SSO is a niche game.

Well if you exclude bundling, Forza 3 probably sold 3+ million. Forza 4 sold around 2+ million. People always talk about bundling but ignore it still achieves good numbers. Frequent releases of Forza is a strategy that has worked well for that series.

What games like Sunset Overdrive are doing big numbers on Sony platforms? I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just curious to know what games you're referring to.

GT6' decline has many factors. Next-gen buzz, many people were simply waiting for a ps4 version. 2nd game on the same console. The game had little hype, GT5 was still getting support and GT5's launch had left a bad taste for many.

GT 10.5M, GT2 9.5m, GT3 15m, GT4 11.6M, GT5 10.5m, GT6 2.9m. A massive drop. A shame, not niche yet but not a blue ocean title anymore. We'll see what happens with GT7 and Forza 6. Forza 5 had the opposite of all the cons for GT6, already has plenty bundles and stands at 1.6m vs 4.3m for Forza 4.

Both Polyphony and Turn 10 need to make sim racing popular again. Maybe VR can help get it in the spotlight again. Maybe special events where you can race in live races with actual racers' data streamed to your console, plus tv coverage in a pip window. It would have to be ghosts or the drivatar system that tries to get back to what's happening live after you screw them up.  Or big endurance events with 200 players in different classes on the track. Something that atracts attention instead of the same old overtake 12-16 cars in a race.

Those Forza's had ridiculous amounts of bundles. As you say F4 bundles around 2M because that game sold over 4M. That's hugesly reliable on bundles. And I'm not ignoring the numbers are good but the graph is one of decline. Not helped by the severe milking. Forza 6? Big deal. In the last 2 years Forza fans will have played Forza 5 and Horizon. That game won't do big numbers without bundles. It gets hype on the internet because it's exclusive. 

Similar to sunset overdrive? Infamous and ratchet and clank are very similar games. (the ps3 infamous' btw.) Big numbers for that genre. Insomniacs dwindling fan base is mainly on PS so that straight away helps it. I've gotten a lot of their games since PS1's Spyro trilogy and I'd have skipped overdrive. They made F.U.S.E I think and I skipped that too. SO is a good game critically but it just seems like something you'll play for a week then move on. And judging by the deflation of hype for it, that appears to have happened. 

I thought that the MCC online issues were pretty much the same as DriveClubs? It all worked hunky dory on the dev units, but when they pressed the retail copies to go on retail machines, issues which didn't occur at all with the dev units suddenly sprung up and it was too late to do anything about it pre release? If it was simply a server issue, that would have been fixed in the first week without the need for big patches.

The volume of users caused it, however I'm sure 343 themselves said that it wasn't as simple as just adding more server capacity due to it being an issue with the code running on retail units.

People realize that bundled copies with systems aren't tracked as sales... Neither are digital copies sold through the Xbox Live Store.... I saw someone commented that 390k is poor? That is just hard copies...

Not bundled/digital copies and with it being a new IP that is actually some really good numbers. Probably with bundled/digital copies probably looking at 500k at least...

Success for that type of game (third person action/mayhem) is like 1.5m-2m comparing it to the likes of dead rising and Ratchet. It seems to be seling steady and not falling too fast (35k a week), but it just had a flat launch which is surprising given the bundle and Microsofts marketing push.  I think it will have legs

I think you're missing the point. You're too focused on bundling and ignore the series does well outside of the bundling. Two million sales is still good, that's enough to keep most IPs going. Also, a new Forza every few years stimulates sales and revenue more than keeping the old game on the market for $20.

People think GT7 is coming in 2015 or 2016. So maybe that series seems to be getting more frequent releases as well.

Sunset Overdrive is not really like Infamous or Ratchet & Clank. There isn't anything I can really point at on Playstation consoles that resembles Sunset Overdrive.

Insomniac should it release a proper Resistance Fall of Men sequel from RFOM 1, I mean how dared you killed Natan Hale in RFOM 2 ? you freaking morons!! :/