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Forums - Sales Discussion - 2010 Biggest busts in sales

Conegamer on 04 December 2010
Degausser said:
Conegamer said:

When I saw the header image I thought I'd gone into the wrong place

However, all of those games should have done well, but some are a bit rough. Other M, Alan Wake and Red Steel 2 have all sold well, and I'm sure Red Steel 2 wil hit its target of 500k LT sometime next year. Not great sales, but what they wanted. Maybe Red Steel 3 with a Move PS3 option as well?

Heck, if 380k for Conduit was enough to warrant a sequel...

 They wanted 1m for Red Steel 2 initially, but a few weeks before launch they slashed their expectations in half, as I guess they knew it wasn't going to perform well.

 I doubt at even 500k it'd break even, as even though it's a Wii game, the thing was in developement pretty much straight after the orignal was a hit which is over 3 years. From what I've read / heard the long developement cycle was due to poor management at Ubisoft, with the games code pretty much being binned after a year and started anew.

 Tbh I think they just took too long to get Red Steel 2 out, no one remembered the original lol.

I think the opposite, people remebered the original and how bad it was, so they didn't want to risk getting the sequel...

As a new IP; who knows? It probably would have sold better...



 

Here lies the dearly departed Nintendomination Thread.

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dislike on 04 December 2010

I own six of the ten games mentioned on the list. What can i say, some of them are of great quality, but there's just too many games coming out



mchaza on 04 December 2010

there are worst like 

Quantum Theory 

Tony Hawk shred 

there are more Mega Failures out there



Of Course That's Just My Opinion, I Could Be Wrong

alfredofroylan on 22 December 2010

 

Well it’s time to upgrade and close this list considering the year is almost over, remember that games that just plain bad and nobody like them (like Quantum Theory) or super niche games (like Ys, Persona or Arc Rise Fantasi) are not considered for ths..

 

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: One of the biggest releases this year and one of the biggest disappointments too. The game has sold 550k units from a 1 million units first shipment. Futhermore Japan didn’t push this game much.

Vanquish: Is there a curse over Platinum games?? (Well at least Bayonetta did well) anyway with just 360k in sales this’s one of the better games taht nobody play this year.

EA Sports MMA: Not even the power of legends like Fedor Emelianenko Could save this game from being a total bust, with just 260k in sales this’ll be one of the biggest holes in EA’s next financial report.



okr on 22 December 2010

I think you can add Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, unfortunately.



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stopstopp on 22 December 2010
alfredofroylan said:

 

Well it’s time to upgrade and close this list considering the year is almost over, remember that games that just plain bad and nobody like them (like Quantum Theory) or super niche games (like Ys, Persona or Arc Rise Fantasi) are not considered for ths..

 

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: One of the biggest releases this year and one of the biggest disappointments too. The game has sold 550k units from a 1 million units first shipment. Futhermore Japan didn’t push this game much.

Vanquish: Is there a curse over Platinum games?? (Well at least Bayonetta did well) anyway with just 360k in sales this’s one of the better games taht nobody play this year.

EA Sports MMA: Not even the power of legends like Fedor Emelianenko Could save this game from being a total bust, with just 260k in sales this’ll be one of the biggest holes in EA’s next financial report.

There are more changes needed than that, seeing as you still haven't counted Modnation's PSP sales.



alfredofroylan on 22 December 2010
okr said:

I think you can add Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, unfortunately.

That game only has 3 weeks of sales, we need at least 8 to consider it.

@stopstopp

We can make a whole list filled with PSP games



justinian on 22 December 2010
ramses01 said:
alfredofroylan said:

  
10.- Alan Wake: Few companies would consider 820k units sold a disappointment, but we’re talking about a game that took 5 years in development and a budget of ..... a lot I guess; the game fell short but the developers still have hope to increase the sales.
 
What happened?: Even with the marketing and the bundles the overall Xbox360 audience wasn’t impressed by this game. 
 
 

Not sure about remedy, but MS probably made a decent profit off AW.  Remedy had a pretty small team on it.  800K unit translates to probably $35-40MM for MS.

A game selling 800K generates very roughly that amount in revenue. When you take out the production cost (over 7m before game was released) pressing, shipping, promotion and a million other deductions how the hell can MS make 40m?

What planet you on?



stopstopp on 22 December 2010
alfredofroylan said:
okr said:

I think you can add Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, unfortunately.

That game only has 3 weeks of sales, we need at least 8 to consider it.

@stopstopp

We can make a whole list filled with PSP games


That's no reason on why we shouldn't add sales we know it got.



alfredofroylan on 22 December 2010
stopstopp said:


That's no reason on why we shouldn't add sales we know it got.

It'll be a big list, and quite painful because Valkyria Chronicles II is there too, love that game even with the crappy gakuen story and the bad character design. Now:

 

 

Biggest Busts on handhelds.

Well this list is quite hard to do for two things. First handheld games have a much smaller budget than console games, so a number that could be bad for a console could be good for a handheld, and second most people will use the argument of “digital sales aren’t counted” But because few companies give number for their digital sales we’re going to use good ol’ retail sales.

Valkyria Chronicles II (PSP): Ok, guys. The main character is plain and boring, the female lead is “Mary Sue 101”, the “best friend-rival-Gary Oak-Vegeta –thing” is bad, the story involves predictible twists with a villain that has a  spike on his crotch. But everything else is awesome, from the technical point of view is way better than the first game so there isn’t any justification for just 340k units sold, not even the half of sales that the PS3 version has.

SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 (PSP): Shooters are the king in consoles, but not in the consoles, despite some good reviews this game only put 270k units in the market.

Modnation Racers (PSP): Yep the console version didn’t set the charts on fire, but the handheld version is doing worse, even wit the inclusion of this game in some bundles the numer is stuck at 220k units sold with few hopes to recover.

 

Dante’s Inferno (PSP): Why this game exists is a mystery. Sure EA push a lot in the marketing department for the 3 versions but with just 110k units sold this version is pretty much a waste of money, talent and resources.