Xbox Live Arcade Sales - First Day & Weekend Preview, 9/4/08 - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 04 September 2008 / 2,233 Views

9/4/08

By BenSchlichter (BenSchlichter@Gmail.com)

Let's skip ahead of first day sales, and goto the most important news: Castle Crashers continued to sell at breakneck speeds through the week, garnering another 80,000+ units in 5 days, giving it a total of well over 150,000 units. As of Thursday, Castle Crashers now leads all "Summer of Arcade" titles in terms of lifetime sales. This is impressive given the strong reception of games such as Braid, Geometry Wars, and Fable 2: Pub Games.

For first day sales, a massive, unpresentented number of games launched, as Microsoft announced, and sent 4 new titles to the service this week, beating out the previous best week, which was E3 with Live Draft Tracker, Double D Dodgeball, and Coffeetime Crosswords.

Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball was the winner by a small margin for first day sales. However, like all titles this week, it didn't sell tremendously well. PvN has been panned by critics, with a 52.5% average ranking from GameRankings.com on 2 reviews (TeamXbox, and IGN).
Gin Rummy came in 2nd place. This new, $5.00 card game should overtake PvN by the weekend. I anticipate very good things for this new $5 entry onto XBLA. Card Game titles have done well, and $5 is a very good price for the title.
EA Sport's Live Draft Tracker also came in very close to the 2 better-selling titles. And no, your not reading it wrong. The game has achievements, and is a "game" for just $1.00 USD (80 Microsoft Points). With college football going on, and professional football debuting tonight, it should see strong sales...Even if it's $1.
Quasi-SHMUP Shred Nebula brings up last place in terms of sales, bringing in a very tepid 400 units on the week. I am very suprised, as it looks like a very enticing Subspace clone, which was one of the first popular MMOs in the mid to late 90's. Consumer reaction (from reading forums) states the controls are difficult - could this be turning off gamers to buy what looks like a quality title?

Next up, we have the big sellers from the Summer of Arcade. Although most titles are down from last week by decent margins, most titles are still doing very well.

Fable 2 Pub Games (down 43%) continues to have very strong numbers week over week. It's closing in on Geometry Wars 2 for units "sold". However, with a decent sized drop, it looks to finally be slowing down. It should hit 170,000 before it's first month is over.
Braid (down 37%) is finishing up it's first month on the market this week. It's had a stellar run, as it's already passed the 130,000 unit mark, despite being $15.00. Look for Braid to continue to be a top-10 game for a long time to come, as positive word of mouth and high praise from reviewers looks to drive sales for this game for some time to come.
Geometry Wars 2 (down 28%) outsold Bionic Commando: Rearmed on the week, which is a very curious feat, as Bionic Commando has been out for 2 less weeks. This both shows the strong hold that Geometry Wars 2 has on the market, as well as how poorly Bionic Commando is doing post-launch.
Bionic Commando: Rearmed (down 51%) drops by a large percentage, yet again. This is very curious, due to the fact that it has received very positive reivews (87.5% avg .) - Did it saturate the retroHD market that quickly? It's an interesting title to see fall so quickly. However, it still has a good shot at 100,000 for it's first month. No game, even if it drops this quickly. can really say that 100,000 units in 30 days (with PC and PS3 versions available as well) is bad.
Galaga Legions (down 69%) looks to have a massive drop from last week. This is mostly typical for games in it's third week. Galaga Legions looks to challenge the 40,000 unit mark for it's first month on market. Depending on Namco's expectations, I think that this is still an impressive number, given the recent SHMUP revival we've seen on XBLA with titles like Omega 5, Triggerheart Exelica, Ikaruga, and others on the market, vying for that userbase.

Game	Actual Sales	Projected Wk Sales	Cost	Tracking Period	Projected LTD
Castle Crashers	83,133	108,073	$15.00	5-Day	186,618
Fable 2: Pub Games	15,237	19,808	$10.00	5-Day	159,169
Braid	9,271	12,052	$15.00	5-Day	134,205
Geometry Wars 2	6,465	8,405	$10.00	5-Day	161,870
Bionic Commando: Rearmed	5,935	7,715	$10.00	5-Day	95,032
Galaga Legions	4,300	5,591	$10.00	5-Day	32,646
Pirates Vs. Ninjas DB	952	2,477	$10.00	1-Day	2,477
Gin Rummy	904	2,352	$5.00	1-Day	2,352
Live Score Tracker	897	2,333	$1.00	1-Day	2,333
Shred Nebula	439	1,141	$10.00	1-Day	1,141

6 Comments

Tinoha (on 06 March 2009)

superbeauty (on 24 February 2009)

mmolichking2 (on 21 February 2009)

vgcgogoer (on 19 January 2009)

[url=http://www.cosplaystore.org]Cosplay Costumes[/url]
[url=http://www.cosplaystore.org]cosplay colthes[/url]
[url=http://www.cosplaystore.org]Cosplay Store[/url]
[url=http://www.cosplaystore.org]anime cosplay[/url]

XQ (on 15 October 2008)

hunter_alien (on 04 September 2008)

CC is going strong :) Good to see quality games selling well :)

Existing User Log In

New User Registration

Xbox Survey Asks About Making Every 1st-Party Game Xbox Console Exclusive, Except Call of Duty

Arizona Sunshine Remake Launches January 21, 2027 for Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series, and PC

Sker: The Bleeding Veil Announced for PS5, Xbox Series, and PC

Xbox Nano Controller Launches in November for $50

Xbox Live Arcade Sales - First Day & Weekend Preview, 9/4/08 - News

More Articles

Popular Stories