Rpruett said: TRios_Zen said: Rpruett said: Top 10 Sellers on PS3. Grand Theft Auto IV Take-Two Interactive 0.23 2.36 2.88 5.47 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Activision 0.13 2.09 1.83 4.05 Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Konami 0.67 1.58 1.65 3.90 Motorstorm Sony Computer Entertainment 0.08 1.89 1.88 3.85 Resistance: Fall of Man Sony Computer Entertainment 0.14 1.38 2.03 3.55 Assassins Creed Ubisoft 0.09 1.44 1.82 3.35 Call of Duty: World at War 0.00 1.59 1.39 2.98 Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Sony Computer Entertainment 0.66 0.64 1.68 2.98 Uncharted: Drakes Fortune Sony 0.06 1.20 1.36 2.62 LittleBigPlanet Sony Computer Entertainment 0.14 0.84 1.09 2.07 Only the Top 3 are 'shooters' compared to the 360 in which the top 6 are all shooters.  In terms of sales it's not even comparable.   Name Console Publisher Japan America Others Total Halo 3 Microsoft 0.11 6.55 2.52 9.18 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Activision 0.09 4.99 2.00 7.08 Grand Theft Auto IV Take-Two Interactive 0.08 4.35 2.45 6.88 Gears Of War Microsoft 0.08 3.72 2.10 5.90 Call of Duty: World at War 0.00 3.49 1.51 5.00 Gears of War 2 Microsoft 0.00 3.07 1.60 4.67 Assassins Creed Ubisoft 0.07 2.95 1.44 4.46 Forza Motorsport 2 Microsoft 0.04 2.88 1.47 4.39 Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock RedOctane 0.01 3.08 0.91 4.00 Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures LucasArts 0.00 2.20 0.96 3.16      It's not an opinion.  It's factually based that North American buyers, buy more software and are more into 'shooter' games than other areas of the world.  It's also factually based that the PS3 has far less of a user base in North America than the 360. It's also a fact that even identical games that are multi-platform (Of the shooting genre) almost ALWAYS sell better on the 360 than the PS3.   You were trying to imply Kill Zone 2 was hyped like Halo 3 was and was a lock to be a AAA game?    That's so ludicrous is doesn't even deserve a response. While Gears of War was just this trash game that no one knew about that defied all odds.   Please. One of the producers of the biggest shooter franchises ever makes a new shooter game exclusively for the Xbox 360 around the holiday season when there is almost no other 'big' quality title out for the system?  Sales are somewhat sluggish to start but legs carry it to almost the 6 million mark because it's a fun game that other people enjoy to play.  When you factor in other things that benefited Gears of War initial/ original sales it's very easy to see that they are comparable.   60% of both of the top 10 selling games for each platform are shooters, just in varying order and that definitively proves your point, right?  HAHA, okay.  Your 'factual' analysis can not be denied!    For the record I never said Killzone 2 was hyped like Halo 3, becuase I never mentioned Halo 3.  I also never said KZ2 was a lock to be triple A, I said it IS a triple A game (and therefore deserves the sales it gets).   Okay how about this.  Around 39 million copies sold to the top 6 games on the 360 (All shooters btw) compared to about 19 million copies sold to the top shooters on the PS3.  Factual enough for you?  We can continue if you'd like.

The Xbox 360 has sold 225M units of software and the PS3 has sold 125M units of software so they are roughly comparable.

I think everyone hear has missed the point from arguing too much.

GEARS sold better since it had better marketing, less competition or none, was the 1st WOW game pushing next gen graphics, was made by a very well known developer with a solid reputation, was released during the holiday season and sold on a console which was home to fans of FPS.

The PS3 may have shit lots of shooters, but this doesn't transelate to its owners being FPS fans. If you look at the PS history, the owners have been more into action games, rpg's and platformers and generally speaking it has had a very varied userbase.

The XBOX sold to those who love shooters last gen and this gen and logically it would therefor sell and appeal more to the same userbase this gen.

KZ2 was made by a company many hadn't heard off, with a prequel that was average, to a userbase which in japan is not crazy over FPS, in Europe it's okay and in America has a smaller userbase, with less advertising, with more competition, during an economic crisis, with FPS fans within Sony arguing over controls feeling great to controls feeling wrong and the game being released after the holiday season.

Considering these facts it is easy to see why KZ2 may not sell as well as Gears or Halo, but this doesn't make it a lesser game. As great as Gears or Gears2 are, if KZ2 was released as an MS Exclusive, it would have had a mega marketing campaign and would have possibly been released during the holiday season. The sales would have been very different!

The bottomline is, the game may not innovate so much, but it has so much going for it, it doesn't need to. Those who don't own it are missing out just like those who haven't played gears are missing out. The sales will not stop games from being great, fanboys stating the game is less due to sales are the ones who are smaller or inferior for being non the wiser.

Thread got a bit sidetracked, but I think the original question about short term sales has been given reasonable answers again and again. I'm ready to bet about long term sales over 3.5M, based on the appeal of the game on the same people who bought the CoD games, its graphical appeal and its MP excellence.

And I sincerely expected more from Squilliam:

"It was also a game which was hyped out of this world for years. The controls could be considered a flaw which takes away from the sales of the game."
Old tripe. We know very well that the "hype" we knew about in the enthusiast gamer community did not transpire in the real word. Most customer first heard of KZ2 when its marketing started and magazines started reviewing it.
And the controls? Really? Again a lot of fuss among a vocal minority of the forum dwellers. Meanwhile the acceleration has been tweaked, some small wrinkles have been patched in MP, and lots of people seem to be happily playing online.

"If people in the real world don't convince their friends to buy the game then it may not be as significant and awesome as you think it is. Word of mouth is an excellent indicator of quality once the hype dies away."
Did you really just write that sales imply quality? And that word of mouth necessarily brings significant sales? In a single paragraph?
Plenty of awesome games didn't sell well, nor were they saved by the word of mouth.

I find it tiresome that depending on what favors the rhetorical position of the moment, sales and quality are alternatively confused or distinguished.

And @numonex: stop flaming. This thread is about Gears 1 and Killzone 2 launch sales. If you don't have anything to contribute, be quiet and don't add noise.

Sales do indicate a degree of quality in a game. Poor games do not sell well and excellent games tend to populate both the top of the sales charts and the top of the game charts. There are other factors at work of course. For example., if reviewers don't care about the lack of Co-op and the rest of the wider population does and Killzone 2's sales are lower because of that then one could say that the sales are lower due to a lack of quality or in this case a single quality.

P.S I don't need to justify word of mouth, just look at Wii games on the charts. People don't just buy any games, they buy a specific few games.

@Squilliam

Foggy response.

Squilliam: "Sales do indicate a degree of quality in a game"
No, in a strictly logical way they don't. Gaming history is full of tie-ins with no redeeming quality that sold well because of their name.
Unless you define "quality" as catering to whatever desire a certain demographic can have, including playing a game that has Spongebob as the main character, however bad the game itself can be.
And that's only a step away from saying that quality is giving the customers exactly what is needed so that it is bought, making the whole quality vs sales issue a tautology.

Once again, confusing the two at will makes the whole debate tiresome.

What is true is that quality can be one of the factors that lead to good sales. So if one looks for quality, selling games could be a nice starting point. But the word was "imply".
If you eat bacon all day your cholesterol may ramp. But having a high cholesterol doesn't imply having a fat-rich diet.

Squilliam: "Poor games do not sell well and excellent games tend to populate both the top of the sales charts and the top of the game charts"
Both predicates are factually false, in general. An excellent, niche game tends to sell less than a mediocre-to-average but well marketed, branded and targeted game. Plus, you have many cases of extreme dissonance, with really poor games selling very well and excellent games selling really poorly. As such, sales are a poor indicator for quality. Reviews, though far from perfect, are a better one in their plurality.

The OP was not about the quality of KZ2 or Gears 1. It was exactly about the dissonance between both being quality games of very close setting and genre, and the apparenty very different sales response (or at least a very different tie ratio). I responded, and others responded, with reasoning about the demographic and the genre.

Trying to deduce a quality comparison on the games is offtrack and poor from a logical point of view, and frankly smells of console-fanboy agenda. Unless you want to embark in a whole other thread and discussion where we can also point out how Wii games are outselling everything else under the sun and CoD:World at war on the 360 is outselling and showing better legs than Gears 2.

Squilliam: "Sales do indicate a degree of quality in a game"
No, in a strictly logical way they don't. Gaming history is full of tie-ins with no redeeming quality that sold well because of their name.
Unless you define "quality" as catering to whatever desire a certain demographic can have, including playing a game that has Spongebob as the main character, however bad the game itself can be.
And that's only a step away from saying that quality is giving the customers exactly what is needed so that it is bought, making the whole quality vs sales issue a tautology.

I said indicate a degree of quality. A well made game can sell badly, but no badly made game can sell well. Badly made means not fit for purpose or barely fit for purpose. If the audience enjoys terrible childrens shows then whilst they are terrible (to me) they aren't unfit for their purpose. Sales can also indicate whether the game finds its market and you can apply a value judgement on that as to whether or not it was successful. Sales are an important consideration which has to be weighed next to the other metrics you may use such as reviews and personal opinion.

I believe that reviewers aren't always in touch with reality. Between developers and publishers influencing scores to the fact that they tend to belong to a similar and incestual demographic and fanboyishness on these forums it can be hard to pick reality from fantasy. Sales numbers give an objective window for comparison. Interpretation is another matter entirely, but there is a certain honesty in people putting that $60 on the table and walking out with the game rather than simply talking it up or down.

@Squilliam
So, in the end, you are for the tautology where quality is defined by sales results.
Being 'fit' for some selecting criteria means being defined by those criteria. Some terrible children show may be fit for a combination of their requests and the market pressure, but that doesn't make it any less terrible ( do you remember the Mattel Chocolate Robot Show from the Simpsons episode?).
On the other hand a much better show, still aimed at children, might be better in every way, from production values to narrative and even serve an educational purpose, and still be less 'fit' for the market. Or even for the public: the children will most probably like the Mattel Chocolate Robots more than being read fairytales, exactly as they like eating candy more than eating fruit.

I don't want to go all the way to the "McDonald sales" argument, because that would be stretching it, but would you say the very same for movies, or books? That ticket sales and book sales give an _objective_ window for comparison between movies and between books? That spending those 12$ for the ticket or those 8 to 30$ for a book make it a more "honest" evaluation than a crytical analysis?
That would mean, I suppose, that Stephen King and Clive Cussler are better authors than Faulkner or Nabokov. And that literary critics are not in touch with the reality, because the reality that a review or critic should certify is that defined by the sales.

How come this sounds ridiculous for literature, but should not be ridiculous for videogames?

Killzone 2 won't even go near Gears sales.