Trials HD hits 1m sales across game/DLC

By Robert Purchese Published 19 March, 2010

XBLA sales data has surprises.

RedLynx has sold over one million pieces of content on Xbox Live.

That's over 825,000 copies of Trials HD at 1200 MSP (£10.20/$14) a pop, and over 185,000 copies of the Big Pack DLC at 400 MSP (£3.40/€4.65) apiece. Drinks on them!

GamerBytes correlates the sales data by painstakingly analysing leaderboards for each game, because these generally tell you how many people are playing.

Best sellers are Castle Crashers over with 1.5m sales, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1989 with over 790,000, Marble Blast Ultra with over 650,000 and Undertow with over 625,000.

Worms has nearly 485,000 sales, Shadow Complex has around 430,000 and A Kingdom for Keflings has nearly 400,000.

In the 300,000 bracket are some of the best games available: N+ with over 370,000 sales, Braid with nearly 360,000 sales, Geometry Wars 2 with nearly 335,000 sales and Peggle with nearly 330,000 sales.

Pinball FX has nearly 350,000 sales and Sonic 1 & 2 have 350,000 and 370,000 sales respectively. Easy money.

Disappointingly, Darwinia+ has only 5198 sales, and the Wallace & Gromit adventure series by Telltale fell from 25,000 sales for the first episode down to 5000 and then 3000 for subsequent instalments.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (37) Latest comment 7 months ago

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  • mingster #1 2 years ago

    5198 for darwinia is a shame.

  • geeza2020 #2 2 years ago

    shame on you whoever hasnt bought Darwinia. These guys actually deserve your money!

  • glo #3 2 years ago

    I wonder if darwinia's poor sales are partly due to many of those who would be interested in it already having played it on PC?

    Shame because it is a great game and well worth the 1200 points.

  • ignatiusjreilly #4 2 years ago

    So of the people who bought Trials HD, about 1 in 4 of them bought the follow-up DLC? That's impressive!

  • Monkey_Puncher #5 2 years ago

    Darwinia was too expensive for such a niche game.

    At 800 points it would have sold so much better.

  • deadmonkeyuk #6 2 years ago

    Undertow was offered free for a period, if I remember correctly MS offered Undertow free because of the amount of bad press they were receiving due to xbox live problems.

    I do not like the trend of 1200 for XBL games, this is fine for something like BF 1943. I will give any decent game for 400/800 points a go.
    Edited by 2 at 19/03/10 @ 16:47

  • lucky_jim #7 2 years ago

    Darwinia+'s sales are poor because of the stupid 1200msp price point. It's a fairly niche title - the graphics style alone will put a lot of people off. For every person like me, who thought it charming and stylised, there are half a dozen who think it looks somehow "unfinished". A game like that needs to be pitched at a lower price, because many people won't even download the demo in such circumstances. It's a real pity though, as it's a very good game and one which I'd recommend people try out.

    As for Wallace and Gromit, I'm one of 20,000 or so who only bought the first one. I actually quite enjoyed it, but compared to the value-for-money on offer from Telltale's Sam and Max compendiums, I couldn't justify 800msp for each instalment.

    Sometimes I think Microsoft come up with these prices by throwing darts at a board.

  • Vice.Destroyer #8 2 years ago

    I am glad that Pinball FX was a success. Awesome game that I still play.

  • ignatiusjreilly #9 2 years ago

    Sometimes I think Microsoft come up with these prices by throwing darts at a board.

    MS are willing to suffer a few low sales now to establish a higher price point as 'normal'. This time next year no one will bat an eyelid at 1200pt Live games because the standard has been set. IMO of course.

  • barbour99 #10 2 years ago

    Agree with number 6, Undertow was free and so the leaderboards will have high numbers but sales probably weren't so good. I know for a fact I didn't buy it...

  • Eraysor #11 2 years ago

    Undertow was free for a few days so that's probably why it ranks so highly (it is pretty good though).

    I haven't bought Darwinia because I already own it on PC. Glad to see Trials doing so well, I love it.

  • RedSparrows #12 2 years ago

    Darwinia+ has only 5198 sales,

    :((((((

    It's an ace game. Worth 1200 just for the charm and design. It's not small, either.

  • hahayou #13 2 years ago

    @ignatiusjreilly

    Live prices don't stand in isolation though. I don't think 10 quid will ever stop being a bit of an eye-popping amount for an XBLA game when full new release PC games are £18 or £25 and the prices drop like stones. 10 pounds will get you some awesome stuff in the used game section or the classics range too.

    (Not saying Trials HD isn't worth it.)

  • miiiguel #14 2 years ago

    Toy Soldiers had about 185000 users on the leaderboards 2 days ago, it seems to be doing rather well. I'm happy with that because I love the game.

    And the game is 1200 msp.
    Edited by 1 at 19/03/10 @ 17:44

  • dudefella #15 2 years ago

    While I definitely think a bunch of games out there on XBLA are overpriced at 1200 points (Gyromancer comes to mind - compare that to a Shadow Complex or BF1943), it's also fair to say production values have increased immensely since the service's launch. I mean, compare stuff like Geometry Wars 1 to its sequel, which has many more features. There used to be a crapload of simple ports of old games, which is fine at 400 points. But a game like Toy Soldiers, with a good singleplayer component as well as multiplayer and high production values is worth 1200 points, in my opinion.

    It's true though - Microsoft wants to get people to get used to the 1200 points price point. But in return, the acceptance of that price point will also lead to more polished, better looking games like Shadow Complex, which push the envelope for downloadable games, so it's not all bad! Just think about which games are worth the price and which aren't, rather than fretting over the price as a matter of course.

    edit: speaking of fretting, Fret Nice doesn't seem like it's worth the 1200 points, to me, but to each his own!
    Edited by 1 at 19/03/10 @ 17:49

  • stevetuck #16 2 years ago

    Needs more charts, preferably pie :D

  • toythatkills #17 2 years ago

    The number of people on the leaderboards does not equal the number of sales. What a pointless article.

    Darwinia+ was always going to fail massively at that price, I'm surprised they couldn't see it.

  • max75 #18 2 years ago

    i wonder how well perfect dark sells.
    complete classic one of best remakes ever.
    if only goldeneye had the same luck.
    looking forward final fight soon.and doom 2.

  • The_Inquisitor #19 2 years ago

    I'm ashamed I haven't got around to buying Darwinia... I just forgot, but I'll do it tonight.

    N+ is my most played XBLA game, truly deserves some love.

  • spadge #20 2 years ago

    I'm sorry but the technique to analyse sales is simply not accurate nor true, those sales figure ruminations are largely bullshit. Only the publishers of the titles know the real numbers and Microsoft prohibits publication of those numbers.

    They may be some cases where it's near, but they cannot be used as an accurate yardstick, particularly not in a report like this. I suspect all are much larger.

    We can't say what our figures for Worms are, but the figure for our game is an order of magnitude out - we're in multi-million downloads of the trial with one of the best conversion rates on the service. We'd done something akin to the numbers mentioned BEFORE we dropped to 400pts in October 2008!



    Edited by 1 at 20/03/10 @ 02:28

  • oerhoert #21 2 years ago

    The 1200 price point is generally a bad idea. XBLA games should be priced at impulse levels, and 1200 is stretching it. Darwinia would probably have made more money by going for the comfortable, standard 800 slot.

    That Trials HD sold well shouldn't surprise anyone. Probably the best game of last year together with Flower.

  • woodnotes #22 2 years ago

    Shadow Complex deserved better.

  • AllenSpawn #23 2 years ago

    Why are there no games for 1000 or 600 points? Why this standard 400 increment rises? Micrsoft make you buy the points in 500's ( and I know the idea is that you always have some points left over tospend on crap).
    It just seems a gap in the pricing- I may be tempted to buy a game for 1000 points instead of 1200.
    Psn has smaller increments between games. £3.99 , £4.99, 6.29,£7.99 etc.

    Just saying

  • FrostyGunman #24 2 years ago

    Trials HD is one of the best arcade game out there. Shadow Complex was also incredible!

  • Vyggo #25 2 years ago

    Ouch, I think they have worked a long time on Darwinia+. This is not looking well for Introversion.

  • metalangel #26 2 years ago

    Darwinia and Undertow's figures would be flip flopped if there was any justice - Undertow was absolute shit, I got it for free yet still felt ripped off! Bought Darwinia the first time I played the trial. I gritted my teeth a bit, however, at the price. 1200 is just far too high, I would buy a lot more XBLA titles if they were dropped to 800 or 400 points (Toy Soldiers most recently). I'd go so far as to say that most downloadable stuff seems to be overpriced, especially as you don't get a copy to keep so much as an extended rental...

  • citizenHUNTER #27 2 years ago

    The prices of some XBLA games definitelt pushes it for me, plus the psychological barrier of it being in points, not pounds puts me off as well.

    Just think you can get Peggle for about £2 or so on the App store, GTA Chinatown for about £6, yet many XBLA games are way more than this for similar levels of content and it just feels a bit... like we're being taken advantage of. Worst thing is I know I'd have impulse bought rather a few more games if the pricing could be set by publishers (and in most cases at a much reduced rate to what MS wants people to pay for it), same way I've bought lots of 59p and £1-£2 apps cos you can't go too wrong really. £4 and over is less impulse and more 'THIS GAME NEEDS TO BE GOOD' to justify paying anything for it.

  • GaryHoward #28 2 years ago

    It's such a shame Darwinia+ is suffering poor sales, but that's Microsoft's forceful nature on a brilliant indie developer like Introversion. Introversion wanted to sell it at 800 ms points, but Microsoft insisted the price should be higher because that's how they operate and they want money more than Introversion does when it should be the other way round. How do I know this?

    Because I user-tested Darwinia+ for Introversion as they are literally based down the road from where I live and study. They are a nice bunch of guys with a great vision for games - they've already made every title they've made successful on the PC and currently working on another potential success for the personal computer i.e. Subversion. Darwinia and Multiwinia are already PC successes and when I tested the XBLA port for them, I knew the Xbox-owning community wasn't going to treat it the same. Why can't the XBLA community be less judgmental on these type of games, because Darwinia+ is a great package that's being under looked and Introversion can use the sales to improve on Subversion's development, because that will become a hit on a service like Steam rather than the Xbox Live community as we've just seen.

  • spadge #29 2 years ago

    Developing console titles is a whole different ball game to developing indie PC games as I suspect Introversion found out (the harsh way, too). With regards painting Microsoft with this 'evil' tag is really not fair, it's the same bunch of people we've worked with for 5 years and they've largely been very good and very supportive. Making money from XBLA is -not- the Live team's core driver, it's quality and diversity of the portfolio. Sure prices have risen (Darwinia is £10/11?) slightly but as you may be aware, the game took 2-3yrs to make, so it's not really surprising - we've moved on from shitty console ports at 400pts. I imagine that Introversion would have had just the same experience working with any other publisher (particularly 3rd party) after working with complete control as an indie, it's a shocking, sometimes sobering position to be told what you can and cannot do - and what you must do.

    In terms of pricing, Microsoft probably did Introversion a favour at 1200pts because they would have considered that the people who would buy that game would pay 800 or 1200pts regardless, it's not a casual game by any means - and as a retro flavoured game, has niche appeal. Microsoft suggest that pricing isn't as sensitive as you would believe, although we have put all ours out at 800pts (Worms, Worms 2 and Alien Breed series).

    None of this is meant as criticism of what Introversion have done, getting a game onto XBLA is quite an achievement especially for a team with no previous console experience, there's a ton of competition and no-one really understands how tough the back-end of a game is to get ready for the service than those that have been through it. Kudos to them, the experience may leave them licking wounds for a while, but what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

  • TRUTH #30 2 years ago

    Shadow Complex, Trials HD, Marvel Vs Capcom 2, Vandal Hearts FOJ (I love this turn based strategy), Rez HD, Ikaugaru HD, R-Type HD...These are the only games I've purchased & think are worth it.

  • OrgasmicMutton #31 2 years ago

    More people should buy Darwinia. It really is wonderful.

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    Streets of Rage, SSFIITHDR, UMK3, Duke3D, Outrun...

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  • pete26 #34 1 year ago

    Might not be the most commercially sucesful game, yet it is still great fun to play it. Although not necessarily the type of game i prefer, I got sucked in once started playing it. Recommend it!
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