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LittleBigPlanet 2 trounces LBP records

"Massively outstripped" - Media Molecule.

Most Brits won't play LittleBigPlanet 2 until later - but already Media Molecule says the sequel has "massively outstripped" the number of concurrent online users managed by LittleBigPlanet 1.

"Because we had the awesome beta, fan reaction we know about and we've had time to respond to. Now we're just excited to see how big it gets - how many people we're going to get," Media Molecule co-founder and technical director David Smith told Eurogamer.

"The user count is actually quite crazy - we've already massively outstripped our LBP1 record for total users online at once. And that's just with North America and a few other territories.

"I think some people [at Sony] would be waving certain things at me if I gave the actual numbers, but it's significantly higher.

"In the next few days we might even double the number of users online at once," he added. "Perhaps - let's see how it goes.

"That's pretty major. It's not a stealth launch: there's a lot of people out there that seem to be waiting for it."

Not that there weren't people waiting for LittleBigPlanet 1. That game shot to nearly 2 million online users just four months after its November 2008 launch. And it didn't end there.

"LittleBigPlanet 1 does have this huge lifecycle and the concurrent play-count is just continually increasing," Smith revealed. "You expect these things to spike and then boil down to almost nothing, but it's been quite the reverse."

All of which bodes incredibly well for the rip-roaring start LittleBigPlanet 2 has gotten off to.

Simon Parkin picked up the pen to review LittleBigPlanet 2 for Eurogamer. What did he think? "As a package, as a concept, as an unfinished story, LittleBigPlanet 2 is a world apart."

The first 15 minutes of LittleBigPlanet 2.