They cite DJ Hero as the ”perfect example” which suffered low sales but picked up to 1.2m copies. It just needed time for its audience ”to find it.”
31,000 copies of Blur sold in the US in May which is less than stellar at first glance but it had only been on sale for 5 days. It’s a whole new franchise and it already had competition out in the field from Disney’s Split/Second.
”I’ve seen sites call it a “failure,” and one even went on to list a whole bunch of reasons why it failed, citing everything from the game’s delay to the wrong platform to not giving gamers what they wanted,” blogged Acti’s Dan Amrich, reports Eurogamer.
”Blur came out a week after Split/Second (May 18) and the same day as ModNation Racers. I’m not sure what your budget looks like, but I can rarely afford to buy three games in eight days — nor do I have the time to play all of them at once anyway.”
”It’s inevitable that three games in the same genre at the same time are going to make people say “Well, I’ll get this one first, and look into the others when I can afford it.” A three-way race was a bad thing, because two of those three games were going to “lose.”
Ironic given the genre. ”And according to NPD, none of those titles hit 100,000 units sold in May, and all three games scored in the low 80s — Metacritic averages all three titles to the same exact 82. So it’s not about quality; it’s about too much choice,” he added.
”While big sales out of the gate are always preferred, a slow first week no longer means a death sentence.” Here enters DJ Hero… the latest peripheral music series.
”A perfect example: DJ Hero was dubbed a flop on its release too, but what it needed was time for its audience to find it, a price break, and positive word from both friends and reviews to circulate,” continued Amrich.
”October and November were soft, but after the holiday, DJ Hero had hit about 800,000 units; today it’s 1.2 million units and counting, all of which come with a turntable controller. That’s not a flop; that’s the long tail at work.”
”So to suggest a game is a failure because it didn’t sell hundreds of thousands of units in its first 168 hours is pretty ridiculous.” Not if you compare it to the time it takes Blizzard to clear tickets for BlizzCon but let’s not go there.
”June’s data will be very interesting to see, and I don’t expect to hear much about any victories it might represent, since it’s a less sexy story than ‘Blur failed in week one’. Bad news travels fast,” he said.
Blur released on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. It’s been described as a real car version of Mario Kart, though that’s an over simplification. We reviewed the Bizarre developed racer and came to the conclusion it has ”one of a kind” multiplayer. How about you?
