I second that Platinum Games deserve it.

I'm hoping for a proper Viewtiful Joe 3, in my opinion their best work (as Clover Studios that is).

Holy fuck! I was absolutely not expecting this. I guess the Sterling arguement of 'Okami could've sold incredibly if it was advertised well' was right. Bugger me sideways...

In that case I think Kamiya deserves a console port of 'Planet Harrier' as well.

And who said boobs cant get a woman anywhere?

Good news, good news. It's good to see Sega actually do well by releasing a new IP and getting the marketing right. I really have hope that this year will be one of Sega's best since the Dreamcast era. Now let's start developing Bayonetta 2 and a new MadWorld game for 360 and PS3, please!

By the way, I'm not hatin' on the Wii. I own MadWorld for the Wii and love it. It's just a fact that it didn't sell well on the platform and was heavily pirated. It deserves better than that. Just like House of the Dead: Overkill.

sold 1,099,990 more copies than darksiders.

WTF? So a incredibly niche black and white beat em' up with no advertising, released on one SKU in two territories, being outsold by a huge budget, two SKU title with tons of advertising released in THREE territories?

That's a fair comparison.

Give PS3 a Framerate patch and it'll go over 9000 millionz! XD..SERIOUSLY...also bring Viewtiful Joe 3 back no matter what!!!

@ theswitcher: While I don't think it's a completely fair comparison it's still one that can be made. I saw a tonne of TV ads for Madworld here in the UK and although I don't know how much advertising there was in America it at least had this TV ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0YQ5FljJQU
And the Wii has a massive install base, it's not far below the combined PS3 and 360 install base, so I don't see why you can't compare the two. And do you really think that when Madworld gets released in Japan next week that it will sell enough to make a difference to its sales?

@mrpibb

Of course not, but Bayonetta was MADE for the JPN market, and the whole genre of twitch action games (DMC, NG) have a built in audience and a very established fanbase already. I do however, remember hearing about how Madworld had much more exposure in the UK, than in NA for some reason. Madworld is a very comic-book, almost american style game in some ways. I don't expect it to do well for it's sheer genre and aesthetic alone. Plus the fact that, well, Bayonetta has a experienced director working on it, and was far better reviewed than MW was.

Anyway, I just expect this entire post to be Sterlin fanboy bait. I'm still waiting for his apology for his huge sweaty tantrum against us all for not buying Darksiders, only for THQ to come out and say it sold 1.2 million copies the next day.

Well I hope this means that more games like Bayonetta get made. I am happy for Platinum and look forward to their next release.

Also, Darksiders is only fun if you are in middle school and think Linkin Park really speaks to the things that trouble you. /flameon

Awesome. Even with those really shitty commercials and uninspired boxart it still sold well. That makes me happy that despite marketing flaws, this game still banked.

I really am sitting on the fence with this game. I liked some parts of it, but the over all package I didn't much like. I dunno what the hell it is, I didnt find anything special about this game. Nothing, I don't even think its combat was a good as the reviews said. Combos looked nice and alot of shit happens but there was just too much crap going on. I dunno, its worth a rental, but fuck I really couldn't recommend this to buy at the full price. Anyways, thats just what I think. Means nothing really.

This game simply looks interesting. My son would love it.

Chapel Hill Homes

uh...yeah.... because it's AWESOME!!!! replay value is very high. i shut darksiders off, and haven't played it again. no comparison. i think bayonetta is even better then dantes inferno.

And by sold, you mean shipped worldwide on both consoles. So its a bit unfair to compare the shipped sales for two versions of a game, to the Wii's sales numbers of MadWorld, which is over 400,000 by the way. The NPD's next week will tell the real story!

This game looks awesome.

and @HoodedMiracle...I'm a feminist. Well, sort of I guess.

So, those numbers released by SEGA, I'm assuming, are it's copies sold to retailers. When THQ was complaining about not having sold a million units yet they were talking about actual consumer sales. Both games have sold almost identically, about 800,000 combined sales over the two systems, with Darksider having done better on the 360 than Bayonetta and Bayonetta having done better on the PS3 (due to about 100,000 units in Japan). Also, Bayonetta's sales are starting to slow down significantly where as Darksider's is slowing less on both systems, and they released at the same time. Now, I'm getting all this from the charts on VG Chartz, and while on occasion they get adjusted a little up or down, it's rarely enough to be significant.

Also, the entire point of developing niche 3rd party titles for the Wii is not because they sell well, it's because they don't have to sell well. You can create your experimental titles for relatively low cost so you can make money back on a game that sells under a half million units, where as it would be extremely risky to release the same game on the HD consoles. Sega has said they were fine with the sales of Mad World, which sold the same numbers as Bayonetta did on either one of the two consoles. The real lesson here for Platinum is that while their games will probably never be million sellers on a single console (a mistake they made with Okami and Viewtiful Joe at first), they can double their sales by going multi-platform.

If retailers have really bought 1.1 million copies of the game it has apparently slightly undersold expectations, and you can probably expect to see it at discount rates pretty soon.

I'm glad this did well. I loved Bayonetta cheesy cutscenes and all.

"I also think it's interesting to note that Platinum found its success after giving up on the Wii and putting its games on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Really, a studio like Platinum should have been doing this from the start."

really? then what about Okami oh wise one?, i'm still waiting for that Madworld review (doesn't have to be official, just post it in your c-blog), if you have the courage to back your claims that is.

Wonderful! Great game (even with those stupid minigame areas)

"I also think it's interesting to note that Platinum found its success after giving up on the Wii and putting its games on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Really, a studio like Platinum should have been doing this from the start."

I originally thought this was just a tongue-in-cheek comment in reference to the silly fanboy arguments made against the Wii, but apparently you're serious. Guess I need to respond.

Let's go over this:
- Platinum didn't "give up" on the Wii, Bayonetta was in development concurrently with MadWorld.
- By this logic, Okami should have done well on the PS2, as I'm sure no one could have argued the PS2 didn't support "core" games. The reality is, it bombed on PS2, and yet the Wii PORT managed to garner twice as many sales with no major advertising on a console that had a much smaller userbase at the time.
- MadWorld was in black & white. That's a tough sell, certainly as bad as Okami's art style in terms of marketing. Take that, and compare it to the sex appeal of Bayonetta.
- MadWorld, while good, was certainly not great.
- MadWorld had next to no advertising, while Bayonetta has had a veritable shit-ton. (But maybe that's just personal experience...? I never saw a MadWorld ad, but despite the little TV I watch I've seen nearly a dozen Bayonetta spots.)

The reality is, MadWorld would have bombed regardless of console. I don't know where the industry got the idea that releasing a good game on the "hardcore" consoles will instantly make it a success. (Can I haz BlazBlue now?)

Furthermore, I'm sick of this BS where these Wii games supposedly "prove" good games on the Wii are wasted development resources. While MadWorld/Bayonetta is not to this degree, it's like how people say "The Wii shouldn't get good games like Modern Warfare 2 because games like The Conduit don't do well", when The Conduit would have bombed regardless of platform.

Awesome news, and good for them!

I'm not going to dig through the inevitable arguing, but I just wanted to say you missed a golden shower of opportunity by passing up "Platinum Games finally has a platinum game."