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Capcom, Grin's Bionic Commando Sells A Meager 27K in U.S.
by Kris Graft
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June 15, 2009
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Capcom and Grin's Bionic Commando title sold just 27,000 units in its opening month in the U.S., despite the title's roots in Capcom's classic swing-and-shoot platforming game from the 1980s, research firm NPD Group told Gamasutra on Monday.
Bionic Commando sold that amount at U.S. retail from its May 19 release to the end of NPD's retail calendar on May 30, across both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game. NPD Group said it could not disclose the exact split between Xbox 360 and PS3 sales.
The Capcom-published Bionic Commando is currently earning around a 70 percent review average on Metacritic. Stockholm, Sweden-based Grin is also responsible for August 2008's well-received downloadable title Bionic Command: Rearmed, a side-scrolling, polygon-based remake of the NES version of Bionic Commando from 1988.
Another Grin-developed game that launched on May 19, the movie-licensed title Terminator Salvation, sold 43,000 units during the same period across Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
The game launched in close proximity with the McG-directed movie, which garnered largely poor reviews but still generated $67.2 million during the extended Memorial Day weekend.
Evolved Games published the Terminator Salvation video game, which is garnering a relatively low 45 percent review average on Metacritic.
Gamasutra contacted Grin for further comment on the performance of the two games. The studio is rumored to have laid off a significant amount of employees in recent weeks, although the studio has yet to officially confirm.
NPD also said Electronic Arts' Wii game Boom Blox Bash Party, released May 19, sold 23,000 units during the period. The game is the sequel to May 2008's original box-toppling puzzle action game Boom Blox.
As reported last week, total U.S. video game retail sales across hardware, software and accessories fell 23 percent to $863.3 million in May. The top game was THQ's UFC 2009: Undisputed, which sold 679,600 units on Xbox 360 alone.
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Its a sad shame because when it came like franchises starting with Final Fight Streetwise they've been pissing their fans off. The same can be said about SEGA and Konami and it came to games like Golden Axe, Monkey Ball, and Silent Hill:Homecoming and Origins.
The lesson is that gamers want their franchises handled by the teams responsible for them rather than it by contracted out to some unknown developer.
Boom Blox Party didn't sell well...which is bad, since it was a core gamer media darling (the first gamewas the Wii game of the year by several of the major game review sites last year). More than anything it further proves that core gamers aren't playing games on the Wii...
...which leads to the question of how they have such a strong & negative opinion about the platform, seeing as how they aren't actually playing the games ;).
...sorry, I hadn't realized I'd answered my own question...
Rearmed is a remake of the NES version which is very different from the arcade version. I won't buy the big game because I am getting fed up with games regularily dropping below 30fps and tearing the screen. Same goes for Resident Evil 5 and others.
Grin needs to re-examine it's business plan. Wanted, Terminator Salvation and Bionic Commando may have looked good on the in-development balance sheet and seemed like a near self-marketing advertising hook, but the games that were rolled out: were incredibly unsatisfying.
I don't think it was the properties themselves. All were good ideas at their core. But this time I think the developer simply failed to deliver games that were worth playing.
I wonder if the producers themselves were at fault. I would like to know why the games sucked?
Wanted, Terminator, and BC. I feel bad for the folks that have and will lose their jobs, but this developer needs to shut down and have other teams pick up the pieces.
I don't think Bionic Commando tried enough new stuff, or took enough chances, to really generate much interest. There are tons of good games out there and it didn't look to me that Bionic Commando really offered anything surprising.
I feel bad for the company though only selling that many copies of the game. Hopefully if the Bionic Commando Rearmed remake ends up selling more units than the actual Bionic Commando game some body will decide that maybe they should try to be a bit more inventive and creative instead of playing it safe and making a game that doesn't do much to stand out from the crowd.
Same went for Terminator Salvation -- it's just a 3rd rate Gears of War. Why not try something new?
Sumarizing, I think that if a campaign demo were released first, they would be getting much better feedback and sales. Also, although a bad demo is more than enough to undermine people's interest on a game at first, I think that this game could gain traction after some time by word of mouth, if it's campaign is really as good as advertized.
@Ian: Did they hand off complete development of Castlevania over to Mercury or was it just their infamously tanking console Castlevania games? Considering I'm sure Konami has now caught onto the fact that the DS Castlevanias are better recieved, it would make sense why they would pass the torch on the 3D games.
Kojima and Mercury are developing the complete Castlevania for all platforms. And believe me, Its awesome.