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LittleBigPlanet and Valkyria Chronicles Not Selling Well
PS3 Exclusives for the Loss
by Sarah
I understand that we’re in tough economic times right now, and that the average gamer doesn’t have as much money to spend on holiday titles this year. That being said, this bit of news is still really depressing. Two recent PS3 exclusives, LittleBigPlanet and Valkyria Chronicles, are original, fun, and critically acclaimed, with Metacritic averages of 95 and 86, respectively. You would think that PS3 owners would be thrilled to finally have some of the best games of the year exclusive to the their console. Unfortunately, as good as both of these games are, they are just not selling, a fact that makes me truly sad.
First, there’s LittleBigPlanet, which was preceded by months of unimaginable hype only to be surrounded by bad press at launch. Despite some issues, this is still one of my favorite games of the year, something I would like to share with everyone. However, the game only sold 141,000 copies in November—fewer units than it sold the month before, which really sucks considering that it only came out during the last week in October. This brings LBP’s current sales total to 346,000, which would be okay if this hadn’t been promoted as such a huge, system-selling title.
It’s not like I expected Valkyria Chronicles to break sales records, as there isn’t an overwhelming demand for Japanese tactical RPGs, but I was very surprised and impressed with the quality of that game, and it earned a place on my “must own” list after I reviewed it. I’m apparently one of a very small minority, since the game only sold 33,000 copies in November. Thirty. Three. Thousand. I don’t even know what kind of shitty games beat Valkyria Chronicles out, but I’m sure that there are many of them. This is one of the most refreshing and beautiful games of this generation, and yet no one wants to buy it.
Seeing sales numbers like this drives me absolutely nuts. This is why publishers are focusing on countless sequels, crappy shovelware, and World War II-era shooters while running like hell from anything “creatively risky”, and it’s our own fault for letting this happen. These are two of the year’s best games! I know the fact that there are fewer PS3 owners than 360 or Wii probably has something to do with this, but it’s not the whole story. To me, this is just really frustrating, because with the number of games I have to play in a year, I gladly welcome anything unique and innovative; with numbers like these, it seems like that’s going to happen less and less in the future.
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I am going to say that I'm part of the solution because I just purchased a copy of LBP and I plan on getting Valkyria asap!
But it's just like the movies, Sarah, people are going to pay to see BS while a lot of really sweet stuff dies slow, painful deaths due to poor sales numbers.
I almost wrote something up yesterday on this because it disgust me. This is my little write up..
The gaming public still to this day amazes me. We get amazing games that truly just make you so happy to be a gamer, and they dont sell. Then we get cookie cutter crap like .50 Cent Bulletproof and it sells millions. Then people wonder why truly amazing games sometimes dont get sequels. This years game that really should have sold Better is Valkyria Chronicles. Yes it was released in a crowded month, yes it had no trophy support but BOO-HOO. This is one of the best games to be released in the year 2008 and thats for any system and its an utter crime that it is not selling better than it is. Yes it is not a GENRE for everyone, but i dont care, PS3 owners should be ashamed of themselves. Any PS3 who has not purchased this amazing game should be branded a loser, have their PS3 taken from them and replaced with a gamecube.
I just hope SEGA plans on doing a second game or something similar. Thank you SEGA for this pure greatness of a video game and I hope to see more greatness of this level. Hopefully the sales will pick up over the holidays and early part of next year, though i hear this game was on a very limited print..
I almost posted something similar to Voyou on this one.
I already bought Little Big Planet and am buying Valkyria Chronicles later this week. Good times.
I can understand the anger, Voyou San. Working at GameStop, I used to see people buy the shittiest games, and I just wanted to say "WHY?! What is wrong with you?" It's hard to see games like Valkyria and LBP go unnoticed by the public at large because they really should be commended.
While I don't think every single PS3 owner should be required to buy any game (no game will please everyone, remember that), I do wish both of these had sold better because I would like to see these series continue.
its funny because all of forums i kept seeing people bitch about the lack of good games or good RPG's on the PS3 and how they wanted more good games on their PS3, then these two games release and no one buys them..
and VC should be owned by everyone, thats just a fact. Just like MGS4 should be owned by everyone, oh and LBP. And Disgaea 3... and well i could go on..