Rllmuk's Official Sales Figures Thread

[CarloOos]

My god, Halo Reach fell off big time. MS can't be happy with that.

Well it's the oldest non-Wii/DS game on that list, isn't it? At a glance at least.

It's supposed to have sold really well, though, just over 7 million copies. The candle that burns twice as bright and all that.

Although I suppose it might give them pause at having created an entire studio just for the one franchise, which always seemed like overdoing it to me.

If that's the case I can't imagine they're too concerned, for instance Killzone 2 barely sold 2 million overall.

There definitely seem to be a general apathy in the air about where the franchise goes next though. In retrospect ODST was a game too far, it unnecessarily diluted the franchise for very little gain, although I'm sure they made plenty of benjamins from it.

[Major Britten]

There definitely seem to be a general apathy in the air about where the franchise goes next though. In retrospect ODST was a game too far, it unnecessarily diluted the franchise for very little gain, although I'm sure they made plenty of benjamins from it.

ODST was a great game, its actually one of my favourites out of the series. I think theres 2 things that have effected the Halo series. First of all is CoD, Modern Warfare came out of nowhere and beat Halo 3 in the same year, the whole market has changed since the original Halo came out, now people want realistic war simulations and not sci fi alien shooters. Also both ODST and Reach were prequels/side stories which I think could have had an effect, theres no master chief in either of them and everyone whos played the Halo games would already know the outcome of both of them.

[scottcr]

I didn't neg you but I wonder if it's tedium rather than anger at work.

Oh... And my point about Reach is right. It's had no where near the impact that 3 did...

[scottcr]

ODST was a great game, its actually one of my favourites out of the series. I think theres 2 things that have effected the Halo series. First of all is CoD, Modern Warfare came out of nowhere and beat Halo 3 in the same year, the whole market has changed since the original Halo came out, now people want realistic war simulations and not sci fi alien shooters. Also both ODST and Reach were prequels/side stories which I think could have had an effect, theres no master chief in either of them and everyone whos played the Halo games would already know the outcome of both of them.

The war shooters point is a good one... My brother loves CoD but has no interest in Halo because it's aliens. It's a viewpoint I simply don't get.

[squirtle]

It's supposed to have sold really well, though, just over 7 million copies. The candle that burns twice as bright and all that.

Although I suppose it might give them pause at having created an entire studio just for the one franchise, which always seemed like overdoing it to me.

Really? If the next game sells something along the same lines in little over three months, do you think they'll be bothered?

[a big boy]

ODST was a great game, its actually one of my favourites out of the series. I think theres 2 things that have effected the Halo series. First of all is CoD, Modern Warfare came out of nowhere and beat Halo 3 in the same year, the whole market has changed since the original Halo came out, now people want realistic war simulations and not sci fi alien shooters. Also both ODST and Reach were prequels/side stories which I think could have had an effect, theres no master chief in either of them and everyone whos played the Halo games would already know the outcome of both of them.

Point taken, but I don't think people buy CoD because they actually think it's a realistic war simulation. At least I fucking hope not

[squirtle]

Oh... And my point about Reach is right. It's had no where near the impact that 3 did...

What did you expect? Ending of the story, first Halo on the 360, Master Chief as the main star, upgrading for the players of the multiplayer in 2...

There were loads more reasons why Halo 3 would make more of an impact than Reach.

But seriously, are you saying that over 7 million copies is disappointing, selling to approximately 1/6th of the machine's userbase is a bad thing?

Your Wii blinkers are becoming oh so tiresome, Scott.

[scottcr]

What did you expect? Ending of the story, first Halo on the 360, Master Chief as the main star, upgrading for the players of the multiplayer in 2...

There were loads more reasons why Halo 3 would make more of an impact than Reach.

But seriously, are you saying that over 7 million copies is disappointing, selling to approximately 1/6th of the machine's userbase is a bad thing?

Your Wii blinkers are becoming oh so tiresome, Scott.

Seriously

It's nothing to do with the FUCKING WII.

I find it surprising that Reach hasn't had the impact that I, and a few others here, expected.

[Mr. Gerbik]

the FUCKING WII.

Great scott!

[Kinketsu]

Point taken, but I don't think people buy CoD because they actually think it's a realistic war simulation. At least I fucking hope not

It's not so much that it is a realistic war simulation in the gameplay or plot sense that something like Arma or whatever might be, but rather that the setting is realistic i.e you play soldiers fighting human terrorists in a contemporary setting, not future space rangers fighting neon aliens.

[squirtle]

Seriously

It's nothing to do with the FUCKING WII.

I find it surprising that Reach hasn't had the impact that I, and a few others here, expected.

What impact did you expect it to have?

I'm going to speculate that having sold somewhere in the region of 47 million consoles, there was no one new out there that didn't already have one and would be interested in Reach. It's hard to get an accurate picture, but the release of the redesigned 360 months before probably stole all the hardware sales that Reach may have generated.

However, you can't say that selling over 7 million copies to a user base of 40 odd million isn't a decent achievement.

As for having any impact, games are too diverse these days to have any kind of impact beyond their expected market. Halo is now just another cog in the massive franchise wheel that counts Mario, COD, Assassin's Creed, Gran Turismo, Zelda etc as its members. There's just simply too much high profile shit out there these days for any one game to have any kind of lasting impact beyond it's first few days of sales and the news reports that this generates.

[SeanR]

I wonder if that the PS3 hack success in that there other thread will translate into a surge in sales?

2011 could well be "the year of the PS3"

[SeanR]

ODST was a great game, its actually one of my favourites out of the series. I think theres 2 things that have effected the Halo series. First of all is CoD, Modern Warfare came out of nowhere and beat Halo 3 in the same year, the whole market has changed since the original Halo came out, now people want realistic war simulations and not sci fi alien shooters. Also both ODST and Reach were prequels/side stories which I think could have had an effect, theres no master chief in either of them and everyone whos played the Halo games would already know the outcome of both of them.

could it not be something as simple as the single-format-ness of Halo?

[Transient Curse]

Seriously

It's nothing to do with the FUCKING WII.

I find it surprising that Reach hasn't had the impact that I, and a few others here, expected.

How are you measuring impact? According to this article from the independent Reach has sold pretty respectably versus 2009's best sellers:

1) Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (11.86 million global sales / 8.82 million in the USA)

2) Wii Sports Resort (7.57m / 4.54m)

3) New Super Mario Bros. Wii (7.41m / 4.23m)

4) Wii Fit Plus (5.8m / 3.53m)

5) Wii Fit (5.44m / 3.6m)

and versus 2008 it does ok too:

1- Mario Kart Wii- Nintendo: 8.94mil Total, 5 mil US Retail, 2mil Japan Retail, 1.94mil UK Retail.

2- Wii Fit- Nintendo: 8.31mil Total, 4.55mil US Retail, 2.15mil Japan Retail, 1.61mil UK Retail.

3- Grand Theft Auto IV- Take 2 Interactive: 7.29mil Total, 5.18mil US Retail, 256K Japan Retail, 1.85mil UK Retail.

4- Super Smash Bros: Brawl- Nintendo: 6.32mil Total, 4.17mil US Retail, 1.75mil Japan Retail, 404K UK Retail.

5- Call Of Duty: World At War- Activision Blizzard: 5.89mil Total, 4.46mil US Retail, 0 Japan Retail, 1.43mil UK Retail.

That doesn't even take into account that I'm posting this before the calendar has clicked over.

------------

With regard to things being about the Wii or not, you can't be surprised, really, you've spent so long forging your persona and consistently posting under the alias that people expect your posts to be about the Wii. I don't doubt that you enjoy playing the part of Rllmuk's notorious Wii troll but you can't expect people to instantly realise when you've slipped out of character.

[SeanR]

5- Call Of Duty: World At War- Activision Blizzard: 5.89mil Total, 4.46mil US Retail, 0 Japan Retail, 1.43mil UK Retail.

LOL WUT!?!

Oh wait, it's dealing in millions here, it could have sold upto 100,000 (0.1mil) copies and wouldn't even register...

At first I thought it was a Japan/WW2 thing...

[Halo]

It probably wasn't released in Japan.

[HarMGM]

How are you measuring impact? According to this article from the independent Reach has sold pretty respectably versus 2009's best sellers:

1) Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (11.86 million global sales / 8.82 million in the USA)

2) Wii Sports Resort (7.57m / 4.54m)

3) New Super Mario Bros. Wii (7.41m / 4.23m)

4) Wii Fit Plus (5.8m / 3.53m)

5) Wii Fit (5.44m / 3.6m)

and versus 2008 it does ok too:

1- Mario Kart Wii- Nintendo: 8.94mil Total, 5 mil US Retail, 2mil Japan Retail, 1.94mil UK Retail.

2- Wii Fit- Nintendo: 8.31mil Total, 4.55mil US Retail, 2.15mil Japan Retail, 1.61mil UK Retail.

3- Grand Theft Auto IV- Take 2 Interactive: 7.29mil Total, 5.18mil US Retail, 256K Japan Retail, 1.85mil UK Retail.

4- Super Smash Bros: Brawl- Nintendo: 6.32mil Total, 4.17mil US Retail, 1.75mil Japan Retail, 404K UK Retail.

5- Call Of Duty: World At War- Activision Blizzard: 5.89mil Total, 4.46mil US Retail, 0 Japan Retail, 1.43mil UK Retail.

That doesn't even take into account that I'm posting this before the calendar has clicked over.

------------

With regard to things being about the Wii or not, you can't be surprised, really, you've spent so long forging your persona and consistently posting under the alias that people expect your posts to be about the Wii. I don't doubt that you enjoy playing the part of Rllmuk's notorious Wii troll but you can't expect people to instantly realise when you've slipped out of character.

Whilst staying out of this latest skirmish with Scott, i'd like to note that with exception of World at War, Brawl and GTA 4, each of those games listed have gone on to sell millions more well after their respective launch years. The reason why Reach's impact has lessened is that, though it's sold well this year, it's already left the charts which gives little hope of Reach pushing onwards towards 10 million units. That in turn has affected both Reach's and Halo's ability overall to sell more 360 hardware this generation. The same which can't be said for, say, Call of Duty or Wii Fit.

[Ferine]

Really? If the next game sells something along the same lines in little over three months, do you think they'll be bothered?

But the next game won't be made by Bungie, nor will any future titles. I don't expect the next product with Halo on the box to do badly, but I do question whether setting up 343 was a sound investment; even as a fan of the series I'm feeling fairly apathetic towards it at this point.

I know it's a risk either way, but I'd have preferred it if Microsoft had invested in creating new IP instead.

[Transient Curse]

Whilst staying out of this latest skirmish with Scott, i'd like to note that with exception of World at War, Brawl and GTA 4, each of those games listed have gone on to sell millions more well after their respective launch years. The reason why Reach's impact has lessened is that, though it's sold well this year, it's already left the charts which gives little hope of Reach pushing onwards towards 10 million units. That in turn has affected both Reach's and Halo's ability overall to sell more 360 hardware this generation. The same which can't be said for, say, Call of Duty or Wii Fit.

Good point, I just googled and it seems that GTAIV had sold 15million by March 2010. You might argue, of course, that if Reach has sold 7 million it's already sold half as many copies as GTAIV managed over a much longer period, and that title is available on two platforms. It'll be interesting to see what Reach manages to do over it's lifetime, it's sold well but is out of the charts and has been discounted.

With regard to broadening the market, is that the only measure of success we're interested now? Retaining a market must surely be worth something too?

[HarMGM]

Good point, I just googled and it seems that GTAIV had sold 15million by March 2010. You might argue, of course, that if Reach has sold 7 million it's already sold half as many copies as GTAIV managed over a much longer period, and that title is available on two platforms. It'll be interesting to see what Reach manages to do over it's lifetime, it's sold well but is out of the charts and has been discounted.

With regard to broadening the market, is that the only measure of success we're interested now? Retaining a market must surely be worth something too?

This generation has had many developers focusing on what would be considerd the high-end (or 'hardcore') of the market. For each and every Wii Fit, which sold to new consumers, we have had multiple installments of Mass Effect, Gears of War clones and open world games. So you have all these products that are catering to the existing market and retaining it, yes.

The big problem with retaining a market is that you'll soon find that there is a ceiling to how much growth you can get as a company both in profits and in userbase. This because you are always dealing with competition in the existing market. The battle for marketshare between the 360 and Playstation 3 is the best example of this as both battle for consumers interested in the HD experience. But you can also look at how Call of Duty has taken away lot's of sales from other shooters, one of which is undoubtely Halo Reach, this by catering to the highest demanding consumers of shooters.

So with limited growth options in the existing userbase, the only thing left for publishers not called Nintendo now is finding a new userbase.

The thing that has made Nintendo so succesful with the Wii isn't just that they sold Wii Fit succesfully. It's also the fact that Nintendo were able to persuade Wii Fit customers to make the jump over to existing IP's like Mario Kart and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Likewise, Ubisoft can now try to bring the Just Dance crowd into another easy to pick up genre, say...a new 2D Rayman game(retail, that is). Microsoft will obviously try to make new Kinect customers jump over to more core offerings from Rare such as Banjo-Kazooie and Viva Pinata.

So to answer the damn question(sorry for the long windedness BTW): yes, retaining a market is important. But when that existing market is dangerously close to hitting saturation as is the case with the core videogame audience right now, then it's high time to expand. Otherwise, cost will begin to ramp up and ultimately bankrupt your company. Look for the big sellers in 2011 not to be core stuff like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or Uncharted 3, but to be stuff related to bringing in new customers. An easy shoe-in for that title could be Wii Relax(if it still gets released).

Thanks for correcting me on GTA 4, forgot that sold 15 million copies.

[mushashi]

Good point, I just googled and it seems that GTAIV had sold 15million by March 2010. You might argue, of course, that if Reach has sold 7 million it's already sold half as many copies as GTAIV managed over a much longer period, and that title is available on two platforms. It'll be interesting to see what Reach manages to do over it's lifetime, it's sold well but is out of the charts and has been discounted.

With regard to broadening the market, is that the only measure of success we're interested now? Retaining a market must surely be worth something too?

Dependent on whether Microsoft ever release anymore numbers for it, it might not have even managed that feat, Halo 2 or 3 would be the current high point in terms of overall sales for a Halo game, somewhere over 10 million units, and Halo 2 did 8-9+ million on a console which only did 24 million units globally. It's not as if CoD stopped growing as a series a few games in, it's likely to be a bigger game series on the Xbox 360 alone now.

You could just say it's likely to follow the natural cycle of past big hitters, like most of EA or Activision's recent monster hits.

[Halo]

On a related "flagship franchise" note, I don't understand how New Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart and (to a lesser extent) Super Smash Bros Brawl have outsold the Mario Galaxy titles.

[Meh]

You don't understand? Really?

[Halo]

I genuinely don't. Enlighten me.

Edit: Is it simply because multiplayer titles sell disproportionately well on the Wii?

[scottcr]

On a related "flagship franchise" note, I don't understand how New Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart and (to a lesser extent) Super Smash Bros Brawl have outsold the Mario Galaxy titles.

Even I understand this

[Transient Curse]

This generation has had many developers focusing on what would be considerd the high-end (or 'hardcore') of the market. For each and every Wii Fit, which sold to new consumers, we have had multiple installments of Mass Effect, Gears of War clones and open world games. So you have all these products that are catering to the existing market and retaining it, yes.

The big problem with retaining a market is that you'll soon find that there is a ceiling to how much growth you can get as a company both in profits and in userbase. This because you are always dealing with competition in the existing market. The battle for marketshare between the 360 and Playstation 3 is the best example of this as both battle for consumers interested in the HD experience. But you can also look at how Call of Duty has taken away lot's of sales from other shooters, one of which is undoubtely Halo Reach, this by catering to the highest demanding consumers of shooters.

So with limited growth options in the existing userbase, the only thing left for publishers not called Nintendo now is finding a new userbase.

The thing that has made Nintendo so succesful with the Wii isn't just that they sold Wii Fit succesfully. It's also the fact that Nintendo were able to persuade Wii Fit customers to make the jump over to existing IP's like Mario Kart and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Likewise, Ubisoft can now try to bring the Just Dance crowd into another easy to pick up genre, say...a new 2D Rayman game(retail, that is). Microsoft will obviously try to make new Kinect customers jump over to more core offerings from Rare such as Banjo-Kazooie and Viva Pinata.

So to answer the damn question(sorry for the long windedness BTW): yes, retaining a market is important. But when that existing market is dangerously close to hitting saturation as is the case with the core videogame audience right now, then it's high time to expand. Otherwise, cost will begin to ramp up and ultimately bankrupt your company. Look for the big sellers in 2011 not to be core stuff like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or Uncharted 3, but to be stuff related to bringing in new customers. An easy shoe-in for that title could be Wii Relax(if it still gets released).

Thanks for correcting me on GTA 4, forgot that sold 15 million copies.

I think you're talking sense but at the same time I don't think that at this stage we can call Reach a failure. Versus COD perhaps it hasn't sold as many or had the online share, but there must be a lot of people who bought an Xbox/360 to play Halo games and have stuck with them as a result I did[/annecdotal evidence]. In an industry where studios are closing all over the place after failing to sell enough copies something guaranteed to sell millions has got to be an asset, not a terrible disappointment, surely? You're criticising Reach for not attracting new audiences but then mention what Microsoft are doing with Kinect, at this stage I don't think a game can be all things to all markets and the one that Microsoft is most secure in at the moment is a hardcore market. If Kinect manages to be a serious going concern I wonder if we'll see Halo games being made that don't support the peripheral or not. Essentially, Microsoft are going for a bigger market with Kinect but with titles like Reach and Gears and Mass Effect they're making sure that if it all goes wrong they've still got an audience, at least for now. It's very different to Nintendo's committed single vision which brought them such great success but I'm not sure that that's the best way for Microsoft to go about it. In fact, I think abandoning the Hardcore and dedicating everything to expanding their audience would probably leave them with egg on their faces. I, obviously, am looking forward to the imminent announcement of Gears Of War: Kinect Edition...

[scottcr]

I genuinely don't. Enlighten me.

Edit: Is it simply because multiplayer titles sell disproportionately well on the Wii?

Both mario kart and mario bros have huge casual appeal and retro appeal. Also, same room multiplayers can sell virally - go to someones house with a Wii, play multiplayer with the wheel, have a ton of fun and go and buy it yourself as a result. There's lots of kids with mario bros on the DS who would also love to play it on the big TV. Smash Bros Brawl is different... It's a core game that is enormous in the US.

Mario Galaxy is much more niche - a 3d plat former. It doesn't have the casual appeal of kart or bros and a lot of the core gamers aren't interested in it... It kinda falls somewhere in between...

[HarMGM]

I think you're talking sense but at the same time I don't think that at this stage we can call Reach a failure. Versus COD perhaps it hasn't sold as many or had the online share, but there must be a lot of people who bought an Xbox/360 to play Halo games and have stuck with them as a result I did[/annecdotal evidence]. In an industry where studios are closing all over the place after failing to sell enough copies something guaranteed to sell millions has got to be an asset, not a terrible disappointment, surely? You're criticising Reach for not attracting new audiences but then mention what Microsoft are doing with Kinect, at this stage I don't think a game can be all things to all markets and the one that Microsoft is most secure in at the moment is a hardcore market. If Kinect manages to be a serious going concern I wonder if we'll see Halo games being made that don't support the peripheral or not. Essentially, Microsoft are going for a bigger market with Kinect but with titles like Reach and Gears and Mass Effect they're making sure that if it all goes wrong they've still got an audience, at least for now. It's very different to Nintendo's committed single vision which brought them such great success but I'm not sure that that's the best way for Microsoft to go about it. In fact, I think abandoning the Hardcore and dedicating everything to expanding their audience would probably leave them with egg on their faces. I, obviously, am looking forward to the imminent announcement of Gears Of War: Kinect Edition...

To clarify, I wasn't calling Reach a failure or anything. It clearly isn't with 7 Million or so copies sold in a few months. However, as mushashi said, Halo is past it's peak in terms of growth. Does this mean that MS should stop making Halo? Nope, it's clear that Halo still has a big audience. However, Microsoft also needs growth in it's Entertainment Division to show to investors. Growth that it isn't getting via Halo. In that sense, I wasn't critisising Reach's ability to get new audiences, more that relying to much upon the existing core audience will eventually yield unfavourable results for Microsoft now that CoD has usurped the top FPS thrown.

Again, it doesn't mean Reach can be considered a failure. But If Microsoft wants to keep growing it needs more then it's core audience of Halo fans.

To go on to another point you made:

In an industry where studios are closing all over the place after failing to sell enough copies something guaranteed to sell millions has got to be an asset, not a terrible disappointment, surely?

I chose to single out the above because I thought that it captured best what you were saying in you post WahWah.

Anyway:

For companies as big as Activision, with multi-million sellers such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft? For companies as big as Microsoft, which reins in billions of dollars every single year because of Windows and Office? Well, actually yes. Selling millions of something would be considered a dissapointment.

Understand that companies don't get their results compared to those of the competition, but to the results of their own. So even if, say, Activision sold 5 million copies of Bloodstone, if Black Ops sold less then Modern Warfare 2 their overall sales would be seen as dissapointing. This because of the humongous profit CoD reigned in with the Modern Warfare games. Nothing can compete with that amount of profit unless Acti found the next big thing.

Companies don't rely upon good sales numbers to satisfy investors and shareholders. They rely upon growth to sustain their business. Look at Nintendo during the Gamecube days. Sure Mario, Zelda and Pokemon sold millions. However, the reason why Nintendo found itself being written off was because the company hadn't seen significant growth for years. Does this mean that selling 15 million copies of Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire was any less of an achievement? No, but it didn't really matter because Pokémon always yielded huge results. It's the fact that Nintendo was unable to find the next big thing during those days that had people writing them of. It could only be a matter of time before Pokemon started to show sales fatigue.

Of course, the market was different back then, in that companies weren't suffering left and right. But in dark economic times, the need for growth only becomes stronger.

[Transient Curse]

Fair enough, I hadn't necessarily considered the title as anything but part of a rich fabric, not an individual item which must defeat all comers.

[simms]

It a shame the the sales of dlc are not easily available as these companies must reign in some extra monies from milking the core crowd for all their worth after releasing retail game X followed up by map paks etc.