http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/06/17/ea-on-boom-blox-sales/

“Boom Blox a bust at retail” read a headline at Joystiq yesterday. “BOOM BLOX only sells 60K units in first month, ouch!” shouted thatvideogameblog.

Based on the latest numbers from the NPD Group, much of the Internet has declared “Boom Blox”’s first-month sales a disappointment.

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitello, however, told an audience at the William Blair Investor Conference today that sales were on target. “It has met our expectations internally,” he said. “It’s continued to sell well. It did break into the top 10 for the Wii, and the advertising is doing exactly what [our] team expected to: drive sales.”

Analysts, however, haven’t been as upbeat.

Analyst firm Pacific Crest Securities estimated “Boom Blox” would sell around 250,000 copies in May. The reality was much less; they were 190,000 units off.

“Boom Blox was a true test of the potential for third-party success on Nintendo Wii. It appears that success on the Wii will remain difficult to achieve,” said analyst Evan Wilson during his NPD analysis for this month. “Wii Fit sold more than 10 times the units with on-third of the days at retail.”

Wilson believes the performance of “Boom Blox” at retail reflects an industry misconception that “third parties only need better games and more games and they will be able to replicate their market share on PS3 and 360 on Wii.”

Not every analyst had pegged “Boom Blox” as a big performer. Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter had more tempered expectations.

“I didn’t expect much, but you must admit that the response was underwhelming,” said Pachter. “They [EA] don’t appear to know how to market to Wii owners; give them time and they’ll figure it out. However, it’s not as clear from the name what the game is about, at least not like Carnival Games, for example.”

During the same investor conference, Riccitello remained confident “Boom Blox” would continue to perform. “A title like this one — can it do several hundred thousand or a million or more units?” he proposed. “Sure, it’s just gotta keep selling.”

Whether continued sales happen for “Boom Blox” remains to be seen.

Who these analyst think they are? So they know better than EA themselves? Analysts *sigh*

Boom Blox is now at 210k worldwide. I think a precedent has been well established that a title can launch to low sales and still sell very well in the long run.

Pfft, it's on 200,000 sales according to VGchartz, it's not even reached Japan yet, and is still selling > 10k a week in each region that it's out in.

It was marketed badly, yes. As a result it's seeing legs instead of frontloaded sales - its awesomeness is spreading by word of mouth

I'll never understand how Carnival Games has sold that many units.

Why are you comparing the first week sales of those to the over one month sales of Boom Blox.... It makes no sense to me.

Boom Blox first week in US - 25,738 <- half of what Sims was....

^^ ^^

Is that from the NPD snake?

Did you see me post Bloom Box sales?  No, you didn't so why are you assuming I'm comapring such?   I'm simply showing how what starts off as slow by many expectations can still sell quite well in the long.

Yushire, those are VGC's first week America numbers.

@viper1----- AH OK, thanks... Anyway I dunno many 1 million seller games on the Wii comes out as have lackluster sales in its first week. Anyway, I hope Boom blox will be a million seller...

Regardless of whether it sold well or didn't (and I think it will continue to sell moderately well a la BBA or Carnival Games), EA screwed the pooch when it came to this game's marketing. They left money on the table.

Uhh, am I missing something? I'm pretty sure that the part I bolded was where Viper posted Boom Blox sales. He might not have posted Bloom Box sales, but he definitely posted Boom Blox sales.