Dead Space 2 outsells original 2 to 1

By Fred Dutton Published 1 February, 2011

Visceral's sequel shifts 2 million units.

Dead Space 2 is currently outpacing sales of its predecessor by a factor of two to one, publisher EA has announced.

Speaking at an investor call today, EA chief operating office John Schappert boasted that the sequel, released last week, "is approaching two million units sold in – double the sell through of the original Dead Space."

That's great news for survival horror fans. Following comments from EA exec Frank Gibeau last year that the original game "didn't hit expectations" at retail there was a sense that this was Visceral's last chance to get the franchise to stick.

The fact that it's rather brilliant no doubt helped pack in the punters - Eurogamer's Simon Parkin awarded it a near-perfect 9/10.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • TONYgr #1 1 year ago

    Perfect news,i 'm really happy for visceral.

  • Ceelion #2 1 year ago

    Well deserved!

    I am happy to say I bought the original on release day, as I did with the second. Cracking Shoot 'an Shit-your-pants games.

  • tiny_Eggy #3 1 year ago

    The DS1 setting was more to my liking, the opening scene alone blew me away in terms of atmosphere. Haven't really gotten that feeling yet with DS2.

  • Markitron #4 1 year ago

    Goes to show how much good word of mouth can help. Its nice to see an improved sequel equate to improved sales

  • XBoxDragon #5 1 year ago

    sell in means nothing really though.. just means stores were keen on buying in stock. wake me up when sell through numbers are announced ( though I do hope they're decent )

  • Tanners #6 1 year ago

    Good for them, it's deserves its sales, definately a better game in my opinion, controls feel absoluteky perfect, this is what RE5 should have been.

  • FuzzyDuck #7 1 year ago

    Good for them is right.

    Now, back to Dead Space 2 :)

  • Tomo #8 1 year ago

    This kind of news definitely shows how developers need to trust in their critically acclaimed franchises. Mirror's Edge 2 now please! Pronto!

  • coolbritannia #9 1 year ago

    I don't buy any survival horror until it's discounted. Still, I'm delighted this is a success for them. The first game was absolutely brilliant.

  • Lunastra78 #10 1 year ago

    Although the first Dead Space remains my favorite in the franchise, DS2 is still a damn fine game.

    It is however, unforgivable that a co-op survival/horde mode was not included! It is my firm belief that more players would be interested in this than the standard vs modes.

  • the_dudefather #11 1 year ago

    good to hear

    while the first didn't do as well as they hoped, glad they stuck with it and made another.A lot of people I know got the first for cheap second hand, then bought this new on release day (me included)

  • JayScott #12 1 year ago

    @ coolbrittania

    You base your time of purchase decision on GENRE? Weird. What genres do rank an early purchase then?

    As for DS2, it hasn't gripped me quite the way the first did yet, but I'm only 4 chapters in.

  • darkmorgado #13 1 year ago

    sell in means nothing really though.. just means stores were keen on buying in stock.

    The key word being BUY.

    EA get paid by the retailer before the game is even on the shelf, not after its gone through the till.

  • darkmorgado #14 1 year ago

    You base your time of purchase decision on GENRE? Weird.

    Why is that weird? People prefer some genres more than others. I'm more likely to pick an RPG on day one than a racing game, even if the RPG got an average score and the racing game is the best thing since sliced bread - simply because I prefer the genre.

  • TwitchyMcTwitch #15 1 year ago

    It's a great game, so i'm not surprised one bit.

  • RESIDENT_nEVILe #16 1 year ago

    Well done Visceral. Creepy space stuff never gets old for me :D Would love to see someone do a graphical overhaul of System Shock 2.

  • DrStrangelove #17 1 year ago

    Well is it twice as good as the piece of crap that DS1 was?

    If it is, it's maybe worth the 5 quid I'm going to pay for it on Steam in two years.

  • coolbritannia #18 1 year ago

    darkmorgado, how dare you have a preference for anything sir! voted down you shall be!

    (I don't pay full price for survival horrors because personally I don't find them that replayable after completion. they are one trick ponies to me)

  • Dj_ade_76 #19 1 year ago

    I bought dead space 1 pre owned for a tenner, after a few friends urged me to buy it. Great title. Ds2 takes the edge off the original a bit. I'd imagine jumping straight into ds2 would provide decent enough shock value, but from playing ds1 you get a sense of 'you been here before' still great game though

  • Rodster #20 1 year ago

    I'm happy anything other than a FPS get some love. :-D

  • Beano #21 1 year ago

    Loved the first game and have only played 3 hours of DS2... but seems like a great game so far. Well deserved sales!

  • richyroo #22 1 year ago

    DS2 is not as creepy as the first, in fact it had very few unsettling moments compared to the first. Still love the game though and would recommend it to all.

  • antelopetube #23 1 year ago

    @XBoxDragon

    Arggh! Do you think there's a Game Warehouse somewhere holding 2 million copies of the game? Retailers have bought 2 million copies off EA because they've sold something close to that 2 million and need to keep some stock for ongoing sales. Keeping stock costs money. Retailers don't buy more than they need because they actually have quite small margins on new game retail sales. And the retailers pay for the copies they buy from EA up front to sell on to the customer . They don't wait until a game leave the shelves before handing over cash to EA.

    *Edited for typos
    Edited by 1 at 02/02/11 @ 10:02

  • MoGamer2006 #24 1 year ago

    All the good talk of DS2 is driving me nuts... preordered from Zavvi (as I had a discount voucher), it wasn't even dispatched until the afternoon of the release day, and I'm *still*waiting for the damn thing to arrive. DAMN YOU, ZAVVI!!

  • arcam #25 1 year ago

    That's not exactly true. Publishers encourage retailers to take bigger orders by providing discounts on a sliding scale with units and by offering to buy back unsold stock. But shipped numbers are the best we're gonna get so it's pointless moaning about them.

  • gillri #26 1 year ago

    @MoGamer2006


    Lol i had the same problem with Zavvi, it hadnt been dispatched up unitl Thursday

    so I cancelled the order and just went to best buy instead

  • bratmandu #27 1 year ago

    It's good, I only got the first one around xmas there, don't usually like survival horror, as every resident evil after re2 kept putting me off the genre altogether with crappy voice acting, story, controls and camera angles. But I got a lend of Alan Wake and realised there were survival horror game other than resident evil, I bloody loved Alan Wake, and so I grabbed Dead Space 1 and I had a blast with it over the festive season! DS2 was instabuy, and so far so good!

  • kinky_mong #28 1 year ago

    @MoGamer2006: NEVER preorder from Zavvi if you want a game within four days of the release date. Their postal times are atrocious.

    ShopTo and GAME seem to be the only companies who consistently get preorders delivered for release day in my experience.

  • dagas #29 1 year ago

    The great reviews have made me want to give the first game another go. I played for about 30min.

  • DrStrangelove #30 1 year ago

    @djronz

    Personally i did nt "click" with DS1 but i could see it was a polished piece of software and certainly not the "piece of crap" you suggest it to be, and why not just buy games and/or consoles from last gen? That way you could get, say, a ps2 and about 20 games for Ł50 and never pay full price again! I honestly dont know why you find it neccessary to post such a pointless thing in here?

    I didn't pay full price actually, I bought it as a half-price platinum game, or whatever they call it. But that was far too much for that assfuck. It's a cheap Doom 3 rip-off in third person, with sluggish controls and all the fun taken out. So after I gave up on it becoming any better later in game, I sold it again. I wouldn't care now if Steam didn't have it for 5 Euros last week. I thought, ok maybe it actually is better with proper controls (mouse), and 5 Euro sounds like a steal. Turned out they didn't bother at all adapting the game for PC. You have to navigate through your inventory with arrow keys. They managed to fuck up mouse aiming by keeping the ultra-slow aim mode from the console/pad versions. It's the first time I've ever seen mouse aiming to be so sluggish, so that's quite an accomplishment.

    Then, when you first start the game, you have about half a second of mouse lag. Turns out everyone has that problem and the solution is simply turning off v-sync. Not that much of a problem, but that it's turned on by default means no one of them never ever played it. "Ok, it does run, we're done." So this was not only a bad game, it also had one of the worst console-to-PC ports ever and even for 5 Euros I feel mugged. "Yea I mean we get a lot less money from you PC gamers, so why would we give a shit? Also, we fuck your mom" fucking twats I hope they get raped by christmas critters
    Edited by 1 at 02/02/11 @ 14:40

  • MoGamer2006 #31 1 year ago

    Was hoping Zavvi would pull through today... they haven't; still nothing. Last time I use those cocks for pre-ordering. >:(

  • gooner77 #32 1 year ago

    Great news, loved the ending of ds2 so roll on ds3

  • like3cokecans #33 1 year ago

    I wonder if Ninja Theory did a Heavenly Sword 2 it would have tanked unfairly like both of their games...