Alan Wake has a US sales nightmare
Split/Second, Blur, POP fail to perform.
Number crunching firm NPD has revealed that Alan Wake sold just 145,000 units during the month of May in the US.
The heavily marketed Xbox 360 exclusive finished eighth overall on the software chart. The game had been on sale for exactly two weeks when the numbers were collected.
Split/Second: Velocity was released on the same day but missed out on a top 10 finish. Black Rock and Disney's racer notched just 86,000 sales during the two-week period.
Worse were numbers for Bizarre and Activision's racer Blur, which sold 31,000 units. The numbers represent five days of sale but are low nonetheless.
Even Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands struggled, managing to shift only 100,000 units across five platforms in two weeks.
Region leader Red Dead Redemption put those performances into perspective. Released on 18th May, Rockstar's Wild West triumph sold 946,000 copies on Xbox 360 and 564,000 copies on PS3.
"What I found interesting about Red Dead is that it is the second game in the franchise," commented NPD's Anita Frazer. "First game got middling review scores and sold good but not great - 920K life-to-date.
"I applaud it when a publisher can take a franchise with solid results and improve on it significantly next time out the gate."
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Comments (84) Latest comment 2 years ago
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Not picking on AW, any single player only game would struggle in value of play time. Most users can pick it up in 6 months in bargain bin and not miss anything. Maybe AW will have legs and sell once dropped in price.
Will probably buy it xmas time
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Shame about Alan Wake though, it's an interesting game, just a pity it lost all momentum and freshness over such a long development cycle.
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You found it interesting that Red Dead was the second in a series did you? Well they're so far apart that I'd speculate (and this is pure speculation) that the vast majority didn't even know it was related to Revolver and certainly not beyond a superficial level.
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...although, and this might be complete fantasy analysis, if you have a machine where you pay for multiplayer, would you give your focus to multiplayer games over single player ones from a value for money perspective?
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I have to say, I bought S/S first day and I still think that it's one of the most original racers to come out in a very long time, a totally different slant on things (fingers crossed for a sequel)..
I recently bought Blur 2nd hand... I have to say it's a joyless, soulless game, no character, drab graphics and terrible stop/start play (drive a minute, get hit by things 3 times, drive a minute, rinse and repeat)
As for AW - it was too long a time coming - the luke-warm reviews, in particular the repetition of the action and poor graphics didn't help...
As for RDR, again a day one purchase for me... What I find with Rockstar games is that they hold attention for a couple of weeks and then because of their vastness (like GTA4 for me) it all becomes a bit 'samey' - don't get me wrong, stream a copy of the soundtrack to "Good, Bad & Ugly" whilst playing it and it's like being in the wild west... Can't fault it, ambitious (expensive to make) but worth every penny...
The only western game you'll ever need and I doubt they'll be making another any time soon!
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/nothing to see here...
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Currently playing through the game a second time (on nightmare).
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It should really have come out in the winter months too.
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Either way it points to it under-performing.
Could be any number of reasons. For me it was its transition from open-world game to linear shooter, for others it could be bitterness at MS for (probably) buying its 360 exclusivity, or its long delay could have meant some people just lost interest and more exciting games came onto the horizon.
Half a million isn't really a great number. Not for a game thats been in development for that long.
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Though Alan Wake's predicted figures would have been a lot higher than what it actually sold, can't see them turning a profit on it now considering it's at a reduced price now nearly everywhere.
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S/S and Blur appealed but I knew that RDR would be a life sapper with no time left to play them. And with Crackdown 2 rapidly closing on the horizon I won't be going back to get them.
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/shrug
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Outside of that i could see how it would get boring very quickly.
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Maybe development also took too long, hype train ground down to a halt.
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I might have to borrow my brothers XBox and pick up a copy.
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Normally I dont think that other games can be blamed for lack of sales, but in this case releasing into the path of RDR didnt help.
I think Alan Wake might have legs at £20, perhaps a goty edition etc. Perhaps they should try what Batman:AA did with a 3d edition?
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I can't see how being a franchise is relevent to Red Deads success... They just made a great game and released it at the right time - excellent spring/summer title.
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When the majority of a consoles owners are dumb American males you know any game which requires a bit of thought and intelligence is going to have a hard time sales wise.
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@MDL199: Yep the PS3 is home to such intellectually demanding games like KZ2 and GoW3..... How does a survival horror game with a repetitive emphasis on shootin, require additional thought and intelligence over RDR/MW2?
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Bought S/S first week, jolly good arcade racer, gonna check out Pure off the back of it.
Enjoyed Blur too, good to see Bizarre doing something new, even if they are now in bed with the Devil.
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I can see Remedy joining up with EA Partners fairly soon.
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Um, I hope that's just awkward phrasing there. Or do you really not allow your wife to do things?
Shame about Split Second, I bought it at the same time as Read Dead, and the latter didn't get a look in until episode 12 was done and dusted. Possibly my game of the year so far.
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Revolver was a half-baked Capcom game, Redemption is a full R* production.
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Wanted to like Blur as one of my friends is responsible for an element of it; but was a bit meh when I played the demo, so I never bothered.
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"Alan Wake = great story? Come on, it's a cliché ridden pretentious mess, stolen from all the bad(!) characteristics of Stephen King. If only they'd stolen his _good_ ideas."
It'd be Shawshank Redemption: The Game?
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The PS3 undeniably has a more diversive catalogue of games. Alan Wake is certainly not standard Xbox fare with it's focus on story telling and atmosphere as much as action. The average yank 360 player is not impressed with such subtleties and would much rather "just kill stuff dude and blow shit up."
Heavy Rain would have been a complete flop on 360 it was just too smart a game for most Xboys and i'm sorry if that sounds snobby but it's true.
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Thats the reason i bought it and i dindt regret it at all. The mood is spot on. Now playing on nightmare the challenge is perfect too. I didnt die more than a couple of times during my first playthrough.
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1. Game releases in summer are usually poor/lower in sales
2. Lots of games in two weeks of each other
3. One game that sold lots and lots of games
So i wonder if they really expected to sell many games.. because sales were spread across so many releases.
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Split/Second will probably go on selling has got many positive reviews, and fans of Burnout will lap it up. AW failed to meet expectations with all the hype by MS, as I think CD2 has already failed by the reviews coming in.
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RDR - Haven't finished yet. Reached Mexico, got bored. The missions feel very repetitive, the environment feels bland and I simply don't care about any of the characters or the plot. Plus, shooting on horseback is a nightmare controller-wise.
Split/Second - Good fun but again becomes repetitive. The powerplays get over familiar very quickly (and they should have allowed you to use your PP meter as a boost bar). Combined with some horrendous, cheating rubberbanding of the AI and the frustrating time limits on the hot lap events and it felt like torture eventually trying to get the gold medals. Online felt uninspired (and bizarrely they even implemented rubberbanding there too).
Blur - Good for a while, but the handling model felt all over the place and while I liked the idea that many of the power-ups could be used defensively as well as offensively, the timing and collision detection of them was off. Multiplayer was good, but Activisions obsession with shoehorning a COD-style ranking system can lead to some seriously unbalanced races.
Alan Wake - Gorgeous lighting effects (some of the best I have ever seen) and some interesting ideas regarding the use of light as an offensive weapon. Unfortunately the script and acting was awful (that constant voiceover stating the obvious in a deadpan voice often destroyed tension and atmosphere), with the story in particular falling into the old 80s Stephen King problem where it all became a bit nonsensical and ridiculous towards the end, often an indication that they had not thought of how to end the story before they started to write the damn thing (King had a slight excuse - his drug problem - leading to such stupid ideas as the giant Space-turtle vs giant space-spider in IT). Combined with the hideous lip-synching and some problems with pacing and I was left with a title that had some great ideas, but needs a decent sequel with a better writer on board to refine the original idea (with tighter focus - extended dev cycles can often lead to a degradation of focus).
Currently playing Metroid Prime: Trilogy, having managed to snag it at the bargain price of 20 quid and enjoying every minute (after initially finding the controls a bit awkward and imprecise, though it all "clicked" pretty quickly). Will be getting CD2 next week, as well as Monkey Island 2 HD.
Does anyone here have hands-on experience with the new POP? It looks interesting, but I'm concerned about some of the reviews re: the combat and the ridiculous amount of finger dexterity required to get through some of the sections that need multiple uses of different abilities in quick succession.
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I was surprised it scored an 8... i admit up front that i hadnt played it, but from the videos it looked alittle too retro for my liking. But it seemed that the person playing it was a previous fan, so i wonder if some of the lower reviews are from people who have never played it and thats why they see it differently.
I actually thought AW would do a lot better than it has to be honest They did some good advertising for it and some nice viral stuff. Surprised its done that low a figure. From the stuff on Crackdown, i would be shocked if it does as well as AW... but perhaps the american audience will love that more, as i really dont think they got AW. Which is a shame because the horror genre isnt really flushed with games.
Be interesting to see the figures.
Noticed all the Crackdown vids at the start of lots of trailers... would people say its getting as much exposure as AW or less?
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EDGE have given it an 8 too, comparing it to the original. Basically, they say that the redesigned environments are familiar while providing loads of new and more intricate climbing, the new magnetic grapple-thingy is awesome and leads to impressive chaos, the campaign missions lack variety and feel like a backwards step from the structure of the original, but overall the increased possibilities for emergent play and more interesting toys make it a milestone sandbox game.
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Outside of the specialist press (and the short movie stuff - though again that only seemed to be promoted through the specialist press) I have seen absolutely no promotional stuff. Not a single TV advert. Not a single printed advert outside the specialist press. Very little promotion in local gaming stores (my local GAME just shoved it on their shelves - normally they have adverts in the window for high-profile new releases). I may be wrong, but I don't think there is a downloadable demo on LIVE. Given all this stuff, it confuses me that people say the game has been heavily marketed.
Heavy marketing to me is - adverts outside the specialist press (newspapers, lifestyle magazines, tv adverts, bus-stops posters). News coverage - the BBC now often gives coverage to games releases (hell, BBC East dedicated 10 minutes to the release of APB last week, for gods' sake), downloadable demos that are highlighted on a platform's online service, emails (like the ones I constantly receive saying THIS WEEK ON XBOX LIVE!), the messages on Eurogamer (X game is out this week!), competitions (win an Xbox and a copy of Alan Wake by answering this question!), etc. I haven't seen ANY of this for AW, which I find really odd considering it is supposedly a high-profile exclusive title that has spend a very long time in development.
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I am sure that if AW was released now then it would have performed much better. It is a great game, and deserves success.
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No
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