Home Gaming Xbox Live Arcade and PSN titles don’t sell well

Xbox Live Arcade and PSN titles don’t sell well

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Bionic Commando Bombs   Sales Are Scarily Bad EmptySeats   Lazygamer

If I think back over the titles that have been released on the XBLA or PSN there are quite a few titles of real quality which stand out.

I am thinking of Castle Crashers, Braid, Flow and Geometry Wars just to name a few.

However what is really disconcerting is that none of those titles have sold exceptionally well and we are still waiting on a XBLA or PSN title to break a million units.

Battlefield 1943 is the latest title to make it’s mark on the downloadable market and has instantly smashed all previous records by shipping a combined 600 000 units in it’s first week on both platforms.

With the magical sequel mark being 1 000 000 units you can forgive the publishers of online games not wanting to invest to much money into the distribution chain.

Let’s hope that Battlefield 1943 has some good legs and keeps on going through the combined million mark soon enough and hopefully continues from there, I really do like the idea of not having to walk into a store to get my gaming fix.

Last Updated: July 24, 2009

11 Comments

  1. easy

    July 24, 2009 at 09:41

    how does it compare to services like steam on the pc?
    i would suspect it would be of a similar ratio.

    Reply

  2. WitWolfyZA

    July 24, 2009 at 10:21

    Im old fashioned, I like to admire my games on my shelf and blow love hearts their way, and at night I would read them all Harry Potter adventure with a torture and a Bic pen as a wand…

    Having the casing , with a booklet just attracts me more than some digital DL.

    Reply

  3. koldFU5iON

    July 24, 2009 at 10:30

    you forgot penny arcade, loads of fun 🙂 and worms great classic, oh oh and don’t forget about the fact that you can download the old xbox titles like Farenheigh (AWESOME)

    Reply

  4. easy

    July 24, 2009 at 10:35

    lol

    if i didn’t do similar things you do, i’d call you sick :biggrin:

    but yeah, there’s no substitute for opening the box of a pre-ordered game for the very first time… priceless

    Reply

  5. Goose ZA

    July 24, 2009 at 10:57

    Splosion man is a lot of fun, but in my opinion Madballs has the potential to be EPIC! I haven’t tried the MP yet so i don’t know if there are lag issues etc but I’ve played the single player and it is sweeeeeet! Plus the thought of online 16 player capture the flag games….

    *drools

    Reply

  6. WitWolfyZA

    July 24, 2009 at 10:59

    Hahaha atleast im not alone :cwy:

    Reply

  7. WitWolfyZA

    July 24, 2009 at 11:01

    the only thing i ever downloaded from Live was Kingdom of Keflings for the GF.. She never played it though… I was hogging the xbox too much lol

    Reply

  8. dislekcia

    July 24, 2009 at 11:50

    Typically, XBLA and PSN games aren’t the budget monsters that retail games are, so the returns people are seeing on them are actually HIGHER than many retail titles. Selling 100 000 copies of an XBLA game is pretty much still guaranteed. That’s over 10 times our break even point on turning something like Spacehack into an XBLA title. Think about that for a sec and you’ll see why people are still keen to get into the digital download space 😉

    Reply

  9. ewie

    July 24, 2009 at 12:22

    Digital is the way to go, currently have about 70 XBLA
    games in my collection, lots of fun to be had and no need
    to go search for the disc, it is the same with other stuff as well,

    How many of you still admire your cd collection, or dvd
    collection after you put it on your pc.

    My cd collection is collecting dust in a container in the garage, the dvd collection is in one of my cupboards behind stuff, and all my xbox games is in one of these carry cases, I for one welcome the digital overloards, the more stuff I can have on it the better, only wish microsoft would allow to make a digital placemarker in place so we can put the dgame away on not have it in the drive.

    Reply

  10. easy

    July 24, 2009 at 13:44

    but the problem is i can’t just give the game to a mate when i’m done with.
    i know there are ways of doing it, but its such a mission especially if you want it back.

    physical media will be around for a while, or until there is a way to negate the game being tied to a particular console.

    music is easy convert to mp3 and ‘lend’ it to you mates without losing the original, same goes for movies. firstly, its illegal and secondly its not possible with games, unless you’ve chipped your console (360?) and running pirated games… again illegal.

    Reply

  11. WitWolfyZA

    July 24, 2009 at 16:12

    I read some where it isnt illegal to have “pirated” games as you call them. Its copyright infringement… what some people will say to make them selfs feel better :blink:

    Reply

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