Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days sells a million

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 3 February, 2011

But Square Enix game sales tumble.

Sales of Square Enix games during the first nine months of the financial year were down 28 per cent on the same period the previous year.

Operating income also took a tumble, down 58 per cent.

It's all down to low console game sales and tough comparisons. In the first three months of the 2009 financial year the Japanese company launched both Dragon Quest IX and Final Fantasy XIII.

Highlights, though, included Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 and IO Interactive's divisive Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, both of which became million sellers.

Looking to the future, Square Enix outlined the raft of games it launches during Q4 – January 2011 to the end of March.

PSP game Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together (25th February), 3DS game Puzzle Bobble 3D (3DS launch period), Final Fantasy spin-off DISSIDIA 012[duodecim] (spring 2011), Tomb Raider Trilogy pack (25th March), The 3rd Birthday (spring 2011) and Final Fantasy IV Complete Collection (spring 2011) will all launch.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (27) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • PoundHound #1 1 year ago

    Aside from the level where they ran about naked, all slashed up with their doodles all pixelated out, this was awful. IMO, not worthy of a million sales.

  • Graftonator #2 1 year ago

    I wonder how many of these sales were when it was £4 or something silly on Steam over Christmas. Luckily I managed to resist the purchase even though my "it's so cheap-o-meter" was going wild!

  • Stifler #3 1 year ago

    I picked up K&L when it was cheap - tbh I had a decent enough time playing it. Would I have felt short changed if it was a full RRP purchase....probably.

    Certainly wasn't as terrible as some games last year and a million seller is still a million seller.

  • AnsemsApprentice #4 1 year ago

    It's quality, not quan. . . oh okay.

  • BOFH_UK #5 1 year ago

    Yeah, I beat that steam sale bumped the numbers up a fair bit, plus the console versions were cheap as chips over Christmas as well. Must admit I did pick it up on Steam, haven't tried it yet but some time this year I'll give it a whirl. Frankly for £4 (or whatever it was) even if it's only an hour or two of entertainment it's worth a punt.

  • Alestes #6 1 year ago

    Yeah Graftonator, I got it cheap during the Steam sale and it was worth that money. But full price? Absolutely not.

    I wish Square-Enix would re-release Dragon Quest V for the DS. They released it 2 years ago, didn't buy it then, and now I can't find copies of it anywhere :(

  • CosmicFuzz #7 1 year ago

    Considering how fast it dropped in price, it's not really surprising.

  • bad09 #8 1 year ago

    Ah Kane & Lynch story, let's hate people!

    Enjoyable TPS (apart from that ending!) that's no different from any other TPS out there apart from over exaggerated hate, if it sold a million I would imagine another will happen. I'd bite again as I had fun on it but give them back some character, K&L both felt quite souless in 2 compared the first one where there was more banter between the two.

  • Vortex808 #9 1 year ago

    What about Just Cause 2, was that not one of theirs? I rather enjoyed that, did it get poor sales? Or was it a 2009 game? My memory gets worse with age.....
    Edited by Vortex808 at 03/02/11 @ 09:47

  • jonbwfc #10 1 year ago

    Blimey, you can fool some of the people all of the time...

    Jon

  • CosmicFuzz #11 1 year ago

    People can defend K&L2 all they want, it was still a four hour game of the same thing over and over with no story and a shit ending. If you enjoyed that, fair enough, but you can't argue it's not the case.

  • rojjer #12 1 year ago

    Multiplayer on this was fantastic, shame not many people picked the title up :-( It was dead online about 3 months after release

  • Jay-ITFC #13 1 year ago

    Proof that shit sells.

  • evild_edd #14 1 year ago

    Galling to read K&L2 sells over a million when Enslaved couldn't hit half that amount.....shocking really!

  • SeesThroughAll #15 1 year ago

    In a world where the yearly regurgitations of FIFA and CoD sell like crazy, I'm not surprised at all that K&L2 would reach a million sales.
    Edited by SeesThroughAll at 03/02/11 @ 10:30

  • arcam #16 1 year ago

    Kane & Lynch 2 had a massive marketing budget that virtually guaranteed a million sales.

  • geeza2020 #17 1 year ago

    Oh dear. This was a truly awful game, I have felt indifference to characters in games before, but never genuine dislike bordering on hatred for the protaganists. Kane and Lynch are just a couple of wankers, and there game itself was repetitive and poorly constructed. I'm really confused as to how this sold a million fucking copies.

  • Skurmedel #18 1 year ago

    CosmicFuzz: Quite like the Gears of War then? Which I thought was entertaining as well but had absolutely zero story and was basically you closing holes with the odd boss thrown in between.

  • UncleLou #19 1 year ago

    Good game. Fantastic art design, solid mechanics. The negativity regarding K&L is mostly "me too" idiocy by people who haven't even played it.

  • arcam #20 1 year ago

    Does that "me-too idiocy" extend to Eurogamer and their 4/10 review?

  • Kami #21 1 year ago

    "Kane & Lynch 2 had a massive marketing budget that virtually guaranteed a million sales."

    Couldn't agree more. There was a period of time that this game was sponsoring almost everything I watched, so it was well marketed towards the right people.

    But I did rent after all the negative press - and it was an average third-person shooter with antiheroes that I actually genuinely thought deserved all they were getting - and I was wondering why I was trying to help them survive. I kind of get they went for gritty and dark humour, but sometimes you can beat all the air out of that delicious cake and it ends up stodgy...

    But it was well marketed and it sold a million copies. The two statements are so tied together...

  • gjgjg #22 1 year ago

    And enslaved sells 450k? boo

  • makeamazing #23 1 year ago

    The million sold sounds great and all, but if you sell a most of them at cut down prices, thats not so good.

  • arcam #24 1 year ago

    They're trying to build an IP that they can rely on for regular income. In that sense more sales (exposure to more people) might actually be more important to them than money earned.

  • EVERYGAMER #25 1 year ago

    Enslaved fails to hit 500.000 and this gets to over a million! *buries head in hands*

  • king26 #26 1 year ago

    Lets be honest here, as we all know sales don't always reflect quality, just look at COD games

  • Ashcroft #27 1 year ago

    You could get the K&L LE for less than £5 at one point, these sales figures are not impressive in the slightest.