The latest April U.S. game sales have revealed Guerrilla Games' Killzone 2 debuting outside the Top 20 and selling 58,000 copies for the month, NPD has told Gamasutra, as it slows to 677,000 lifetime U.S. sales.
As part of the exclusive statistics provided to Gamasutra in its April 2009 NPD analysis, the key PlayStation 3-exclusive title, which debuted on February 27th, is still selling solidly, but at reduced numbers compared to its first two months.
Even releasing so late in February, the title reached No.5 on the February 2009 NPD chart, selling 323,000 units, many of them likely in pre-orders from major retailers such as GameStop.
In March, it continued strong sales, making No. 7 on the chart with 296,000 units sold in the United States, but an overall slow April has majorly reduced its sell-through, dropping it out of the Top 20.
As part of its responses to March's NPD numbers, Sony announced that sales of the title had reached 1 million worldwide, and was the fastest Sony-published title in the U.S. to reach 500,000 unit sales.
The company particularly commented that Killzone 2 “has garnered the biggest initial success at retail of any first party PS3 title to date, and will continue to drive incentive for hardware sales throughout the year."
However, overall April 2009 sales were down 17%, with the PlayStation 3 selling just 127,000 units for the month, compared to 340,000 units of the Wii and 175,000 units for the Xbox 360.
Therefore, it seems that the global recession and the hardware's slowdown -- as well as the slowdown of the built-up wave of pre-orders for Killzone 2 -- has slowed the system-seller outside of the Top 20, at least for now.
|
I actually liked the game (though the story was horrible) but I feel bad that Sony can't seem to make a hit to save themselves these days...
The story really was horrible, and I wish the control lag wasn't as bad. It pales in comparison to the control you get in COD4. To be fair, I will buy this game, mostly because the art direction has influenced me so much. I hope they complete this series.
Killzone 2's lifetime sales are just over a million. As Rob has said, it is a huge failure for such a hyped and ultimately expensive title. 1 million copies is nowhere near enough to break even. Remember that retailers sell games with as much as a 75% markup from the price the publisher sells them for. To sell only 677,000 in north america speaks volumes.
Gamers now use word of mouth for titles as much as they use reviews. In Killzone 2's case, it simply isn't a very good game. The graphics are fantastic but, the gameplay is totally unoriginal and not even as good as such titles as COD 4. I bought it, played through the single player and simply couldn't find any reason for the rediculous press hyping of the title. I communicated that to my friends just as many other gamers would have. Ultimately the title recieved a luke warm reception from gamers and so sold poorly as a result.
You cannot be serious... GTA sold almost 4 million units _in a day_ last year. GoW2 did 2 million in its opening weekend. Of course it's a huge failure. These things are relative, and those are the games KZ2 was supposed to be at least somewhat competative with (particularly Gears 2).
Depending on how you look at it, the fact that KZ2 has been the fastest selling PS3 game is either great news, or a reminder of the PS3's 3rd place standing. Regardless, it's not what i'd call a huge failure.
A "huge failure" would be a game with sales so bad, it had a significant role a studio closure, such as Factor5's Lair.
When you have 20 million consoles owners worldwide and it takes you two months to hit a million units, sorry Ben but for an exclusive with that much hype, that's called failure. Comparing sales (exclusives to exclusives) Sony is taking a beating. I'm just saying, the numbers are what they are, there's no way to sugarcoat it. And it's not just bad for the developer (recouping cost), it means even the console owners are skeptical about Sony exclusives now.