Rein: UTIII on PC not "doing so badly"

via Computer and Video Games


Mark Rein has described Unreal Tournament III on PC as not "doing so badly" in response to a question on the game's retail performance in launch month.

More than a few surprised eyebrows were raised when data released by NPD Group put the sequel at 33,995 unit sales in November 2007 in the US, which seemed very low for such a high-profile game.

Crysis, which launched in the same month, shifted just under 87,000 units.

"It is amazing how people can look at two weeks of sales (in our case) in one single territory in the busiest Xmas sales season the industry has ever seen and come to the conclusion these titles are doing 'badly'", Rein has said in a fan-led interview on Guardian Unlimited's games blog.

"I don't think either title [UTIII and Crysis] is doing so badly", he continued.

"Crysis probably has 3-4x the marketing budget of UTIII and more mindshare because it is a PC-only, high-end, single-player oriented game", he added.

Rein admitted that Unreal Tournament III isn't the fastest selling game in the series ever "but it's doing pretty well and we're going to support it with some pretty cool things to help it keep selling over time".