For the next few days in anticipation of Halloween I'm going to feature a few Survival Horror games on the "Sales of the Day" threads/articles.

Thread Description: In the Change of Sales series we are comparing the sales of a franchise's games this generation to last generation.

Game of the Day

Article to be Posted (10/28)

Resident Evil 5

Description: The Resident Evil series became one of the most successful francchises in gaming, with the release of the first 3 games on the Playstation. Last generation however, the franchise seemed to be loosing some steam. Evil the critically lauded Resident Evil 4 was not able to match the sales of the original titles on the Playstation. With the release of Resident Evil 5 on the PS3/360 however; the franchise seems to be revitalized. Resident Evil 5 has already outsold all of the Resident Evil titles from last generation despite on average having a ~43% smaller install base, and the game is still selling. So why has Resident Evil 5 sold better than laster generations entries in the franchise? Do the games have less competition this generation, is Resident Evil 5 a better game, or is it something else? Vote in the poll then leave a comment letting us know what you think.

Note: We are only talking about main series Resident Evil titles, and not last or this generation's spinoffs or remakes.

Previous Change in Sales threads

Ratchet and Clank (article link)

Need for Speed (article link)

Halo 3 (article link)

Yeah the demo really was a selling point for a lot of people. Great sales for such an established franchise.

Resident Evil "changed" to appeal to a wider audience even though it was disappointing for hardcore fans of the franchise. Going multi-platform helped its sales immensely. Media controversy regarding the so called "racist" nature of the game would have created a buzz about it as well.
However, Resident Evil 5 sales are not as "big" as the originals which appeared on PS1.

With due respect to RE5, IMO it was standing on the shoulders of RE4. That game revitalized the series and provided the momentum that allowed this one to be even bigger.

A few good comments so far, does anybody else have an opinion?

I think it had a lot of momentum going from the name of the series itself. Just look at how well Resident Evil 4 sold (especially on the PS2). When people heard of Resident Evil 5, a lot of people went crazy for a sequel to such a big franchise. This sort of craze was also evident in games like Final Fantasy XIII and Devil May Cry 4 (along with a variety of other franchises). Many people wanted to see old franchises upgraded with better graphics and the features possible with HD consoles. And since Resident Evil 5 was part of such a classic franchise, word of mouth likely spread over to a lot of people who had never picked up the franchise, but wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

But mainly, it hit the right demographic and it had a lot of hype.

it had simultaneous platformd releases too whereas Re4 was released a lot later on the PS2 than on the GC...

REsident Evil 5 sold because of Resident Evil 4. The end.

I do not know a single person who didn't buy 5 and had part 4...including me.

Without part 4, it would have done atleast a million less if not more. It would have been another Army of 2.

i dont get these threads havent really followed all ur other ones but u should of posted all the major RE sales going back to the ps1 titles so we can see wat u mean by saying this

"Last generation however, the franchise seemed to be loosing some steam. Evil the critically lauded Resident Evil 4 was not able to match the sales of the original titles on the Playstation"

you should include RE1, RE1 remake, RE2, RE3 and try to get the sales for all the platforms it was on mainly the consoles PS1 PS2 DC GC the 1st 3 where all remade again for the DC and GC

also im pretty sure you havent included GC's RECV sales theres no way RE CV sold that little on 3 platforms i feel that was the best RE but it probably wouldnt make diff maybe the total would of been around 4mill

now why did re5 sell more this gen u ask i think it b/c

there hasnt been RE game for awhile so people were anticipating it there was also alot of ads for it b4 it even came out and it allowed time for people who were to young to play the previous games to mature up and play re5

it had online modes and co op i dont really see the big fuss with these modes but apparently the mass consumer does and now most games get these modes ex. U2

being on both 360 and ps3 help if there wasnt a 360 version i guess those sales would be cut in half

and i guess the game has become more of a shooter instead of a survival horror game with puzzles and stuff i guess shooters are more popular among the masses

so i guess i would check off boxes 1 and 3 in ur poll

i dont think the game is better quality than the past games specify RE1/remake, RE2, RECV no where even close

BHR-3, You are right, I should start putting a description of the point of the thread at the top so that people who haven't gone to previous threads will know what we are talking about. But the point of the Change in Sales threads is to compare the sales of games this generation to last generation, which is why I didn't include the sales numbers for the first few games. You are right, that the GC version of Resident Evil Code Veronica is not included, but that is because we do not have the sales information for that game in the database. Based on how hard it is to find a used copy of the game though, I don't think very many were produced let alone sold.
Nice explanation for the increase in sales for RE 5.