If Heavy Rain isn't a sleeper hit, then I don't know what is. Most people were guessing it would do .5-.75 mio. LTD at the most, and it did .5 mio in its first week!

The real question is do YOU know what a sleeper hit means, most pegged heavy rain to end up below 500K LTD.

Look where it is now.

Heavy Rain DID go big out of nowhere, just because it had more hype on VGchartz than many other games doesn't mean it had hype in the real world, it had no hype in the real world prior to launch.

We'll have to agree to disagree, I know full well what sleeper hit is, the Wii is a sleeper hit. The fact that HR had a decent amount of pre orders before release, WAS hyped elsewhere other than VGC, had advertising and has been reviewed more than the vast majority of other games this gen (HR has more reviews than ME2, Gears, SSBB, Halo 3, SMG, GTAIV ect) means it's sucess wasn't out of the blue.

Does it have to be a phenomenon? It's a good game. That's good enough. Those who bought it enjoyed it. There isn't going to be any "Heavy Rain Cereal" or "Heavy Rain Mountain Dew". But how many other games garner that kind of following?

It is what it is: A great experience.

I know it's not that funny but it was just a response to OP's Heavy Rain phenomenon thing.

U tell me, you r the one making a theath about a possible phenomenon.

Ok, look a minute at the word "phenomenon".  As I see it, Avatar (the movie) is a phenomenon, as it does billions in box offer and has a lot of buzz about it, and is discussed as being huge.  It is well know, and is the talk of a lot of people.   This, to me, is the opposite of a "sleeper hit".  Anyone here talk about Left 4 Dead being a "phenomenon"?  It even has viral stuff, but who talks about a "phenomenon" it has "become"?  The phenomenon has to do with more than just the game, but all that is around it.

Phenomenon is Pokemon (and maybe (yes... maybe) Mario)

One thing that the whole world bought... heavy rain is nothing like that.

But never say never. Who knows how big the franchise will be.

It's not a new genre,it's like Shenmue in a way that it's just an evolved form of point click adventure games.
Both also heavily used QTE. Infact while Shenmue didn't invent QTE it wasn't until that game that David cage and his games and GOW and RE4 and others started using it again as a common thing.
Yu tried to call it a new Genre as "F.R.E.E." (Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment)

Shenmue was released at the wrong time. HR was released with great timing when there was a much more heavy demand for these types of story based games.