Following up on Thursday's release of the latest retail video game sales data, the NPD Group has given Gamasutra a list of the top 20 U.S. console retail video games across all platforms for October 2009.
Demon's Souls for the PlayStation 3 leads off the extended listing at #11, with just over 150,000 units. Originally developed by From Software and published by Sony in Japan, the notoriously unforgiving role-playing game was published in the United States by Atlus.
Three more PlayStation 3 titles made the chart with FIFA Soccer 10 from EA coming in at 13th, Namco Bandai's Tekken 6 at 16th, and Take 2's Borderlands at 17th. The Xbox 360 versions of Borderlands and FIFA bested their PS3 counterparts, taking the 2nd and 10th spots on the chart, respectively.
The Xbox 360 dominance of the top 10 continues throughout this extended chart, with three more titles. The Xbox 360 versions of Brutal Legend and Madden NFL 10, both published by Electronic Arts, slipped in as the #12 and #18 titles for the month. THQ's WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010, also for Microsoft's console, ranked 15th.
Rounding out the top 20 were three titles published by Nintendo: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of the Sky, both for the Nintendo DS, and Mario Kart Wii for the Nintendo Wii.
The full list of NPD's Top 20 console retail sellers for October 2009 is as follows:
Nine publishers had titles in the top 20 in October 2009. Nintendo led the pack with five titles for its console and handheld. Both Take 2 and Electronic Arts claimed four titles each on the list. Microsoft had two titles to chart in October, both for the Xbox 360. Atlus, Namco Bandai, Sony, Square Enix, and THQ each published a single title in the top 20.
Notably missing from the top 20 this month was Activision Blizzard, but we expect the publisher's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to top the chart in November.
Brutal Legend in 12th place with 150 000 units (+PS3) sold has got to be considered a huge disappointment. EA was playing that up with a big marketing campaign and the game got tons of glowing press. I was expecting it to be in the top 5 for October.
Personally I'm glad that Brutal Legend didn't do as well as people thought it would because it was marketed as something it was not. They can say it was marketed legit all they want, but the official demo was even misleading. Of course playing the demo to begin with I didn't know I was being fooled, but after playing the game and getting past the demo portion of the game I soon realized that the first 10 minutes are set up as an action/beat em up type game that is going to go in stages (much like psychonauts or other platformer games) then it shifts to an RTS after the demo period is up. It made me feel as though the beginning portion of the game was made for no other reason than to be able to release a misleading demo. It was a decent game, and the RTS elements were original and fun, but it wasn't what I or many other people that played it went in expecting due to the marketing. That isn't something that happens to me often, I can usually tell exactly what a game is all about by nothing more than a few videos, but not when there is a conscious cover up for whatever reason.
As for Demon's Souls, that is an awesome game, and much deserving of its success.
@Andre Thomas, how does releasing a game in less platforms would ensure more sales? Taking away first and second party exclusives, it doesn't make sense.
I don't think releasing Tekken 6 or FFXII on PS3 alone would result in more sales at all because that doesn't make much sense like you say. I will explain what I believe Andre's thought process to be though. Releasing games like Last Remnant, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Tales of Vesperia, etc on PS3 alone would have probably resulted in more sales than releasing them exclusively for Xbox360. This is just giving a certain demographic the type of game that they want.
Alternately, I think releasing Uncharted on both consoles from the beginning would have resulted in not many more sales, or less, due to the exclusivity causing hype more than the actual game. The only time exclusivity (selling on less platforms) results in more sales is when the game is an unknown franchise because just the fact that it is an exclusive will create buzz whereas releasing an unknown on both consoles will simply result in it getting lost along with all the other games. For games such as Tekken and Final Fantasy it makes little sense to release exclusively.
Tekken 6 did poorly because fighting games don't sell well anymore! Fighting games are a dying breed sadly. Capcon's SF4 brought back some life into the genre
As for FF, I think otherwise. I've already pre-ordered FF13 for the Xbox360 and I know it will do very well. Many Xbox owners are waiting for it.
Very happy to see Demon's Souls in the top 20. It's a pretty hardcore title, and probably the best new IP of the season. I thought Brutal Legend was awesome as well, and had no issue as I did not see the demo as being misleading. On the contrary, BL had one of the best pre-release demo's this year, and it really did capture the spirit of the game. Tekken 6? With games like SFIV and BlazBlue redefining the genre, Tekken 6 doesn't really bring much new to the table that hasn't already been done in past versions. Plus the complaints of the online mode being not as smooth as other online fighters is delaying sales I'm sure as well.
Wow!
Way to go guys!
As for Demon's Souls, that is an awesome game, and much deserving of its success.
I don't think releasing Tekken 6 or FFXII on PS3 alone would result in more sales at all because that doesn't make much sense like you say. I will explain what I believe Andre's thought process to be though. Releasing games like Last Remnant, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Tales of Vesperia, etc on PS3 alone would have probably resulted in more sales than releasing them exclusively for Xbox360. This is just giving a certain demographic the type of game that they want.
Alternately, I think releasing Uncharted on both consoles from the beginning would have resulted in not many more sales, or less, due to the exclusivity causing hype more than the actual game. The only time exclusivity (selling on less platforms) results in more sales is when the game is an unknown franchise because just the fact that it is an exclusive will create buzz whereas releasing an unknown on both consoles will simply result in it getting lost along with all the other games. For games such as Tekken and Final Fantasy it makes little sense to release exclusively.
Tekken 6 did poorly because fighting games don't sell well anymore! Fighting games are a dying breed sadly. Capcon's SF4 brought back some life into the genre
As for FF, I think otherwise. I've already pre-ordered FF13 for the Xbox360 and I know it will do very well. Many Xbox owners are waiting for it.