The Official October NPD Thread (Data at 6:30 PM EST ~3.5 hours)

[Dodece]

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.