Platinum Games made a deal with Sega to publish 4 games (Bayonetta, Infinite Space, MadWorld and Vanquish), once all  these games have already been released it is time to analyze the overall performance of that deal.

What is in your opinion the overall performance of Platinum Games? (sales and quality wise)

MadWorld (Wii) Sega

87

3,866

558,962

Bayonetta (PS3) Sega

44

4,743

759,896

Bayonetta (X360) Sega

44

7,452

692,974

Infinite Space (DS) Sega

34

545

132,631

Vanquish (PS3) Sega

3

17,316

149,390

Vanquish (X360) Sega

3

11,949

99,428

Sad to see these numbers, since Vanquish and Bayonetta are among my favorite games this year.

Bayonetta's done fairly well for itself for a new franchise, coming up to 1.5 mil combined sales. I can't see them being happy with how Vanquish is doing.

Bayonetta's sales are actually pretty darn good.

Madworld sales are OK to somewhat strong for a third party Wii game. However, the game went on sale pretty quick and I grabbed mine for $10 not even a half year after it was released.

Infinite Space obviously did not perform well.

Vanquish depends on the rest of November and December sales. It's a really good short game, but $60 is a hard selling point for a five to six hour game with no multiplayer experience.

wouldn't a useful comparison, be

comparing their performance to clover?

just an added thought.

Good sales for bayonetta, for the others not so much

So far only Bayonetta seems to have done okay - although arguably Vanquish might have legs.

Overall though I think their output's been a bit questionable in terms of approach:

1 - madworld I think should have been on HD consoles as well.  Silly to confine a game with that style to Wii.  Quality was okay.

2 - Bayonetta should never for a moment been developed specifically for 360 and despite Sega delivering a rushed port that port saw more sales on the obvious platform for the game - PS3

3 - Vanquish quality is good but I think the basic narrative but the basic mix of stylistics didn't resonate and I think that it lacked a real hook compared to say Bayonetta which easily stood out.

In short, I think they need to think a lot more about the platform they're releasing on and whether their game really suits it or not from a demographic/style point of view.

Vanquish terrible figures (a lot less than 50k units in US last month) suggest that Madworld wouldn't have sold a single  more copy if it had been released on any of the HD systems. In fact considering how bad the game was it sold a lot more than it deserved. We can't overlook the fact that MadWorld unlike Bayonetta and Vanquish doesn't have any japanese appeal to inflate a bit its worldwide sales.

nope... only Wii can not sell hardcore games.

On a totally unrelated topic, I wonder why there is no more new Goemon games with all this retro surge in Japan...

I would argue it should be on HD as well simply because it was a risky, untried IP.  It would have sold on the platforms - personally I would have pushed it more as a PSN/XBLA title - enough combined that when added to the Wii totals would have delivered a much more satisfying number.

It wouldn't have sold gangbusters on each, but it 300K per platform seems reasonable which would take it over 1M total with the Wii.

My point is that there is not point being on a single platform unless you are very, very sure it will sell well on that single platform.  Look at Bayonetta.  That was going to be 360 only until Sega insisted on producing a PS3 port, and it goes on to sell more on PS3 despite being inferior.

No third party developer should be on a single platform without some compelling demographic, control scheme or cost justification.  It's just stupid.  I mean look at Alan Wake.  I guess MS might have helped cover the costs but that was an insane title to make exclusive just to a single platform.

Platinum in particular I've found perplexing in their choices of platform, development platform and exclusivity choices.