As the XBox 360 has demonstrated already, $400 is still way too expensive for a game console for the vast majority of gamers.

What I think will become more and more clear in the comming months is that Sony's continued stumbling with the PS3 has consequences and Sony is (very quickly) destroying the Playstation brand for gamers, retailers and publishers. Something that should be a major concern to Sony fans is that retailers will soon start ordering their PS3 games based on the history of games which have failed to live up to expectations and hype; if 3 'huge' PS3 games (Lair, Warhawk and Heavenly Sword) are performing so poorly why would they bother to stock many smaller games.

Believe it or not this has been a common problem for the trailing consoles in every generation. Smuggler's Run was a flop on the Gamecube because few retailers carried it and (after it sold out) no retailer was willing to order it.

Well it seems like this game did ok considering its USA installed user base. Just for comparison its pretty much 1/2 the 360 installed base, so all things being equal would a game selling 154,000 on the 360 its first week be considered a flop? I dont think so.

But all things are not equal. Try explaining to your shareholders the reason you didn't make any money is because the install base is too small.

How expensive was HS?

I agree with you there, if HS didnt have so much hype to it, it was the big game to stand up to bioshock mass effect, SMG, brawl, metroid, and all the biggys.

For being the most hyped and commercial pushed game yet, i would consider the game a flop of 77 on the ps3, or 154 on xbox

You can characterize a game as being a flop if it fails to meet popular sales expectations, or failing to meet minimal sale requirements. For a AAA PS3 title of this nature, and it has been quoted on multiple sites you are looking at a need to sell 600,000 copies world wide. Thats where you need to be to cover all the relevant costs, and start to generate profit. Based on these sales this title is not achieving the anticipated sales, and there is a question of whether it can generate enough sales to cover the financial expenses.

Thus barring any unrealistic trend progression we can safely say this game is a flop. The overwhelming majority of PS3 games have not had what could be termed long legs. Nor have they had surreal attach rates with consumers. The obvious exceptions are the two major launch titles, and HSG in Japan. The rest seem to slide down the charts at an impressive speed. This is not conjecture this is the regular trend.

Further more this was a highly flaunted title which received a lot of media, and gamer attention leading up to its release. Sorry Sony fans but you laid yourself out to dry here. You placed this title on a alter proclaiming this title to be a gold standard for the PS3. Do not grind your teeth now that you own words are hard to swallow. You made a monument out of this game, and its turning into a mole hill.

The other posters are making rational judgments based on what past trends indicate. You are betting on this game being an anomaly, or bucking the established trends. The wait a month argument has no teeth either. You have gone to that trick about a dozen times too many. That month you want isn't going to change anything. Hell has it done so once. All it does is try to slip the game out of sight. You really hope posters will forget.

Getting tired of these contrived excuses, and that is all they are excuses. Most games launch in the middle of a week it seems, and we still judge their first week sales based on that. The upside is the second weeks seem better, but they are at best half of the previous weeks sales. Do you see the Xbox players or the Wii players trying to fudge the numbers to make games look better?

The game flopped deal with it. You have to be getting tired or prostrating yourself on lost causes by now. You have to know that most posters on these boards are smart enough to out wit you with logic and actual facts. You also know they are going to drink the blood of a fallen hero, and live to see a prophecy fail.

In the neighborhood of $20 million. That probably doesn't include stuff like marketing. So add a couple million on top of that.

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/archives/2007/07/12/

 Vizunary, please read Dodece's response above yours.