@okeydokey

wont it be metriod's 3 week in the charts? I definetly expect this game to sell more than metriod on the week it releases.

 It was marked down because it's a full priced game for budget bin content.  For $60 I really expect more than an afternoon from a game (I'm sorry, but I'm not likely to play it more than once).  In order to justify the price the game needs some kind of replayability or length, otherwise, it's just a bunch of pretty pictures for a lot of money.

 There's also the fact that the game would probably be bad if it were longer since it offers so little in terms of variation.  That demo you played (assuming you have a PS3-- don't care if you don't) showed you just about everything the game has to offer.  You could seriously play that demo for six hours and get just about the same experience gameplay wise as playing the whole game.

All that bieng said, please don't take this as me saying it's a bad game, it's just short. 

200k for week#1 seems reasonable. Problem is, if gamers beat it in a week - and with no multiplayer or significant replay value - you will start seeing copies in the 2nd-hand rack within a week (or two).

450k for first month seems reasonable. Should do 1-1.5m WW (lifetime) if not more.

I agree with most of the posters in this thread: good sales that fall short of spectacular. The sales of Lair and Warhawk from last week should provide a pretty good barometer of how Heavenly Sword fares. My gut feeling is that the same relatively small crowd of serious gaming fans are going to be the ones to purchase all three games, thus leading to similar overall sales. If Warhawk really did 150k sales last week (including online ones), then I'll guess that Heavenly Sword will be slightly up from that, in the general range of 200k. (If it has a Lair-type opening week under 100k, that would be very bad.)

The real question will be what type of long-term legs all three of these games demonstrate, of course...

Heavenly Sword disrupts the space-time continuum?

Impressive.

...

Seriously, stop it with the 4D crap. Ugh.

@twesterm

well the fact that gamespot marked it down for being short and still gave it an 8/10 suggests to me that it is a high quality game.
I dont have a ps3 and have not played the demo, but if you play the game properly (using the three stances etc) instead of button mashing the game offers a lot of varation. I think your being very harsh when you say playing the demo for 6 hours is the same as playing through the actual game. you dont get the story, do you play as the main characters (cant remember name) sister in the demo?
I would prefer to play a quality game that last 8 hours than a rubbish game that lasts 20.

p.s If it takes professional reviews 8 hours to complete, I reckon i could do it in about 16 :P

@ rocketpig

ever since i started playing games console at the age of 8 i have been playing 4D graphics, observe:

The 4 dimensions; height, width, depth, time.

I got aall sciencey on you cause you mentioned space-time continuum :P

I disagree.  I'd think this game would be more casual or regular because they're not likely to read the reviews and be awed by the graphics.

I think most hardcore gamers would avoid this game by the plague if the PS3 wern't starved for a game in this genre.

I mean what's hardcore about it?  There is nothing to unlock, no achievements to replay, no secrets or unlockable diffculty, no online mode to practice for...

I'm not seeing what this game holds for the hardcore player.

 Besides which a hardcore gamer is going to get through this game a LOT faster then your average joe.  Some casual guy who dies a lot in games and just wants to button mash will probably get 10 hours or so out of the game on the first playthrough while more serious gamers are likely to knock it out in 6 or under.

 these kind of arguments always make me giggle.  This isn't any kind of a knock on HS, but if you can play the game using the default stance and even do well just using the default stance people are likely to do that more than master every stance.

Lets look at Bioshock, it's popular right now.  It offers thousands of combinations with sometihng like 10-15 plasmids and 50 something tonics, which just screams OH MY GOD DEPTH AND REPLAY!!!  The thing is though, I only need electricity, fire, telekenisis, and the wrench.  I can do all that other stuff, but even playing the game through again on hard I don't need more than that.  Hell, the game offers a chemical launcher and I don't know anyone that used it more than enough times to say "hey, that's nice, SHOTGUN!"

So the point.  You can offer all these different stance and all that, but that doesn't always mean people are going to use them.  I'm not saying Bioshock is a bad game, it's a great game, but while there people that are going to use every plasmid and tonic, most people are just going to use the basic ones and basic weapons.  From what I've read so far of Heavenly Sword, it sounds a lot of people are just going to use one stance really and not bother with the others unless they're required to. 

Yeah, i'd also rather play a game that's good for 6 hours (actual playtime with cutscense and breaks! and apparently goofing off and throwing bodies just to see how far you can throw them) then a game that sucks for 20.

However i wouldn't want to pay full price for either.

The 8 just shows how bad the PS3's lineup in that genre is.    A game can be perfect but if it's under an day of play it really shouldn't be over a 7 unless it's some sort of sports game or has online features.  I mean people do use these reviews to buy games.  I'd be pissed if i was someone who could only buy one game every two months and the game i got this time was beaten in about the same time it took me to drive to the store and purchase it.