lol, our expectations don't matter, yet we dedicate several hours per week of our lives to discuss it all the time?

You are right that the sales exceeded ND's target, but maybe they didn't expect it to score as a high as 96% when they set that target? Also, some targets from devs are made in relation to dev budgets and not so much toward high-end potential sales.

No one ever seems to notice that game sales almost universally align with other titles in their genre, on the same platform.

For action/adventure, U2 is doing very well. Its not a shooter, per se, despite having strong shooter elements. It's not going to put up Call of Duty numbers. Expecting it to do so is unrealistic. Compared to similar quality titles along similar genre lines, like Tomb Raider, Assassin's Creed, or Prince of Persia (none of which have the sales disadvantage of being exclusive, to boot), its doing quite well.

Look at games like Bioshock -- fantastic, super high-quality GotY title, with a strong shooter element. Yet, its overall LTD sales are around 3 million, and many of those are sales in the $30 retail range, and its cross-platform (even if the PS3 version only sold about 0.5M). Its not a "pop shooter" -- meaning its not some super well-known franchise, and it doesn't have "military simulation" stamped all over it. Thus, it never had a chance to hit the high marks of CoD, Halo, and their ilk.

I have no idea why Pachter would expect any game to shatter it's genre's traditional high sales numbers -- and expecting an exclusive to do so, without serious franchise history, is doubly strange.

Is this guy troubled that AC2 sell so well on PS3 considering the 2:1 ratio of the userbase in NA ?

(just asking ...)

Great post.

psrock said: darthdevidem01 said: psrock said: darthdevidem01 said: CGI-Quality said: So darth, buddy , are you saying that you don't believe that Uncharted 2 is at 1.98mill right now? nope & on good old VGChartz thats called "hating" uncharted 2   Alright, let give the game is overtracked. imagine it is 1.7million 1. the game hasnt been heavily bundled yet like the first one 2. Still selling close or above 100k a week. We still get 2 million this year. 3. I do believe a lot of people who saved their cash to get MWF2 will pickup it later on. 4. Showing better legs than Uncharted...... 1. I do not count bundles in my prediction as I can't assume they will happen 2. duh 3. I believe people saved their cash to get MWF2 & will pick up Assassins Creed 2 later on....both statements are anecdotal 4. Ofcourse it is in the holiday weeks, but one we get past the new year things won't be so rosy & for now we can assume it won't be bundled Finally tell me how am I hating on the game? It's going to be hilarious when it pass the first one early next year. You have been wrong about this game yet you refuse to let go, and to further the cause, questioning VGCHARTZ numbers which is maybe just 89k difference.

VGChartz has it at 881K for that period (from launch to week ending 28 November)

take away 81K (10% for canada_ & we get around 800K

NPD has it as 650K

so thats 250K overtracked possibly

so once again lets assume it get to 2 Million easily

After that it will have to sell around 800K to outsell Uncharted 1

to outsell it by "early 2010"...so thats the first 3 months it would need to sell 61K a week

Uncharted fits into the Tomb Raider category, of Indiana Jones style action games. They may be awesome, but one has to ask exactly how critical such a genre is today, and how much people buy consoles to play them. One can't presume quality alone moves millions. There has to also be some sort of intrinsic interest in what a game is about for people to buy it and play it. Don't presume that just because something is "Game of the Year" millions will buy it, and buy a single console (PS3, 360, etc...) just to play it. I believe we have moved well beyond the day where top games dominated play the way network television dominated before there was cable. Today, videogames are established and entrenched as a valid genre for entertainment, and people will jump in and play what they want, and don't feel a need to fit it. The noise level is much larger also, so it is hard for things to stand out.

A shooter is a shooter. If GTA didn't have any shooter elements almost no one would buy it.

If ND expected to win several GOTY awards and only sell 2.5m copies, then they clearly had too low expectations.

Valve surely didn't release the possibly best shooter of the century just to barely break even.

These sales are nowhere near disappointing leo-j

they are very good sales for the game

be happpy uncharted 2 didn't go the way of Motorstorm 2 & Resistance 2

Makes a difference for whom? We represent ourselves, the gaming community. And in the eyes of the gaming community, not Naught Dog, and in the eyes of Patcher, and probably a lot of the gaming media too - Uncharted 2 underperformed.

Halo 3: ODST, no it didn't flop. But it slightly underperformed in relation to expecations by analysts and the gaming community such as VGC and others.

Btw, Bioshock also underperformed (that one was even hinted at by Take-Two, not that Take-Two themselves maybe expected bigger sales, but the media did, after the rave reviews had just come out).

Mass effect also underperformed. It had huge hype, great reviews but a comparatively bad opening week.

Naughty Dog said that when they didn't know it would get awards

also the VGA....does anyone really care about them anyway?