I think it's mix of the two.  Your userbase becomes more diversified as it increases, no question.  But many sequels decline with each iteration.  But you also see sequel increase in sales with userbase if they remain popular (COD, GTA, etc).

I think you should avoid exclusive titles when looking at attach rates because they often are unique titles.  A great game to look at is something with consistent interest year over year.  I like Madden on X360 for example.  From '06 to '10 sales increased every year until it peaked at about 5X year 1.  They then experienced a modest decline as gamers begin to experience apathy with their old system.  The increase is not consistent or linear.  There are many factors such as the titles that early adopters prefer.  But there is no question that if a series has consitent interest sales will increase signifantly and measurably with userbase.

And yes, W101 is a much bigger flop than Beyond.

Your right, its a flop but the game isn't AAA nor is it that much of a flop.

With a reported $27m budget, it needs to sell 800k at full price (not going to happen) to cover the cost of production.

Sony aren't going to make any money with this game, but its not going to cost them much either.

What the hell is wrong with people lol, 300k is only first week. It will surpass one million at some point. There are like 20 better candidates for flop of the year.

wonderful 101 was a good game

Killzone sold 110k + digital so far, on the limited usebase of the Vita. It isnt a flop of the size of Rayman legends. Wonderful 101, was also launched on a limited userbase.

Imo Rayman Legends is the flop of the year. It released to all the major platforms and failed to make any impact.

Actually scrap that, fuse is in a level of its own. Manages to even be worse than Rayman.

meh, I think peeps ready to move on to next gen. saving money before the release. thats my case. only ratchet and clank into the nexus is about the last thing to get on ps3 for me. while beyond looked different it wasnt something I would run out and plop down $64 on a soon to be last gen game when I still need to buy games for the ps4.

I think it would have sold more.  It had the buzz, it was a launch title.  People were saying how great it was.  Then, they made people mad by delaying it.

Now I still hear it's a beautiful fun game, but few people are buying it.  Espically for the older systems.

If they had released it at the original window on the WiiU.  People might be talking about how great it is.  Then it could of used good word of mouth to launch better now.  Hindsight is always 20/20, and this looks like a bit of a blunder.

Maybe they can win some awards to get some buzz going.

The Wonderful 101 is a flop which is pretty sad since it is one of the best action games ever, it is also the best game on WiiU and is incredibly humorous, i bought it and beat in 4 days playing non-stop then started my second playthrough the very instant i beat the game
i think it will have good legs due to how many people are saying that it's the WiiU's best game, who knows maybe it could pull an NSMB but in this case reaching 500K in two years instead of 5 Million then suddenly reaching 2M who knows, they could make a deal for people looking forward to Bayo 2 something like people who own the wonderful 101 at leat 2 months before Bayo 2's release will get a demo or something like that to boost sales

I'm waiting till Black Friday for Puppeteer, KH HD, Batman, and Ratchet personally.  That's my way of saving for next gen.

Well I'll preface this next post with the idea that I know I have too much time on my hands.  Thank you for picking a specific example, it finally got me to look at it closely, and I even made a graph for giggles.

Below is a graph comparing the 360's NA install base at the time of launch to total Madden Sales.

As you can see you could probably extrapolate linearity to some degree from launch until maybe about 5 million sales, after that it quickly tops off even out to 35m NA install base.  So yes you can say that WiiU could have sold more games if it had a higher install base, but only until a certain point and then it'll be entirely pointless, the fanbase has been established and adding more random users will not do anything for the sales of the game.