under the "Platinum Hits" list.