How much do REVIEWS affect sales?

[Riachu]

Squilliam said:

Reasonable said:

Riachu said:

Squilliam said:

Those good reviewed titles are also pretty inaccessible or only cater to a smaller niche of the market. Reviewers will often overlook complicated, overly difficult controls or place too much emphasis on graphics, things which don't seem to corelate strongly with strong sales. Or they will pay too much attention to innovation which again doesn't corelate well with sales.

The more a game does the basics right, the better reviews and sales corelate from what I have seen.

How is Beyond Good and Evil inaccessible or only cater to a smaller niche?  It's an action/adventure game which is one of the most, if not the most, popular genres in gaming.

Just what I was going to say.

I do kind of get something like Ico being seen as niche - but Beyond Good and Evil really is one of those puzzling ones.  It released in a popular genre, its creator was reasonably well know due to Rayman, it good great reviews and it offered terrifically varied gameplay (combat, stealth, fighting, vehicles) with nice, easy to master controls, coupled with neat graphics and a well realised setting - in short, on paper it really should have sold well, but it just seemed to die at retail.

I guess that's why Ubi are so 'do we don't we' regarding making a sequel - they're worried history will repeat itself except this time they'll have sunk HD level budget into it.

 

I guess people don't like pigs.

Ubisoft released it during the holiday season which is death row for new IPs unless you are a shooter or Assassin's Creed.  Add the fact that there was little pre-release hype and very little marketing.  I'm sure a sequel would do well if Ubisoft learn from their mistakes.  Isn't being a cult hit enough to warrent a sequel.  The sequel can sell better than the first game.  MGS2 sold more than MGS1 if I remember correctly.