Prince and Persia + Beyond Good and Evil UK sales...

[martTM]

I was utterly convinced this one would be a hit - It has all the ingredients of a huge seller. The games-buying public has again let me down.

And yet, Manhunt 'only' went to number 15 in the chart. Granted, it's an 18 which kind of restricts the buying audience but all the same, you'd have thought the clueless public would have bought into it hook, line, sinker, rod and copy of Angling Times.

Or maybe everyone's realised it's ****.

[Prine]

Arabs are not too popular atm

[Max Zorin]

Persians aren't Arabs, although I guess the average Joe probably wouldn't have the nous to realize..

[Max M]

If nothing else, this is indicative of my fear that your average Playstation 2 owner is interested only in 'trendy' games featuring guns, football, wrestling, skateboarding or whatever is licensed that week.

Sadly I think your observation is spot-on, that's why I've always said it's important to have a more niche console (Saturn, Dreamcast, GameCube) where the less trendy games or the ones with a smaller budget get more of a chance. Would a game like Monkey Ball or Animal Crossing have passed 1 million on the PS2? Or would they have simply been over-shadowed by the latest huge budget 'mature' game?

This probably goes deeper than gaming though and is part of our society as a whole. Kids want to grow up too quickly now, and with the sheep mentality/lad culture that runs through our country, they're brought up to think anything that isn't 'cool' or 'adult' isn't worth owning. I saw a magazine advert for a Beano racing game on the PC the other day and the slogan was "It's not just for kids!". That, to me, is a sad state of affairs.

[Kerraig UK]

But then that doesnt explain Manhunt being a flop does it?

There seems to be no logic to this whatsoever. Apart from the prince of persia poster being the worst thing my eyes have ever seen.

[Vaipon]

If nothing else, this is indicative of my fear that your average Playstation 2 owner is interested only in 'trendy' games featuring guns, football, wrestling, skateboarding or whatever is licensed that week.

Sadly I think your observation is spot-on, that's why I've always said it's important to have a more niche console (Saturn, Dreamcast, GameCube) where the less trendy games or the ones with a smaller budget get more of a chance.

This is going a bit off the topic of POP, but it's going to be interesting to see how well Siren does when it's released in March on the PS2. That game is definitely a new concept, and not what you would call a mainstream title because of it's rich Japanese locations and cultural leanings. I simply can't see your average FIFA player enjoying a game full of Shibito, Japanese folklore, and sight-jacking. Despite my love of the PS2 above all other formats, I think you may have a point when you say that we need a niche format where games like these can flourish. The Cube is a good start, but it's never gonna get ICO or Siren because they are in-house SONY games. *sigh*

Consumer apathy is a seemingly random trait of the mainstream audience though. There's simply no way of reliably knowing which titles will bomb and which will succeed.

[Max M]

But then that doesnt explain Manhunt being a flop does it?

There seems to be no logic to this whatsoever. Apart from the prince of persia poster being the worst thing my eyes have ever seen.

Jesus, everything seems to be flopping this Christmas.

From Eurogamer:

EA once again utterly trounced the opposition this week, with FIFA 2004 holding firm at the top slot (compared with Pro Evo 3 which slides to No.13), supported by Need For Speed: Underground making a surprisingly high debut at No.2, and The Return Of The King moving up one place to No.3.

But there was massive disappointment elsewhere for EA's competitors, with Rare's first Xbox release failing to dent even the Xbox Top 20 (see separate story), Rockstar's murder sim Manhunt making a quieter than expected debut at No.15, Sony's heavily advertised Ratchet & Clank 2 entering at a lowly No.25 in the full price listings and Ubisoft's utterly sublime Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time managing a desperately disappointing No.33, although its performance will no doubt improve thanks to the official bundle just launched. The Xbox version of Jedi Academy propelled the game back to No.39, but it's not the performance LucasArts would have been hoping for.

Slightly less disappointing, but no less significant was the performance of Tony Hawk's Underground, which entered at No.5, and Championship Manager: Season 03/04 - the first CM not to go straight in at No.1 for several incarnations - and perhaps indicative that fans are voting with their wallets having only shelled out for CM4 seven months ago.

Elsewhere, Nintendo will be alarmed to see Mario Kart Double Dash!! sliding to No.10 in its first full week on sale, while Codemasters' big hope Pop Idol dipped to No.17 despite the huge amount of promotion surrounding the brand. More bad news came in the shape of Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon's slack performance, sliding to No.26 in the full price chart in its first full week on sale, while Team 17's Worms 3D carried on the tradition of the brand's slow full price start, down to No.37. Sony's heavily promoted Jak II also continues to disappoint, down to No.40 in the full price listings already.

This year's big surprise Christmas success stories appear to be Vivendi's Simpsons Hit & Run (No.7), THQ's Finding Nemo (No.9), Big Ben's Dance:UK (No.12) and Rugby 2004 (No.21 - but you can guess why that's selling), while EyeToy continues to sell well, now placed at No.18, although the cheap and cheerful EyeToy: Groove has made little or no impact on sales, failing to make even the PS2 Top 20.

Next week we're expecting Microsoft to have better news with the release of Project Gotham Racing 2, although it's likely that Medal Of Honor: Rising Sun will take top honours despite its critical mauling.

What's going on?

[JibberX]

Woooo baby, thats just great. I think gaming just got niche and playing **** just got BIG BIG BIG!!!

[JibberX]

Ahem, just to add we all know that the British public are stupid, but MAN O MAN this is just insane.....roll on FIFA 2005

[Concept]

Great. Superb.

I think we can say goodbye to almost any original IP content or new ideas flourishing in the next few years, the way things are going right now. As if things weren't bad enough in this regard, I think it's now impossible to deny we're well on our way into descending right down into franchise hell.

Maybe we're partly to blame too, because after all, we're consumers just as much as anyone else. But on the whole, dedicated gamers that I know mostly like to see new innovations and titles hit the market, and if they're of a good enough quality, tend to pick them up too. But there aren't enough people who love or are simply interested in gaming to actually care. I don't want this to descend into another typically cliche bashing of the 'casual' market, because as others have stated in this thread, the problem obviously goes deeper than that. The depressing thing is unlike music or films, where independant efforts can be made cheaply away from the charts, usually accomplished games tend to require a decent sized budget of sorts. They can't generally be made without at least some concerted sense of resource. And on this evidence, which company in it's right mind is going to finance projects they see as doomed to failure right before they start?

Roll on Gregory Horror Show. Roll on Killer 7. Roll on Siren. Roll on Katamari Damashi. Roll on Fable. Roll on BC. Roll on Sudeki. Roll on Ollie King. Roll on Gotcha Force. Roll on Baten Kaitos. Roll on True Fantasy Star Online. Roll on Monster Hunter. Roll on Nebula Echo Night.

You're all probably going to fail dreadfully in a commercial sense.

Roll on True Crime: Streets of LA II. Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness II. Jack & Daxter 3. Fifa 2006. The Getaway II. Tony Hawks Pro Skater 6. Resident Evil 5. Medal Of Honor: Battle for Iraq. Rainbow Six Four. Final Fantasy 19. WRC 7. Simpsons Hit & Run 2. SSX 4. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005. James Bond 007: Today is Tomorrow. Enter The Matrix II.

This is what the charts love. If things continue, this is all we'll be seeing.

Look forward to it. No. Do.

[Shin_Iori]

Speaking of niche titles I cannot wait for Unity on the Cube. The way the market is turning it would not surprise me if this is the last truely original IP to recieve a Western release this generation. And we all know too well how it will bomb just as Siren will and PoP has..... ft:

[Rushy]

I really want BOTH games but I am not prepared to compromise by buying the PS2 versions. I want the best versions of both and I am prepared to wait in order to do so. I don't want fluctuating frame rates, longer loading times and lower detail levels.

I hope this PS2 exclusivity in europe hurts UBI in the short term and makes them realise that its not a wise tactic to try again.

[Vaipon]

Despite Concept's earlier comments about the cost of games development being prohibitively high compared to movies or music, I reckon that at this rate we might well see some sort of "indie" scene develop. It's not gonna happen just yet of course, but it's hard to see how the more diverse games can compete in the current climate. Games with non-standard themes or risky titles that aren't part of an established genre are just not going to be able to survive by being mixed in with the mainstream, and marketed in exactly the same manner to the same demographic.

This is all speculation of course, and there are a load of niche games that are still in development for the PS2 (like NICO), but it can't stay like this forever. If original titles continue to fail at retail, the creative individuals behind their conception aren't simply going to bow to the pressure. It's hard to imagine people like Tetsuya Mizuguchi or Fumito Ueda making major compromises to their artistic licence just to sell product, and tbh, I would be very disappointed if they did.

Eventually something will have to crack, and breakaway groups of designers and programmers are going to have to take stock of the situation and decide how to get their games out to the people who care about them for the minimum cost. Treasure manage to produce superb games with only a comparitively small team (just check out the staff of Ikaruga to see what I mean with Hiroshi Iuchi doing everything from design to bg art to music composition), so it is possible. I just think a lot of the money that is making up the "spiralling development costs" could be saved. Less CG cutscenes. Less motion capture. Less middle-men for the marketing. Less compromise. More game.

[Judge]

If anyone needs cheering up after reading all this bad news, then I advise you to have a look at last month's Edge, in particular Roger Bennett of ELSPA's dismissal of the possiblity that over-saturation of Q4 could hurt the industry...

[JammyD]

To be fair, most of the games in the top ten multiformat chart aren't too bad, not that I'd be buying any of them.

But LOTR and FIFA2004 are everywhere - I see ads for them every time I turn on the TV or go on the bus. To the less informed gamer they represent the obvious choices.
And how many games can the average person afford right now? I'm passing over on BG&E and POP for the moment, there's enough for me to play as it is.

Yeah, Q4 saturation is mostly to blame.