Xbox 360 exclusive Gears of War 2 has managed to blast its way to the top of the UK sales charts, putting LittleBigPlanet in its place despite the latters two-day lead. Both games are the highly anticipated Holiday killers for their respective platform, but it seems that the opening battle has gone to Epic Games' steroid-pumped shooter.
While Gears 2 soaks up the glory of the top spot, LittleBigPlanet has a less impressive position at number four, having also lost out to FIFA 09 and Fallout 3. Apparently, the cute charms of Sackboy make for a less endearing mascot than Marcus Fenix's grizzled facade and bulging neck muscles. Maybe Microsoft should look into Fenix plushies?
I would argue that this has something to do with casual gaming. Not the misconception people have about casual gamers (that they are all old people and women), but the true scope of what it means to be casual -- which includes young males who don't follow games but love violent, mainstream shooters like Halo and Gears. The "casual" appeal of Gears 2 will likely have had an effect here.
Bad news for the British Media Molecule, bested on its own turf. With very little else in Sony's bag of tricks, this has to be a real shame. Still, maybe the title's position will climb when parents are looking for something cute to give their kids. We'll have to see.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
4:49 PM on 11.10.2008
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Not really but what THE FUCK is soccer doing in 3rd?
I like LBP better. Poor Sackboy.
It totally skipped my mind that it was in the UK, my bad!
@jellydoodle: Maybe he's not in England, and it actually is soccer.
The only one trying to have an argument is you, and that's quite sad. Get a life yourself .. uh .. commentboy?
I'll bet if MM made this game on the Wii instead, it would have sold 3 times more than it did. I'd say it has just about everything to do with casual vs hardcore.
I think the casual argument is more than appropriate here. I know quite a few people that play Halo/CoD/Gears pretty much exclusively and refuse to look at anything other than those types of games. Isn't someone with only a passing interest in the hobby the very definition of the term casual gamer?
I'm definitely in that group too. The news about the sensoring of copyrighted material has disappointed me a little, putting me off a little bit more.
With Christmas coming up we'll just have to wait and see in January how the sales have changed. I'd leave it till the end of January, there are kids who get Christmas money to spend.
Any chance to gloat over the fact that an exclusive on a system he owns has done better than an exclusive on a system he doesn't own, is his bread-and-butter.
This day probably couldn't be any better for him unless a Stouffers truck overturned outside of his house.
As for LBP not selling as well, I think a lot of people are holding back from buying it until the in game community is properly established and great levels are being made and promoted. The fact that the servers were down doesn't help the game either, that and the marketing of the game hasn't been great.
Grow up mate.
Gears 2 rules.
I mean, seriously.
inb4 jim calls me a fanboy or something
It's the only game that compels me to buy a PS3.
It may be a system seller but not on a system that isnt known for that type of game.
Its the problem with no exclusives anymore, everyone thinks these games are on everything.
Both games sell for the same price. Media Molecule has a small team of 27 employees according to their blog. Epic Games has roughly 4x the employees. Cliffy's celeb salary is prob equivalent to that of team MM's combined gross. MM and Sony has a lower overhead so I'm sure the sales number met/exceeded their expectations.
I'm speculating that Gears 2 had a higher production cost and it goes without saying that Microsoft paid much more for Gears from established dev Epic then Sony did for LBP from relatively unknown dev Media Molecule. Microsoft made a safe bet on Gears 2 and I'm sure they got a nice return. I doubt neither camp's developers and publishers are frowning at the sales these games raked in.
Congrats to Media Molecule on the birth of a new franchise and congrats to Epic on another hit. Enjoy the videogames and leave the numbers game for the analysts.
I disagree. If you talk to a lot of people in real life about games, you gain what I feel is an important perspective about "casual" gamers.
Casual gamers have existed since gaming first began and are not simply relegated to old people, children and women. The young male demographic is definitely full of casual gamers. These are people who are not primarily interested in games, but will buy and play FIFA or Grand Theft Auto.
They do not "regularly partake" in gaming or "prefer" it to others. They are as casual about it as any Wii Sports player. I have met these people, I have spoken to them about games.
I think it is incredibly blinkered to rule out the FIFA/Gears/Halo/GTA playing gamer if we're going to have this "casual" definition.
I expect a game like LBP to maintain steady sales for quite a while. Especially if MM support the game and expand it as they said they will. LBP puts itself in an interesting situation: The longer the consumer waits, the better the experience will be, with a larger user created library growing daily.
Gears 2 and most highly advertised multiplayer shooters will always sell well, especially on the 360. Hell even Too Human sold well for a few weeks until it came out that the game was ass. You won't see a game sell on the PS3 like Halo 3 or Gears 2 until you see an established series release a sequel. So God of War 3, Final Fantasy 13 (it's released on the PS3 first), and I potentially see Infamous creating the sales if it's advertised right.