After the NPD October sales report showed a 6% increase in software sales, further data on unit sales has been trickling in. While 2K Sports' NBA 2K11 (1.15 million) and Bethesda's Fallout: New Vegas were the big winners for the month, three titles really stunk up the charts with major underperformances.
The worst of the bunch was Activision's latest attempt at reviving the Tony Hawk franchise. Tony Hawk: Shred sold an incredibly low 3,000 units. Last year, Tony Hawk: Ride sold 114,000 units at its debut. Prior to the poor sales news for Shred, developer Robomodo was already hit with layoffs and reportedly stripped of the Hawk franchise duties. At this point, one truly has to wonder if Tony Hawk has a future in video games at all.
Another October flop was DJ Hero 2 with just 59,000 units sold. Activision's second DJ title is actually a pretty solid title, but consumers seem to be tiring of the music genre in general (except for Dance, which seems to be the next big trend). There's time still for DJ Hero 2 to recover and post solid numbers in the months ahead, but we're not counting on it.
And from the EA side of things, the big loser in October was EA Sports MMA, the publisher's answer to THQ's popular UFC games. MMA sold only 45,000 units. THQ seems to have a lock on this genre, and we honestly think EA Sports would be wiser to spend its money elsewhere.
Also from the EA camp, it's worth noting that the Medal of Honor reboot failed to meet expectations and sold 1 million, about 500,000 shy of what the publisher was looking for.
3 Comments
November 17, 2010
UFC is like the NFL of mixed-martial arts - it's going to be hard for anyone to break into that now that they've signed on with THQ.
November 17, 2010
Wow, very tough month for both ATVI and EA. Frankly many of these games are quite good and deserved a much better retail reception.
November 19, 2010
It's EA's fault for not having the UFC licensed product. Dana White came to them first and they laughed him out of their office. Now, THQ has them locked up until . . . what . . . like 2018 or something? Never bite the hand that feeds!