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[SecretBonusPoint]

Pretty shitty Madworld numbers (but then surprisingly shitty Sonic & Black Knight numbers as well, due to Unleashed saturation no doubt).

Comparisons to the entirely advertisement-less Godhand are somewhat moot especially on PS2 a system that was already drowning in AAA action titles, where as the Wii has a handful. Also no Japanese sales for this game to boost worldwide figures means an overall disappointment.

Really hope Bayonetta ends up selling to break the Clover Curse :lol

 

[PhoenixDark]

Why did people expect Mad World to do well? Niche title, on the Wii, hyped by the internet fails to sell tons and inspire a sentimental direct-to-DVD movie. news at 11

KZ2 is going to continue selling at a decent pace, much like Resistance did. Clearly another example of overblown internet hype (not in terms of the game quality, but it's potential to sell) and marketing fluff.

 

[mentalfloss]

Why did people expect Mad World to do well? Niche title, on the Wii, hyped by the internet fails to sell tons and inspire a sentimental direct-to-DVD movie. news at 11

KZ2 is going to continue selling at a decent pace, much like Resistance did. Clearly another example of overblown internet hype (not in terms of the game quality, but it's potential to sell) and marketing fluff.

So which one lost more money?

 

[nib95]

So which one lost more money?

I think Killzone 2 has already made a profit personally. If it really has sold around 1.41 million worldwide and also cost around the reported $31 million to develop, it should have netted a healthy (not substantial) profit.

 

[Belgorim]

So Halo 3 sold almost 100k units in March 2009?

 

[Grampa Simpson]

But finished in the Perfect Dark Zero type of sales :lol :lol :lol

So which one lost more money?

Low blows. Low blows.

 

[GhaleonEB]

WTF Halo 3 is back? Wow!

It was in the top 20 last month as well.

 

[Jonsoncao]

WTF Halo 3 is back? Wow!

http://blog.wired.com/games/2009/03/february-2009s.html

u didnt read the NPD Feb post, did u :lol

NPD February 2009 Software 11-20

11. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (Warner Interactive, Xbox 360)
12. Skate 2 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360)
13. Left 4 Dead (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360)
14. NBA 2K9 (Take-Two, Xbox 360)
15. Halo 3 (Microsoft, Xbox 360)
16. Call of Duty: World At War (Activision, PS3)
17. Lego Star Wars: Complete Saga (LucasArts, Wii)
18. Guitar Hero: World Tour (Activision, Xbox 360)
19. My Fitness Coach (Ubisoft, Wii)
20. Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks, Xbox 360)

 

[RiZ III]

:lol OMG RE5 :lol Capcom deserves each and every one of those sales

 

[speculawyer]

In all likelihood CoD4DS isn't really "a good" example, as in representative of anything in particular, but the highest outlier.

Uh . . . Professor Layton probably didn't sell much in its first month but there it is on the chart more than a year later selling more than GTA: Chinatown Wars.

DS games do have weird sales patterns.

 

[gkryhewy]

I think Killzone 2 has already made a profit personally. If it really has sold around 1.41 million worldwide and also cost around the reported $31 million to develop, it should have netted a healthy (not substantial) profit.

Right, it's doing just great.

 

[speculawyer]

Yeah i noticed that yesterday,what could have caused the (Halo 3) bump?

Continued xbox 360 sales and a low price for Halo 3. I guess it is kind of a 'must buy' game for new 360 owners . . . especially if they have online friends with the game.

 

[duk]

halo games have mad legs

 

[GhaleonEB]

The sales help exlpain some stats Bungie tossed out a few weeks ago.

• Halo 3 is still averaging close to 900,000 unique players per day on Xbox LIVE, it routinely pushes over a million on weekends, and it's actually trending upwards.
• The Legendary Map Pack, released just about one year ago, still averages over five thousand downloads per day!
• Both the Heroic Map Pack and Cold Storage are holding strong at over 11,000 downloads per day.

 

[Kenka]

I should have a bit of refinement to add to that. Tomorrow I hope the article is up.

Thanks Jay, your effort is much appreciated.

 

[mentalfloss]

I think Killzone 2 has already made a profit personally. If it really has sold around 1.41 million worldwide and also cost around the reported $31 million to develop, it should have netted a healthy (not substantial) profit.

Okay, so if we do some armchair math using worldwide numbers, KZ2 sold roughly 14x the amount of Madworld. If it takes less than 2 million in sales for a 31 million dollar game to make a profit, then Madworld should be doing just fine. So everybody wins NPD!

 

[JJConrad]

If Madworld/GodHand comparisons are moot then so is every other possible comparison. Its no less relevant than comparing it with a 1st party title or an established brand from bigger developers.




I think donny's Conduit prediction is a bit high for a couple reason:

1) Only 11 new 3rd party IP's have debut over 300k this generation; All were heavily hyped, most were well reviewed; 3 had November launches to help, 3 others have little hope passing a million. Its a higher prediction than anyone would think.

2) The only Sega game to beat that prediction this gen has Mario in it... and it debut just above 325k in November. Nothing else has come close.

I think a million lifetime is an easy bet... but I don't think there is enough hype for the game to sell 300k immediately. There is too much skepticism about it and good reviews and word-of-mouth doesn't work that fast. I don't think Sega has the ability to market and distribute the game at that level.


[edit] I looked over those 11 games again. 1 of them was counted once for each system, 1 was actually a spin-off, 2 were spiritual successors with a new publisher, and 1 may not exist... I padded the list in case I missed something and didn't want some twit challenging the whole point over it. [/edit]

 

[PhoenixDark]

I think Killzone 2 has already made a profit personally. If it really has sold around 1.41 million worldwide and also cost around the reported $31 million to develop, it should have netted a healthy (not substantial) profit.

Yea...no. It won't make back it's costs anytime soon. Plus wasn't the dev costs around $40+ million

 

[gutter_trash]

I got an idea for MadWorld, they should adapt it for PSN/XBLA as a downloadable game,
I would buy both to support

 

[border]

Okay, so if we do some armchair math using worldwide numbers, KZ2 sold roughly 14x the amount of Madworld. If it takes less than 2 million in sales for a 31 million dollar game to make a profit, then Madworld should be doing just fine. So everybody wins NPD!

Killzone 2 does not have to pay royalties to a 1st party on every copy pressed, and it costs 20% more than Madworld. Its economics are quite different, though I'm not going to speculate on how profitable either game is or will be.

 

[godhandiscen]

How much did Killzone 2 really cost to produce? I heard 70 million last time. Also, I think GG developed some libraries that a lot of develkopers now use in the creation of different PS3 games, so it is hard to say wheter KZ2 is generating a profit or not even if it hasnt sold that much.

 

[Aaron Strife]

Uh . . . Professor Layton probably didn't sell much in its first month but there it is on the chart more than a year later selling more than GTA: Chinatown Wars

Its sales this month were actually higher than in its debut month.

 

[Karma]

Where is the 1.41 Million sold for KZ2 coming from? Is that confirmed?

 

[OldJadedGamer]

KZ2 is going to continue selling at a decent pace, much like Resistance did. Clearly another example of overblown internet hype (not in terms of the game quality, but it's potential to sell) and marketing fluff.

According to NPD, Resistance took over a year at retail to even break a million and wasn't even the PS3's first million seller in the US. COD4 was.

 

[Rolf NB]

How much did Killzone 2 really cost to produce? I heard 70 million last time. Also, I think GG developed some libraries that a lot of develkopers now use in the creation of different PS3 games, so it is hard to say wheter KZ2 is generating a profit or not even if it hasnt sold that much.

You should make it your new hobby to guess Killzone 2 production cost in Xbox Live party chat, which is probably also where you heard your 70 million figure. New guesses every sunday. Polls and leaderboards. Most popular guesser wins a trip to Fort Lauderdale.

 

[duk]

KZ2 70m to produce? I don't think so... prob 40m with advertising and marketing costs?

 

[manueldelalas]

Killzone 2 does not have to pay royalties to a 1st party on every copy pressed, and it costs 20% more than Madworld. Its economics are quite different, though I'm not going to speculate on how profitable either game is or will be.

Where do you get your numbers?

 

[gofreak]

To go off on a slightly different note, I think Sony needs to consider turning around and embracing their market position in the US currently, and actually try to leverage it from a marketing POV.

Start casting themselves as a challenger brand, in other words.

They had practically flawless execution of that mindset when they first introduced Playstation..it seemed evident across everything they did. But they lost that image possibly more particularly over the course of the PS2 years, and became the arrogant Goliath.

They need to swallow their pride and go back to being 'David', and revel in that again. I think it suits the Playstation brand a lot better too regardless of actual market performance. I hope the current PR/marketing guard at SCEA or SCE generally isn't too arrogant to see the opportunity there.

(Note, I think they have somewhat regained the mindset of the underdog in so far as 'working harder when you're not the top dog' goes..they're arguably working as hard as they ever have in terms of their development effort and certain platform choices they've made to win consumer affections..minus price, of course.. but their communication isn't IMO consistent with that and doesn't amplify that image of being the 'tireless underdog' which it should do. I think this may also be where their games marketing is falling down..with PS2, games practically sold themselves because of userbase size and they possibly got a little fat leaning on that..now they have to fight for every sale. IMO PR and marketing wise they're finding the transition from 'top dog' difficult..they need to take a step back and see that, and address that.)

 

[Sadist]

The Conduit won't even reach 100k sales in June. 70k at best.

I'm crossing my fingers for the Conduit guys, but I'm not expecting big things.

 

[schuelma]

The Conduit won't even reach 100k sales in June. 70k at best.

I'm crossing my fingers for the Conduit guys, but I'm not expecting big things.

You forget that donny's going to buy like ten thousand copies by himself.

 

[Sadist]

You forget that donny's going to buy like ten thousand copies by himself.

80k it is

 

[CrunchinJelly]

The Conduit won't even reach 100k sales in June. 70k at best.

I'm crossing my fingers for the Conduit guys, but I'm not expecting big things.

You gotta love how Sega don't mind taking a chance on the Wii, though.

 

[chris0701]

I think Killzone 2 has already made a profit personally. If it really has sold around 1.41 million worldwide and also cost around the reported $31 million to develop, it should have netted a healthy (not substantial) profit.

DO NOT bring sales number from VG Cxxxx. It is shit as usual.

We only know Sony said KZ2 sales number had exceeded one million three days ago.

 

[BLaZiN PRopHeT]

I think Killzone 2 has already made a profit personally. If it really has sold around 1.41 million worldwide and also cost around the reported $31 million to develop, it should have netted a healthy (not substantial) profit.

weren't you the one that said kz2 had 1 million pre-orders in the us and another million in eu?

 

[Sadist]

You gotta love how Sega don't mind taking a chance on the Wii, though.

I do. Thats why I hope the Conduit will have some succes, because Sega actually has the balls to do something. I enjoyed tHotD Overkill and MadWorld and I still don't know about the Conduit (not a FPS fan myself) but when looking at it, it is a solid effort. Maybe the CoD WaW buyers will pick it up?

 

[chris0701]

weren't you the one that said kz2 had 1 million pre-orders in the us and another million in eu?

WTF@The two million pre-order worldwide results in one million sales after 1.5 month?:lol

 

[Wii Will Rock U]

I got an idea for MadWorld, they should adapt it for PSN/XBLA as a downloadable game,
I would buy both to support

Why don't you just buy a Wii?

 

[donny2112]

They should port The Conduit to a next gen platform, the "motion" controls add NOTHING.

:lol Nice.

Yeah, but then it'd look like a Wii game.

Maybe it could be downloadable.

:lol

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

The Conduit won't even reach 100k sales in June. 70k at best.

I'm crossing my fingers for the Conduit guys, but I'm not expecting big things.

The game is the very definition of generic. Maybe in 1999 this MIGHT have had fly but 2009?

 

[womfalcs3]

People confuse retailer pre-order with consumer sales.

 

[Karma]

weren't you the one that said kz2 had 1 million pre-orders in the us and another million in eu?

No he said 2 Million in the US alone.

I think it's just for Europe, since both Amazon (US) and Gamestop have both confirmed they've had over 1 million pre-orders for the game each. Which means the game could be sitting on at least 3.1 million pre-orders worldwide, and that's before the advertising has even kicked in. It's certainly looking very promising for the game indeed.

 

[chris0701]

No he said 2 Million in the US alone.

ouch:lol

two-third of gamers gave up their pre-orders....

OK. I certainly believe the pre-order numbers were made up by someone.

 

[Sadist]

The game is the very definition of generic. Maybe in 1999 this MIGHT have had fly but 2009?

Well, you could argue that generic pulls in the crowd of course. I mean, what kind of games does the Wii offer in the genre? But, I'll have to wait for my first play session before passing judgement of course.

 

[donny2112]

So does anyone else have a nagging feeling that something is wrong with the hardware numbers?

The week to week drops are just too big and too consistent. I don't remember anyone ever claiming that Easter could provide a 33% boost to hardware sales before this.

And if it was the recession then why would all platforms be hit the same way?

I think it's a systemic issue in NPD's process. They "upgraded" their software for February's numbers and every system had an unusual (in my opinion) increase. Now, they all have a huge and again unusual (in my opinion) decrease in March. Maybe they "fixed" something else in March resulting in the large decrease across the board. Hopefully, they'll stabilize for April's numbers.

When it was 2D. Golly Gee what a coincidence.

Actually, the first two GTA games sold over 1 million on the PS1, IIRC.

Edit:

That was my first thought too. Wasn't February NPD delayed? It's almost like February=5 weeks and March=4weeks.

But then February NPD would've had Halo Wars.

 

[BishopLamont]

I think it's a systemic issue in NPD's process. They "upgraded" their software for February's numbers and every system had an unusual (in my opinion) increase. Now, they all have a huge and again unusual (in my opinion) decrease in March. Maybe they "fixed" something else in March resulting in the large decrease across the board. Hopefully, they'll stabilize for April's numbers.

*Waits for donny to announce all March predictions are null and void"

 

[jamesinclair]

Every month the Wii software LTDs shock me.

And the best part for me is that I dont own Wii Play OR Wii fit...and plan on buying them some day :lol

 

[donny2112]

*Interesting note: Vice City Stories was released on October 31, 2006 and didn't make the cutoff for the October NPDs so it first appeared in the November 2006 NPD listings meaning it had a full four weeks of sales to get to 125k.

Where'd you find 125K for PSP VCS first month? Nov-06 had PSP VCS at < 115K from my records.

*Waits for donny to announce all March predictions are null and void"

A really good predictor would've taken into account any NPD changes and predicted accordingly.

 

[Mindlog]

I think it's a systemic issue in NPD's process. They "upgraded" their software for February's numbers and every system had an unusual (in my opinion) increase. Now, they all have a huge and again unusual (in my opinion) decrease in March. Maybe they "fixed" something else in March resulting in the large decrease across the board. Hopefully, they'll stabilize for April's numbers.

I'm now left wondering why I wasn't a bit more puzzled by back to back months of unusual sales performance.

I'm a bit disappointed in myself. Not saying anything is certainly wrong with NPD, but why didn't I question it sooner :F

 

[jrricky]

I have a bad feeling that Bayonetta wont chart either since it has a female protagonist in it plus its a new IP like Madworld. Being multiplatform will give it some room though.

Is it launching this year?

 

[donny2112]

Actual

PS3 vs. Wii Balance Board (U.S.)

Year over Year Comparison

Estimated