LittleBigPlanet sold 141,000 units in the US last month, top 20 revealed

I think that we can officially say that the “biggest title for Sony in all markets this year” is a flop.

The ‘Rise of the robots’ of our times…

Didn’t rise of the robots sell quite well until people found out how poor it was?

Whereas LBP is actually very good but nobody wants to buy it.

The biggest problem with LBP is that Sony decided to launch it into a very crowded Christmas period.
This is not a game that can compete with the likes of “Fallout 3″, “Resistance 2″, “FarCry 2″ or “Call of Duty 5″.

It’s more a Psychonauts than a Rise of the Robots. It’s not selling THAT badly though, it’s just not what you’d expect from a massively hyped title.

Don’t compare it to Psychonauts. That game is one of the best games ever made.

I agree with what Psychotext said. Although it is a really fun game and I think every PS3 owner should have it in their collection.

Perhaps it is morriss… but LBP rates higher critically.

I will definitely buy “LittleBigPlanet” in January when I’m finally done with this epic “Fallout 3″ (60+ hours and counting)

anlolysts

I haven’t actually started Fallout 3 yet… I don’t think I’m going to even install it until I see some mods getting released.

LBP’s on my Christmas list.

@ Quiiick
Although Fallout 3 is quite awesome I don’t think it’s 60+ hours like Oblivion as the game world isn’t that big. The main quests are quite short even when doing the side quests and the achievements (360) I still only clocked in 30 hours.
It is a great game nonetheless.

I couldn’t get into it. I played for about 10 hours but never really got sucked in. Shame. I’ve sent it to my brother – see how he gets on with it.

“Don’t compare it to Psychonauts. That game is one of the best games ever made.”

Just like LBP then. )

@ Squa11
I already played 63 hours, and I’m only about haft way through the game!
Level #13 to be precise and only 9 missions competed yet …

Not so mass-market as everyone hoped.

I think it is a mass-market product but a lot of customers may consider the following: “Why pay full price for a “2-D platformer” when I can get “Fallout 3″, “Resistance 2″, “FarCry 2″ or “Call of Duty 5″ for the same price.

The main problem of LBP is:
The great majority of gamers want to PLAY, they don’t want to CREATE!
And just for playing there is not enough value in LBP compared to the price.

Solution: Offer a DL-version of LBP in the PS-Store for € 29.99 ASAP !!!

I believe even more think:

“LittleBigPlanet? What’s that? Never heard of it, can’t be that good. Meh, I’ll just grab Need for Speed.”

Its a damn shame that its just taken forgranted that the masses buy complete shit like Need for Speed, FIFA and Gears 2 etc, yet something like this comes out and everyones all over the NPD figures pointing out its failure.

Anyone dares to mention this and its all blamed on hype “They brought this upon themselves! We are devoid of guilt!”.

Fuck that.

What a bunch of whingers.

LittleBigPlanet has an extremely strong community and new levels being made constantly. And I’m sure they’re making a fair few pennies off those store costume, if community screenshots are anything to go by.

It’s clearly a slow burner gamer, and more importantly… it’s fun. Who gives a rats ass if its not at #1 every week? It’s no indicator of its quality.

@absolutezero
Gears 2 is not complete shit its just the multiplayer issues that are complete shit.

Anyways I think I’ll wait till the holiday season is over with before calling anything a flop or a Psychonaught.

@ Michael O’Connor
No need to defend the game’s quality. It’s brilliant, we know that …

But sales are terrible for the self-proclaimed “biggest title for Sony in all markets this year”.

@ Quiiick

Well, lets be honest, it probably *is* the best selling first party title by Sony this year, small as the sales may be. *laughs*

Rise of the Robots sold well over a million copies, even though it was complete rubbish.

Psychonauts is one of the most overrated games of all time. LBP is better.

Although that’s not to say Psychonauts is bad. I enjoyed the game, I’d say it was simply “good” rather than a classic. If it had sold 2 million copies, you’d find a lot of people hating on it.

I’d say exactly the opposite.

Sony are obviously going for the long tail with LBP so it’s no worry for them that it sold only moderately well ( it hasn’t exactly flopped ) up til now. They’ve seen Burnout Paradise do phenomenally well based on the best post-launch support ever seen in a game to date, and they’ll be seeing Ninty move out of the launch day model and into a much longer term sales model for most of their key titles ( Nintendogs anyone? ).

There’s a lot more to come from LBP imo.

Retailers have dumped the price down to £19.99 – £24.99 in a lot of places. Long tail probably wont work out that well for this title.

@Quiiick

30 hours for Fallout 3 doing all the sidequests? Watch out or your nose could break the monitor glass

Sony knows what to do with the casual market, see Singstar. I don’t really know why they had to put themselves in Nintendo’s AC shoes

don’t worry, I play on a beamer …

Why does this entire thread read as:

Pap sells, in the millions/billions. Genius doesn’t, because it goes over the heads of most. Though the genius is lessened by those few who actually got it separating themselves into factions and arguing the toss over which was actually brilliant, and which was supposedly dross.

Look at a game that sold really well, usually it’s uninspired crap. Let’s point at that and say it was crap instead of arguing over games which were actually brilliant. I thought both Psychonauts and LittleBigPlanet pushed the envelope in ways that no other game really had.

Here’s a challenge… find a unique / innovative / intellectual game that’s also a blockbuster (Over 1.5m for example).

I don’t have any in mind, but I’ll try to think of one.

The Sims.

1 million sold in a month = Not a failure at all.

Syrok: I never really played the sims. Does that fit the criteria?

01casey: What sold a million in a month?

I have to second that, I don’t really understand how The Sims would fit those criteria. It was just Little Computer People done up in a financially extendable format.

Well, it is unique and innovative (at least I don’t remember any previous Housebuilding-Family-Simulation game. As for intellectual maybe not so much.

Edit: Ah, see I’ve never heard of Little Computer People.
Edit2: Did it allow you to build as well?

Psychotext: Fable II. I’d say it was creative, unique in terms the orbs etc., and a blockbuster.

Syrok: No, but building was a logical and inevitable addition stolen from other strategy/simulation games. Hardly unique.

morriss: Sims with swords. It’s charming in its own little way but it’s hardly on the same echelon of brilliance that Psychonauts is.

Populous
PacMan (not intellectual)

Populous is probably right. Did that sell well? Thinking about that sort of era… what about Elite?

Esha: I can accept that, yeah, but it still fills the criteria Psycho stipulated, imo.

Addendum, Fable II: Also, co-op is not brilliant but simply an achievement. The PC has been doing co-op in roleplaying games for as long as I can remember. Baldur’s Gate, et al? Fable II was the first time consoles got it right, and that’s all there is to it. It’s an achievement, sure, but not a genius effort. Unless we’re claiming that consoles are really shit and co-op is hard for a console to deal with.

PacMan: Hmm… it was the birth of gaming, everything was innovative back then, and it’s hard to say how a concept like that “sold”.

Populus: You’ve got me there. Populus was indeed brilliant, and it introduced a lot of new concepts. But did it sell well? If I recall, it didn’t?

Edit: Heh, looks like Psycho and I are thinking alike, today.

Elite is another brilliant example that could disprove the rule, but did that sell well? I think it did, actually… we might have a winner.

I probably wouldn’t have put Fable 2 there simply because whilst some of the things it did were pretty unique, not only was it a sequel to a blockbuster game, the gameplay was solid “appeal to all” RPG lite.

According to the Lionhead website Populous sold 4 million copies.

Hm…

Here’s a thought, then: Is this direct proof of the deterioration of the expectation of quality, genius and innovation within the gaming medium?

what was the first MMO?

First MMO? Good grief, now you’re tasking me. It was actually something an ISP launched, and it was turn-based. But I simply cannot remember the name…

Edit: It’s an amusing thought but the reason the Games as Art crowd may be going so nuts these days is because perhaps some of them remember (if only subconsciously) that games were art, and as gaming evolved they only became less so over time, repeating the art of the past until it was no longer recognisable as such instead of creating new art.

Edit II: Islands of Kesmai! That’s what it was called. I remember now, it was a Compuserve thing, a Roguelike at that.

The internet agrees