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Used sales double Dead Space userbase

Schofield: 1.5m bought it, 3m played it.

Visceral Games boss Glen Schofield has suggested that used-game sales doubled the amount of people who played Dead Space.

"We also did studies on sort of how many unique users there were on the PSN network and Xbox Live and realised, you know what, there's over three million people that have played Dead Space," Schofield told the EA Underground podcast (thanks Kotaku).

"Maybe we've only sold one and a half million or whatever the number is, but there's something there because that means that, okay, there were a lot of used sales."

Schofield was speaking as part of the apparently never-ending inquisition into why Dead Space (and Mirror's Edge) received good review scores and sold less than expected.

He also brought up the other usual suspects: the fact the games came out at a really busy time of year, that they were new IP rather thank bankable brands, and that neither had multiplayer features, which help prevent people flogging their finished games back to the shops afterwards.

Dead Space only managed a 7/10 with us but received heftier acclaim elsewhere, and you voted it your 10th favourite of 2008. EA has said to expect a sequel.