I would say this in regards to LittleBigPlanet I felt all along that the expectations were not realistic. I am not saying the title did poorly according to these numbers in fact it did exceptionally well given its genre. That is the key to these sales the genre hurts this game. Among game genres two dimensional platforming games are incredibly unpopular. There have been a great many well reviewed games in this genre over the past few year, but the story is always the same. The market is not interested in them on consoles anyway.

The problem goes beyond just being disliked they are also undervalued. These titles are valid for gaming on the go, and they have done well. However once you get to the consoles digital downloads throttle the market for a full priced game. You will have a hard time selling consumers a sixty dollar platforming game. When they have dozens of old titles, and new titles for less then ten dollars.

I never expected exceptional sales. Though you couldn't be too blunt on this site, because fanatics were turning this game into the messiah. Many of them haven't even given up the holy ghost as it were. Now mostly they talk of truncated weeks, or of the game having super legs. Well over ninety percent of games have no legs to speak of, and of the remaining ten percent eight percent have mediocre legs selling just over ten thousand units a week. Which means it will take months to make sizable sales.

The reality is that nobody actually knows exactly what ensures that a game will have long legs. Often enough it seems indifferent to exclusivity, quality, or reputation. So when someone says it looks like it can have legs they must have a reason beyond those. What will make someone think about this game in March. The answer is that it must serve a perceived need, or more to the point engender strong optimism.

The game either needs to have a strong traditional replay value, have a aspect of nostalgia, or possess a powerful reputation among friends or family. I think the reality over time is that LittleBigPlanet has none of these features. This title is too daring in the long run which decreases consumer confidence. For the average consumer it will be harder to pick up this title then a Resistance, Motorstorm, Fallout 3, or Bioshock. Consumers are just more conscious about dated games. They do not like taking what they perceive as risks.

I am unsure whether this title will make it to a million. Given the numbers in North America I suspect that the title is probably over tracked in other regions as well. I am unsure as to whether those numbers will stay firm. Now if the title makes it past a million before the end of the year then we can say it is not a critical flop. However until proven otherwise based upon initial sales we must for the moment consider the title a critical flop.

I think like I made a thread earlier about, Sony has a big problem with their 1st party developers. 3 first party titles, LBP - Motorstorm - Socom (Hardware bundle) hardly made a dent in the overall sales. I have LBP myself, its an awesome game and I really do wish it well but having 3 games not do well at the same time and especially one with quite as substantial a marketing effort as LBP will do no favours for the Playstation divisions bottom line.

Sony as a whole doesn't look like they are going to be in for as pleasant a Christmas as they could have hoped. With a high yen and consumer confidence dropping they can ill afford the Playstation division dragging the companies bottom line through the red ink.

What does this mean for PS3 strategy in the future? Since they probably can't afford to even consider dropping the price for another 11 months if the main company does poorly over the next couple of quarters, their strategy will likely turn into attempting to achieve a profitable third place rather than potentially going toe to toe with a profit washed Microsoft with price cuts.

I wonder what this all might mean for Home? Will they be forced to charge a subscription fee? They have to increase their revenue whereever they can, and that may be one of the places they attempt to do so.

This may be as close as the Playstation ever got to overtaking the Xbox 360...

Nintendo PR:

NOOOOOOOOOOO! THE CASUAL MARKET PREVAILS!

HARDCORE GAMERS

@dinomax that last picture would probably be me if I had to own just a Wii.

Not enough games I like yet, still waiting for the flood of you know what.

How the hell does Wii sell 800000 consoles. That is insane

THE FLOODS ALREADY HAPPENED!  CASUAL GAMING IS DROWNING HARDCORE GAMING...

Except LBP, the HARDCORE market on the PS3 IS SAVED! 

For now...

ironically the picture says commiting harakiri is banned.

Yawn... Im pretty sure my PC will float if I taped the holes.

Yawn... Im pretty sure my PC will float if I taped the holes.

LOL PC gaming market!  More like wait for console game ports TO PIRATE while playing WOW!