Enslaved sales break 700k barrier

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 10 May, 2011

Tekken 6 continues to do the business.

Fighting game Tekken 6 sold 1.15 million units in the US alone during publisher Namco Bandai's 2011 financial year - despite the game launching in 2009.

Ninja Theory's excellent PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 adventure game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, which launched in October 2010, shifted 730,000 units worldwide by the end of March 2011.

Although the new figure is up from the 460,000 worldwide sales Namco Bandai reported for the game in February, the Japanese publisher will still consider Enslaved to have performed poorly – it initially targeted a million sales.

Executives have said it failed to break out because it was released during a packed holiday season.

But despite its poor performance, a sequel hasn't been entirely ruled out.

Elsewhere Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 moved 1.1 million worldwide, and Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 sold 580,000.

Overall, Namco Bandai enjoyed a much better time of it during financial year 2011 than the previous year, during which it made a loss.

Sales were up 4.1 per cent, and operating income was up a whopping 767.3 per cent.

The PlayStation 3 was Namco Bandai's biggest platform. It sold just over 5.5 million units on Sony's console, a million ahead of the units sold on the PlayStation Portable.

The company sold just over three million Xbox 360 games, just under three million Wii games, and just under four million Nintendo DS games.

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 (30) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • Ultrasoundwave #1 1 year ago

    Enslaved was an excellent game. Brilliant characters and excellent voice acting.

    The biggest problem that games like this have is the "common gamer", the ones who pick up the yearly updates of COD and FIFA and buy absolutely nothing else.

    Enslaved deserves a sequel and i , for one, will be first in the queue to buy it if they do make it.

  • MrTeatime #2 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 13:34:00 08-05-2012

  • LHH #3 1 year ago

    I've been meaning to get this as soon as I've finished some games I still own and never started. Got quite the backlog to work through...

  • slickster #4 1 year ago

    Enslaved was a great game its a shame it didnt have co-op or multiplayer. because after i completed it twice it just got boring so i traded it in.

  • captain_Carl #5 1 year ago

    It's a good game. Until you try and replay it. I loved it the first time through but god was it boring on the second time through

  • Atropos #6 1 year ago

    I was late in picking up Enslaved, and though it's not the best game I've ever played, the characters, the story and how it was told elevated it far above most "good" games. I'd rank it similar, or slightly above, Beyond Good and Evil. Liked it enough to buy the downloadable content, at any rate.

    The explanation - or excuse - that it sold poorly due to being released in a packed holiday season has some merit; however, the reason I didn't pick it up on day one, even though it was one of the games I'd been looking forward to, was the frankly silly decision to release the mediocre first level as a demo. I played that, and thought "if this is what the rest of the game is going to be like, I'll give it a miss". I think sales would have reached a million if they'd released a later level, perhaps with the difficulty turned down, as a demo instead.

  • Goodfella #7 1 year ago

    I thought the overall presentation and acting was fantastic but sadly it lacked in the most important area, gameplay.

    I'm really not a fan of this 'auto' platforming where it's impossible to make a mistake.

  • ZuluHero #8 1 year ago

    "I'd rank it similar, or slightly above, Beyond Good and Evil."

    What, what, what?? ;)

  • LazyNinjaUk #9 1 year ago

    I think Enslaved has done quite well to achieve over 700k sales considering it's a new franchise, I thought it was simply awesome and I really hope Ninja Theory get to do a sequel.
    Edited by LazyNinjaUk at 10/05/11 @ 10:04

  • Darren #10 1 year ago

    I bought and completed Enslaved over the Christmas period and thoroughly enjoyed it. Fun to play with a great story and appealing characters helped make up for the game's few flaws. Sure it was a little easy but I like games like that as it means I'll finish them. Only the ending was a little disappointing (a common failing with many games IMO). Shame it didn't sell very well as I'd have loved to have seen at least one sequel.

  • 1-up #11 1 year ago

    Haven't played Enslaved yet although I will at some point. Enslaved looks good, but I would've rather had Heavenly Sword 2....

  • Ferral #12 1 year ago

    Enslaved was just so easy to pick up and play, granted a bit linear with approach but fun regardless. One of those games where you either love it or hate it. Played it non stop over christmas and thoroughly enjoyed it start to finish.

    Hopefully they will decide to do a sequel, would be good to see the characters again.

  • Acrid #13 1 year ago

    Enslaved is still in my ever growing pile of games ready to be tackled this summer. Really looking forward to playing it as well.
    It'd be nice to know the sales figures for Demon's Souls too

  • Siberian_Khatru #14 1 year ago

    Deserved. Combat system was comically bad. Even Bayonetta sold a million somehow, and that was a million times less accessible.

  • evild_edd #15 1 year ago

    I enjoyed Enslaved. I've kept my copy for a future play-trhough, though suspect that like a number of titles I've enjoyed first time through, I may never get round to that second run-through.....Alan Wake, Batman: AA and even the mighty Mass Effect 2 are demanding a second playthough - I blame all the other good games and the fact that sequels come around too quickly for me to return to earlier titles in a series.

    Would welcome a sequel but actually I felt that the original's ending was perfectly fine. It wasn't a cliffhanger as some labelled it, more just the completion of a tale at which the characters were left with an open future and interesting possibilites. It wasn't the shocker that we were left with at the end of Shenmue 2, for example....

  • metalangel #16 1 year ago

    That Enslaved is still notching up sales seems to be largely down to people telling others not to overlook it.

  • bikmate #17 1 year ago

    Well Budokai Tenkaichi 3 was way better than the two Raging Blast games. I'd rebuy that if it would get a HD remake.
    Edited by bikmate at 10/05/11 @ 10:56

  • Trent_Steel #18 1 year ago

    @Ultrasoundwave

    I prefer to refer to them via more insulting terms than common gamer, but the amount of gamers who have a shelf with 4 FIFA and 4 COD installments and nothing else (they usually play via SD connections on HD tellies as well) is something I've really begun to notice since the start of the PS3 / 360 days.

    I'm sure they were here before though in the early 2000s? Only it was PS2, Pro Evo and the various expansions of Grand Theft Auto III they bought. Games in the Enslaved mold could still find a profitable niche back then though.

  • Kayin #19 1 year ago

    I absolutely adored Enslaved. I'm pretty sure the poor sales are largely down to marketing - I keep my finger on the pulse most of the time, but I only learned about and bought Enslaved because of a random demo download on Xbox Live.

    So glad I did. It's a wonderful, beautiful game. Some people complain that the combat's limited, but that's largely irrelevant to me since it *felt* so good. Many action games make the mistake of having your enemies bounce around like rubber balls, or have there be very little sense of impact when your hits land - limited as your attack patterns are, when staff hits steel you can definitely feel the impact.

    I'm not going to argue about gameplay or platforming or any of the components that made up Enslaved - the experience as a whole was one of the best I've had in a long time and it was my game of the year last year alongside Mass Effect 2. Here's hoping that they break a million at least - they've more than earned it.
    Edited by Kayin at 10/05/11 @ 11:42

  • RawNinjaKid #20 1 year ago

    Serves Ninja Theory right by breaking off thier relationship with Sony!

    If Enslaved would have been a PS3 exclusive; Sony would have put the time and resources in promoting right and would find a more suitable release date.



  • evild_edd #21 1 year ago

    Blimey. Didn't realise you can get this for under £13 new these days...!

    <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Enslaved-Odyssey-West-Xbox-360/dp/B003M8HNJI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1305024924&sr=8-1">Anyone still thinking about this really has no excuse.....</a href>

  • Wander #22 1 year ago

    @RawNinjaKid

    There's a very common misconception about game development that assumes developers are all powerful and make all the decisions...this is not the case. Developers take whatever publishers dish out...because they contractually obliged to do so - failure to do so means no money - no money means no developer.

    I'd wager Ninja Theory would have taken exclusivity if Sony offered it.

  • chessboxer #23 1 year ago

    @Wander

    I'm not sure that would have stayed exclusive, especially if they owned the IP.They were quite vocal about how HS only sold just over 1.5M units and they made no money from it. They did say that they would like to do HS2 but they would make it multiplatform so they could increase the sales (but they can't because Sony owns the IP).

    HS certainly had a more impressive game engine than Enslaved though. Ran natively at 1280x720 with 4xMSAA.

    @ slickster

    Have you actually played Enslaved? Co-op would not work in that game at all without a major overhaul of the storyline and the girl would need to do more in a fight than to just run and hide.

  • Stratix #24 1 year ago

    Enslaved will have 730,001 sales in a few months time, as soon as a quiet period his, I'll pick it up at a nice price.

  • Kaminari #25 1 year ago

    Bad promotion and wrong release date are the least of Enslaved numerous and serious problems.

  • lucky_jim #26 1 year ago

    "Executives have said it failed to break out because it was released during a packed holiday season."

    No shit.

    What's a real pity is that if any game ever had "summer blockbuster" written all over it, it's Enslaved. Look at what good business Red Faction: Guerilla did, a game that's no better than Enslaved. Sold well over a million units, just because it came out in the summer when there wasn't much else good.

  • stuntmaster #27 1 year ago

    just got a copy of enslaved in tesco`s 12 quid ,nice price

  • A_Nonny #28 1 year ago

    The biggest problem that games like this have is the "common gamer"

    The biggest problems Enslaved had was it's terrible excuse for platforming and stale combat system.

  • richyroo #29 1 year ago

    Enslaved was the perfect rental for me. Enjoyed it, but wouldnt want to play throught a second time.

  • kongzi #30 1 year ago

    They should've put it out in springtime, not amidst a whole batch of military shooters...