I would actually argue that LBP had a better story than any Mario Platformer I have played, and one of the more involved ones for platformers in general.  Mario games usually give you an overall goal, but the reason you go to every new area is left totally ambiguous.  Why are you in a world made of toys, or a desert?  These things are just ignored as you try to gain more stars or whatever you need to move onto the next cool world without any backstory or explination whatsoever.  LBP's story quality is definitely up for debate (I don't think it got to the levels of Psychonauts), but atleast every place you went was part of that story.  Story is pretty much ignored for the most part in Mario games, so I just can't see this as a very good justification for Mario being better.  There are many other qualities up for debate, but I don't think this is one of them.

 In may sony said they were hoping for LBP to sell as much as GT5P did... GT5P then was probablly at 1 million maybe 1.3million.... seriously... get the facts.

If you are going to constantly call it huge, then it better damn well be one of the best selling games of the year. Whatever your actual intentions were, you contributed to the hype by using these phrases. You reap what you sow, now you must live with it. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Thats great. Sony still sold this game like it would be a savior title.

That's pretty much the way I feel about it.

If you hype a game as the messiah of the PS3, it better well deliver on its promise of redemption (which it hasn't).

I think the problem with the game, is that the marketing doesn't really explain what the game is... and really, when I would ask my clan-mates about the game, they couldn't describe it... they would say, "just buy it, and you'll see".

I think most gamers won't buy a game unless they actually understand what the game is.. and Sony has never really marketed the purpose behind the game very well.

QFT

LBP was in development for... what, 4 years? so a reasonable estimate of development cost has is $40 million. (100 man-year * 4 * 100,000.) so assuming $40 revenue before dev cost (probably a high estimate, since they probably sell to retailers for $45, another $5 for misc costs) for sony for each LBP sold, 1 million needs to be sold to be profitable. at its current sales, LBP should turn a profit, disregarding the ROI for the moment. we'll also disregard downloadable content sales for now, which is likely not to be siginificant in any case.

profitable is different from being successful, unless you want to look at things in a vacuum. video game industry is heavily dependent on home-runs (this aspect is much like the pharmaceutical industry), which subsidizes much of the dev cost for the lesser games. so question #1: is LBP considered a home-run game by sony? certainly. question #2: given that, is LBP going to provide enough subsidy? this is something a very deep analysis is necessary, and possibly something only sony knows. maybe not even they do, since there are so many ways to measure revenue and expenses and what-nots.

for LBP to be a success, it needs to do more than just provide sufficient subsidy. it needs to be profitable after accounting for subsidies and return on investment. looking in a vacuum, for LBP to have a respetable ROI, i'd say about 1.75 million copies need to be sold. to satisfy the subsidizing aspect and ROI for the subsidized investment, i'd put another 1 million copies need be sold. overall, i'll say that when LBP reaches over 2.75 million copies sold you can start calling it a success.

What is "QFT"?

This essentially remains the best non-sarcastic post in this thread. Not that this matters...

@Lingyis

4 years? wtf?

The game was announced in mid 2007

also the team is like 30-40 people, not 100