LittleBigPlanet, Valkyria Chronicles Sales Disappoint

[wraggster]

Couple of sad stories for you today, PS3 owners. One involving a cute little title that should never have been thrust into the limelight as a system seller. The other, a gorgeous tactical RPG.

Let's start with LittleBigPlanet, then. Media Molecule's quirky, original platformer was always going to be a struggle to sell to the holiday masses, what with it being an original IP that involved neither rock music nor guns. But even Sony's most pessimistic sales teams wouldn't have been prepared for this.

The game sold an OK-ish 205,000 units in October, but wasn't out for that long. It'd do a lot better in November, when it was on sale for all four weeks, right? No. It sold a disappointing 141,000 units for the month, which saw it slip out of NPD top 20 charts altogether.

Lord only knows how few copies it would have sold had it not been marketed to hell and high water. Then again, maybe that was the game's problem. The game itself is fine, as its "failure" is a relative one. Selling 346,000 of a niche, debut IP with novel concepts would otherwise have been a huge success!

But selling 346,000 copies of your most high-profile holiday release? That is not a success

The second game we're looking at today is an even sadder tale. Valkyria Chronciles is one of the best-looking games of this hardware generation, and although tactical RPGs of the Japanese variety aren't big sellers, it still would have been nice to see it move more than 33,000 copies in North America for the month of November.

33,000 means the game wasn't even in the top 100-selling titles for the month. Meaning it probably got beaten by some Imagine: and Nancy Drew games. So sad.

Quality PS3-exclusive titles are few and far between these days, so why were two of the best for the holiday season such poor performers? PS3 owners? Suggestions?

http://kotaku.com/5110889/littlebigp...les-disappoint

[Stone Temple Pilots]

Couldn't tell ya to be honest. I think LittleBigPlanet is a great game and is very fun. Maybe it just didn't appeal to the whole of the PS3 crowd. It wasn't a title to push as a system seller really. It appeals to mostly smaller children and correct me if I'm wrong, the PS3 crowd contains mostly owners ranging in the 20-35 range. It really seems like a title for the Wii. I could be totally wrong though.

[F9zDark]

Couldn't tell ya to be honest. I think LittleBigPlanet is a great game and is very fun. Maybe it just didn't appeal to the whole of the PS3 crowd. It wasn't a title to push as a system seller really. It appeals to mostly smaller children and correct me if I'm wrong, the PS3 crowd contains mostly owners ranging in the 20-35 range. It really seems like a title for the Wii. I could be totally wrong though.

I would agree with you, although I do own the game and so does my friend (and we're 25). The PS3 is just not marketed, nor priced as a "casual" gaming machine.

Most gamers see a $500 dollar price tag and last thing they think of is "casual" games. I know I am that way. My gf got me the game for my birthday, and quite frankly, although I really enjoy playing it, I have consistently gone back to Left4Dead on my PC.

It really comes down to the price. The price of the system cannot be justified by the casual gamers and the hardcore gamers that no doubt make up the vast majority of system owners are too involved in their FPS and other hardcore games to even try LBP.

[Stone Temple Pilots]

Definitely. I made my basis though, off the commercials. When you see the commercials, it looks a lot like a kid's title, ya know? I've played the game myself and I really liked it, I'm 20. It's all about first impressions, ya know?

[kojiro7]

Sell your ps3s and buy an xbox360 to enjoy cheap and quality gaming,I cant understand why some people still buy this failure(ps3)?for metal gear solid only?pathetic

[Stone Temple Pilots]

Xbox 360 is cheap, but quality gaming? C'mon, let's not kid ourselves here buddy.

[Triv1um]

Sell your ps3s and buy an xbox360 to enjoy cheap and quality gaming,I cant understand why some people still buy this failure(ps3)?for metal gear solid only?pathetic

Get the **** out. Seriously.

Why come into the PS3 section just a ****ing tell people to get 360's.

Grow up.

[Rufus]

I'm surprized at your numbers for LBP... the following is from LittleBigPlanetoid (which references GameBizIndustry)...

"Games Industry.biz is reporting that LBP has climbed from 29 to 16 in the UK’s all formats games chart, an increase of 58%.
Just a few days ago LBP soared up, up and beyond 1.1 million sales worldwide, and after winning so many awards this year, including EDGE magazines BEST GAME EVAH 2008 - though can anyone blame those Christmas shoppers storming retailers to stuff LBP in to their Christmas stockings?

Well, we certainly can’t blame them."

According to VGChartz, there are 18 million PS3s out there. Doesn't that mean that every 18th PS3 has LBP? And, I personally know at least 3 people who have *bought* a PS3 for *LBP*.

[F9zDark]

Sell your ps3s and buy an xbox360 to enjoy cheap and quality gaming,I cant understand why some people still buy this failure(ps3)?for metal gear solid only?pathetic

Sounds alot like JKKDark... Wondering where that tart went...

I didn't buy a PS3 for MGS4, I bought it because:

1)It was the only FULL HD game console out there (and still is without paying a PREMIUM; ie all PS3s support full HD without making one pay extra for it)

2)It plays Blu-Ray movies and all sorts of other media formats; without making us PAY EXTRA for it (360 required you to shell out 200 dollars more for the now defunct HD-DVD rom)

3)Online gaming is FREE on the PS3

4)Its hardware failure rate is FAR LOWER than the 48% failure rate of the 360 which has costed Microsoft billions of dollars in extending warranties (quality? Yeah right, 5% is livable as that's the expected failure rate for all electronics, but 48%?!)

5)PS3 allows the installation of Linux (actually any PowerPC supporting OS). So expensive gaming machine, makes cheap computer system as well.

[vypher]

I love Valkyria Chronicles and it's probably one of the few games I truly enjoyed this last few months. It's quite surprising that it didn't sell well.