Well:

1 - I thought sales were okay for a new IP myself

2 - Sales probably would have been higher if they hadn't borked the PS3 version - but hindsight is cheap

Considering how floppy japan is with sales offlate- these sales are nothing less than fantastic. 428 scored a perfect 40/40 too.. it didnt sell AT ALL.

Actually I thought the sales werent half bad- especially for a primarily HD-twin title, whose superior version was the 360 one- and a genre thats been bleed thru its knees!

its allright.... Could have been better tho. Game is freaking awesome.

It did well for the average game it is.

Any game that doesn't sell 1 million in the first week is a failure?

Looking at Japanese PS3 software sales for 2009, Bayonetta probably did pretty well and it wouldn`t surprise me that Sega said it exceeded expectations. It`s a tough market out there now with home consoles and the recession (which has hit Japan like a truck). There are only 6 PS3 titles in Japan`s top 50 for 2009 (thus far, obviously FF13 will be making a grand debut). And since no. 50 is at 207k, I bet PS3`s Bayonetta is probably no.7 or no. 8 in PS3 software. Bayonetta got beat by RE5, Yakuza 3, ToV, PES 2010, some Gundam game and some Orochi game. I think that`s it. Those are all well established IPs I believe.

And like I said, Bayonetta`s performance on the 360 was great. Bayonetta is the third best selling simultaneous multi-plat on the 360 in Japan LTD. Only RE5 and CoD4 in terms of simultaneous multi-plats (or at least I`m assuming they were simultaneous in Japan too) sold more than Bayonetta on the 360. And that`s because 1) RE5 is just simply a lot more popular of a name. RE5 sold more than 4X on the PS3. And 2) It makes sense that the PS3:360 ratio gap for CoD 4 wouldn`t be so large (1.7:1, which is like half the hardware ratio) because many Japanese 360 owners bought the 360 to play popular western shooters like Halo and Gears of War. So it`s only natural that a lot of them would want to buy CoD 4 too.

You know, is it me, or on the back of the big hitters like CoD, Halo, etc. are people just getting a little bit unrealistic in expectations for games?

To me, just like movies or books, the norm in entertainment is to see a small number of huge sellers, then a larger number of decent sellers as well as the inevitable underperformers.

But right now, seems like in the game industry everyone is judging decent sellers against huge sellers, which is just flawed and unrealistic. Selling 1M or less isn't an automatic failure, and there is no way the market, big as it is, can support the current number of titles and deliver sales of 1 or 2 million plus per title. There just isn't enough money around to purchase that amount of SW in the market.

Seriously, these 2 games are making people elitist sales-wise.

I only said what I said because I strongly believe sales could've been higher in Japan if, as you said, they hadn't botched up the PS3 version.

Yeah, I agree they probably should have seen more PS3 sales, and given some of the more extreme reactions to the 38/40 vs 40/40 for 360 I have to assume they lost themselves a potentially appreciable number of sales on PS3.

I was really surprised this title was developed for 360 first, allegedly initially as an exclusive, which for the genre seems batty to me.  Still, when it hits the West then global sales might make up for the hitch with PS3 version.  Given they're re-working the PS3 version for here I guess they will patch Japan, which might help or it might be too late.

I wasn't really have a go at your post, more the general mood at the moment of going 'OMG, Uncharted 2 has only sold 1.8 Million, etc'  People just need to get realistic about the market and the install base splits before judging certain titles.

With the western PS3 version getting an update to keep it equal to the 360 version, the US sales should be good but unfortunately the game probably won't sell as much as it deserves. US markets tend to like the same old generic games and not the new IPs. Also Platinum Games/Clover always make phenomenal games that just don't sell thanks to foolish gamers. I personally think it takes the crown from GoW I for best action beatem up game for me :)
Combos are so fluid, fast and just plain fun!