While I think the article is overly harsh on LBP, it does bring up a few good points. This game was crazy-hyped, even so far as billboards placed through several metro areas around me. Sony spent a bundle on promoting this game, on top of Sony fanboys foaming at the mouth about it for well over a year.

With that said, 350k week one sales have to be a mild disappointment for Sony. Not terrible, but far from good and less than what they needed from the title.

Even Left4Dead sold over 250k week one, and that was produced by a no-name developer (later picked up by Valve), running the game on a 4 year old engine and received no mainstream advertising budget that I could see.

Shit, even Wii Music managed 280k in week one. Not that I'm comparing the two games, I'd rather shit in my hand and throw it at the TV over playing Wii Music, but it puts LBP's sales in perspective.

To boot, the game isn't showing legs of any kind. It's down to 100k sales this week. Sony might manage to turn a profit on the game, but it's not going to boost PS3 sales in any way. Things might turn around but I doubt it.

I think though there should be a distinction between the game from the developers point of view, which from everything I read/saw was to create something quirky and fun, and Sony's, which was to push the game (I think unreasonably) as much larger than it was.  In a sense, it felt to me that Sony were trying what Hollywood has tried a number of times in the past, to take a potential 'sleeper' hit and turn it into a bona fide smash by putting hype and marketing behind it.

In the end this approach tends to fail a lot more than it works (at least with films) and I suspect LBP is an indication it holds true with games to an extent.

When I look at LBP without any considerations for hype or what the marketing boys were saying, I see a great little game that has sold very well and has made a big impact in terms of how its been received critically by the industry.  I see in short a success for a relatively small developer (Media Molecule) and a small team of high creative people putting real passion into something rather than trying to work out how to work in another mission where you have to inflitrate the enemy base to destory it/or some core target (I'm looking at you pretty much every FPS released in the last 2 years).

L4D I would argue is actually a more known proprty than you make out.  It's pedigree is impecable if you have played any Valve game (and let's face it as recently released figures show that's untold millions of gamers) and know about Counter Strike.  It didn't need hype and Valve knew this full well.  The audience for L4D was there sure as anything.  LBP on the other hand I think was a genuine risk.  I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if it really did flop badly.  It's just that kind of new IP IMO that is not guaranteed to take hold.

Wii Music though is pants IMHO.  Although I should note that as I have a real Guiter, Drum Kit, etc. I tend to be biased a bit against the notion of music games in general vs actually, you know, playing an actual instrument for real.  I suppose I can see Guiter Hero (who doesn't love to pretent they're an ace guitarist even if they're not?) but Wii Music?  Do people really want to hold a Wii Mote to their lips, press a few buttons and pretent they can play a flute?  I hope not.

If you want to play with some friends/family then I can't believe people would rather play it antiseptically on a games console rather than for real.  Maybe I'm showing my age!

@rocketpig:
Here in Italy I started seeing LBP advertised (but far from hyped) outside the net or games mags just last week, but while lack of ads should hurt LBP, IMVHO overhype should hurt it as well, its target is one that likes to build, to think, aand, yes, to play and to see nice graphics, but without letting pure and simple appearance distract them from deeper things, so hype could just make them suspicious or in the worst case disgust them.
In a lot of other case, overhype always risks making the real thing look like it isn't up to expectations.

This from a guy who's barely existant collection of games focuses on Metal Gear, bordering on Sony/Metal Gear fanboyism.  I wouldn't expect you to be able to look at a Metal Gear Solid game with eyes attuned to open-minded viewing.  You play snippets of a game, watch oodles of no-doubt beautiful cinematic movies and cutscenes, and if you're lucky, be able to experience a bit more gameplay before the next series of movies.  For all the love you have for that game, I've heard just as much disdain from more credible people with less tunnel vision than you.

Ok I jut bought LBP from Amazon for $39.99 I will definitely have more to say once I have played it. :)

@ sapient: enjoy the game. It is a blast!

"Supposed to be" according to who?  That's just opinion.  Just because Sony want something to be massively popular doesn't mean it will be.  The same goes for any game.  Some hit big and some don't.  Many times its nothing to do with the game itself but timing of release, market conditions, etc. etc.

The game is excellent.  It achieves pretty much everything it was deemed to deliver (something which most games fail to, even the big sellers) and that's enough for me.  Like everthing its either for you or its not but that's about your taste, not the game itself unless its actually flawed in its mechanics - something which LBP certainly isn't.

Hey guys, i know this is my 'first' post, but I'm actually just rickthestick2 come back to life.

Anyways, the thing with LBP that I find extremely funny is that before it came out, on this site specifically, there were people saying how it would sell awesome and all that jazz. And now look. Just think to yourself, they are defending why LBP didn't sell good, even though its an awesome game made for the casual style of play. How can it not do good?

It didn't do good because it was on the PS3. PS3 isn't advertised as a game made for casual play styles. The Wii is, the DS and PSP are (because they are handhelds, they have that "casual-ness" by definition), heck even the 360 is to a certain extent. The PS3 however is presented to people not as a console that can give a casual sense. No, it's marketed as a system that is a great piece of technology and for the more 'hardcore' style of play.

How can a casual style game do good in that environment? It can't, and I'm surprised people expected it to. With that said, I never played the game, nor do I have a PS3 (i'm Wii60) so i can't say whether PS3 or LBP are fun or not, and i'm not denying that they are. But we have to analyze why LBP failed to rise to the un-reasonably high expectations people had for it, or at least maintain the hype raised for it during the more 'dry' days of this year.

btw, it is not a casual style game.

Why would you say that?