VGChartz: January 2011 Sales Analysis - News
by Miles Taven , posted on 04 February 2011 / 7,754 Views
Welcome to the VGChartz monthly sales analysis for January 2011. This data covers the 4 weeks ending 29th January (Jan 3rd - Jan 29th).
The highly anticipated sequel to LittleBigPlanet released this month, with VGChartz's Karl scoring it an impressive 9.3, an increase over the original. LittleBigPlanet 2 also enjoyed debuting higher than its predecessor by 170,000 (excluding Japan), however LittleBigPlanet did have a skewed release in America, and also released close to Christmas, so it's no surprise that it's already lagging slightly behind. LBP sales have surpassed the 4 million mark according to our data, so it'll be interesting to see if 
LBP2 can develop the same legs. According to Media Molecule, LittleBigPlanet 2's online userbase has already broken records the original set.
Dead Space 2, sequel to EA's 2008 sleeper hit Dead Space also released this month, debuting 260,000 units higher across PS3 and 360 than the original. I'm sure EA's rather funny ad campaign, "Your Mom hates Dead Space 2", helped raise awareness. The sequel's increase in quality probably helped too, with VGChartz's Chris M. Arnone scoring it 9.0, a solid 0.6 points higher than Dead Space. With the original hitting 1.41 million and 1.18 million on X360 and PS3 respectively, it seems the franchise has a real chance to grow. Music to EA's ears I should hope.
The last sequel to debut this month was the year late port of Mass Effect 2. Whilst it scored an impressive 9.2 with our Nick Pantazis, the sales, not surprisingly, didn't match the quality of the game. Launching to under 100,000 units, that's nearly 900,000 units lower than the X360 version. We saw a similar situation with Bioshock, which legged it to 800,000 units. The sequel to BioShock, while having a better first few weeks, has only increased on that by about 150,000 units. Expect ME2 and ME3 to follow a similar path and reach the 800,000 - 1 million mark LTD.
DC Universe Online broke the top 20, which is rather impressive for an online-only game on a console. Its 3 weeks of sales amount to 260,000 units. The Last Story and Valkyria Chronicles 3 released in Japan this past week, so missed out on the top 40. They both raked in over 100,000 units each though.
Kinect Adventures is January's highest selling game, with sales just shy of 1 million units. LittleBigPlanet 2 debuts at #3. The usual Nintendo suspects are in the top 10: Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus, Just Dance 2 and New Super Mario Bros., along with the December released Donkey Kong Country Returns. COD: Black Ops on PS3 and 360 make up the top ten.
Dead Space 2 comes in at 12 (X360) and 16 (PS3), whilst DC Universe Online manages to pip the 20 at 19. Mass Effect 2 on PS3 dissappoints, barely making it into the top 40, at 36.
Nintendo DS is the highest selling hardware this month, this could however be its last month at #1. With sales diving in Japan recently due to the upcoming 3DS, the same is happening in Americas and EMEAA. Wii takes second place with strong sales in both EMEAA and Americas, first in neither however. PS3 sees very strong sales in EMEAA, thus ahead of X360 for the month. X360 shortages in Americas can't have helped things this month, however it still manages to be the top selling console there this month, but only manages fourth WW. PSP comes in last - sales seem to be equal across all 3 regions, so it remains to be seen if this is a natural decline for a system in its 6th year, or if the upcoming 3DS is having an effect.
Visit back next month when we see how Killzone 3, Bulletstorm, De Blob 2 and Kirby's Epic Yarn European debuts fare.
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I think De Blob 2 will be interesting to watch. The European debut of Kirby's Epic Yarn, however, will not. It will just be one massive disappointment when compared to the numbers of other regions. As is usually the case with Kirby titles.
hmmm....
PS3 hardware ahead of the 360 by about 100k for the month of January?
....shortages of the 360...
we will see how February will turn out...
Wii and ps3 are doing good I predict nxt month
1.Wii
2.ps3
3. Ds
4.Xbox 360
5.3ds
6.psp
7. Ps2
good,we are spoiled with stats -__-
@ zuvuyeay, nope :-)
cool,is this replacing weekly sales article now
OMG Monthy data is back zomg zomg
Oh yeah, thanks for that xD
"Visit back next month when we see how Killzone 2, Bulletstorm, De Blob 2 and Epic Kirby's European debuts fare."
O.O ¿Killzone 2? WTF
DonFerrari, clearly talking about sales :-P
Typo,
Killzone 2 already debuted =]
@ Wonk, go check the front page.
you got the dead space numbers flipped PS3 sold more.
PS3 = the "average" console.
