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Delay and recall of Media Molecule's gem likely hurt October sales figures.
Little Big Planet was heralded as the PlayStation 3 game that would appeal to all demographics and divert some of the mainstream attention towards the PS3 that's currently focused squarely on the Wii. It seemed like it was on track to do just that and be a huge seller in October. Then came the controversy surrounding lyrics in the game's soundtrack that included quotes from the Quran which resulted in a recall and subsequent delay, pushing the game back from its October 21 release date in the U.S. to October 27. While that might have not been a big deal in and of itself, the recall most certainly cost Sony a fair amount of money and also likely hurt the game's October sales.
Only two PlayStation 3 games made the top ten sales chart for October: SOCOM: Confrontation and Little Big Planet. The two games were neck and neck in sales, with SOCOM getting the edge, 231,000 to 215,000. That's despite SOCOM coming out nearly two weeks sooner than LBP, but it's important to keep in mind the fact that SOCOM is also available through the PlayStation Store -- sales of which the NPD Group does not track.
For such a big release, selling just over 200,000 units -- even for a game releasing at the end of the month -- seems like a disappointment. So does Sony have reason to be alarmed?
More than likely not. While the October sales figures aren't going to blow anyone away, Little Big Planet is a solid candidate to sell in the six digits month after month, much like many of Nintendo's first party releases on Wii. And, of course, November will be a huge month for games, and the release of Resistance 2 so close to LBP might be enough to motivate gamers who may have been on the fence to finally go out and pick up a PS3 -- thereby increasing the pool of people who could potentially buy LBP. As if our review wasn't clear enough, it's a game that simply must be played. With LBP, the more players the game has, the better it will become. So if for no other reason than to see what kind of creations the masses can conjure up, we hope sales for the game explode next month.
6 Comments:
Since when is selling 200,000 copies of a game in 4 days a failure? I think that shows that November numbers will be substantially larger then anyone expected. No, Sony does not have anything to worry about.
It's not necessary a failure, but they were talking about how the sales of the game could have been considerably higher than what they turned out to be.
True, 200,000 in a couple days is not a failure. But I'm certain Sony was hoping for at least double that. Nonetheless, personally, I didn't see it as a game that would "appeal to all demographics" at all. However I was also expecting it to do better, especially after the hype and the reviews to back up the hype.
Consider this:
Fable 2 which people are bragging about at around 750k had 10 days of sales vs 4 days where to be quite honest, a fair amount of people weren't even confident if LBP was out yet. In fact, my Gamestop didn't have them in on the 27th but more like on the 30th. On top of that, the install base for the 360 vs the PS3 in the US is more than 2 to 1.
Considering there are half the amount of PS3 owners that can buy the game, and the game had less than half the time to sell, and that the delay was really not a clear one, what they sold was actually pretty good. There were no special edition versions, no huge promo billboards in stores that I could see.
I do wish Sony had pumped WAY more advertising into this game. But this game will sell 3M worldwide easily. I think it will have more legs than some other games out there as well as more people see it for themselves.
200, 000 IS a disaster if you compare it to Gears Of War 2 which sold over 2.1 MILLION copies worldwide ALREADY. LBP, as far as i know, has only sold around half a million copies worldwide.
Many people say that Sony don't put enough advertising into games like theese, which is a fair argument. However i live in the UK and i have not seen a single TV ad for GOW2 either.
It is entirely possible that the last - minute delay of the game had some people confused as to wether the game is actually out yet or not and a lack of advertising certainly wouldn't have helped that problem.
However i agree with the statement that this is a game that will probably sell well, but over a longer period of time. As opposed to Gears Of War 2 which has exploded from day 1 but will probably die down to nothingness very soon as well.
I suppose once Sony start rolling out the TV commercials, interest in this game SHOULD grow significantly.
come on ppl.. look at all the games that game out in 2 weeks sorta hard to play them all ppl will get around to it evenually, as for xbox fable is far more better then gears for the amount of play time in the game but gears o man way bad ass but simple dissapointed in the story... o well time to head back to fall out 3 now man i love that game... peace out
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