While Sony Celebrates 'Infamous' Sales, Microsoft/EA Still Quiet About 'Titanfall'

[GotBored]

Sony took to their PlayStation blog yesterday to congratulate Sucker Punch for Infamous: Second Son racking up a million copies sold just nine days after launch. While it?s no earth-shattering COD or GTA total, those numbers are quite good, and definitely the best in the series? history.

 

The news got me thinking about the fate of the other big next-gen launch title released within the past month, Titanfall. How has the game sold since its much-anticipated launch?

 

Finding information about sales of the game isn?t easy, and is generally a lot of speculation and incomplete data. You won?t find Microsoft or EA blog posts boasting about sales milestones for Titanfall. Rather, you?ll see a loose collection of blogs content to guess at totals, and then VGChartz saying the game has sold 1.45M copies worldwide?as of two weeks ago?in retail stores, which is the only thing they can track.

 

 

It seems odd that given Titanfall?s high profile, more information hasn't been released about sales of the game.

 

For example Infamous on the PS4 seems to be a case of a less-hyped game beating expectations both in terms of quality, fan engagement and sales. The game well-received among critics and PS4 owners, and sold better than past games. Though the game looked good, it really wasn't heavily advertised, and yet, sales and praise was huge with over 1 million copies sold within 9 days.

 

Titanfall is proving to be a somewhat stranger case. It rolled in with a huge head of steam, and the review scores to match. But very shortly after release, the buzz seemed to fade abnormally quickly. Players tore through the game?s limited modes, wanted more, and there really wasn?t much else to do. The game is going to be patched and updated with much more content in the future, but so far, it doesn?t feel like the game has capitalized on the goodwill it had ahead of, and even during launch,, but the fact that neither Microsoft, EA or Respawn seems to want to talk sales at all says that it may not have been the unequivocal home run they were hoping for. Perhaps they've found themselves in a Tomb Raider sold-millions-but-still-not-a-success trap which is an unfortunate byproduct of the massively expensive AAA game era.

 

Titanfall sold in a bundle pack which was cheaper than the RRP of the Standalone Xbox One in some places, it had a huge advertising campaign, huge hype behind it and has only sold 1.25 million copies globally according to VGChartz which is only 250k more than Infamous. EA have said Microsoft didnt secure the sequel as an exclusive and originally I thought it was because they'd make more money if they made it multiplatform but I'm starting to think Microsoft didn't pick it up because it was a failure for a AAA title.

 

 

Continues...

 

Sources: 

http://au.ign.com/articles/2014/04/10/infamous-second-son-sold-over-1-million-copies-in-nine-days

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/72891/titanfall/

[Timan Veteran]

We'll find out thursday when npd's come out. Will at least be for the xbone version.  VGchartz is known for coming up with numbers out of their arse.

[Anibal P]

I think someone's projecting in this case, everything I've seens from reputable sources show that it will be a good game that will sell well, it's the game that we've been waiting for before spending any money on a One 

[GotBored]

I think someone's projecting in this case, everything I've seens from reputable sources show that it will be a good game that will sell well, it's the game that we've been waiting for before spending any money on a One 

 

Its also available on PC and coming out on the X360.

 

PC sales are much worse, hopefully it does well on the X360 or it may actually cost EA and Microsoft rather than turn a profit.

[Showan]

This is a bit skewed... First, there aren't as many X1's I homes as the PS4's.

The 360 is still Microsoft's Home Run Hitter, and TitanFall is just now releasing on the console.

Does VGChartz take digital titles into consideration. I didn't feel like going to the store to buy the physical copy of TF (or inFamous for that matter), so I just woke up and clicked the button and went to work.

[GotBored]

This is a bit skewed... First, there aren't as many X1's I homes as the PS4's.

The 360 is still Microsoft's Home Run Hitter, and TitanFall is just now releasing on the console.

Does VGChartz take digital titles into consideration. I didn't feel like going to the store to buy the physical copy of TF (or inFamous for that matter), so I just woke up and clicked the button and went to work.

 

Nope, VGChartz only takes physical sales into account.

 

I guess majority of Titanfall sales could have been digital copies but to me it just seems odd that Microsoft, EA nor Respawn have shared sales figures yet which are the only people who would have digital sales figures.

 

Microsoft has sold over 4 million Xbox One's while the PS4 has almost 7 million sales which does justify why such a hugely hyped game hasn't sold as well as it probably should have compared to a game on a more popular system but does that make it a failure? and is that the only reason why sales weren't so great?

[MikeChipshop Member]

Does VGChartz take digital titles into consideration. 

 

I'm not sure they even take reality in to consideration.

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

I think the original would be correct, the game would of sold big, but interest would of died down tremendously if reports that the game is completed in a few days. 
It was like me and Infamous, I brought it, played it, finished it. Now I have no reason to keep playing it.
I see the same scenario happening here, people have maxed out their characters, and their mechs, and finding little else to do in the game, so they are simply not playing it until new DLC arrives.

[webdev511]

The Xbox 360 version just released and there will be no digital download version of it, so we'll see that count as 100% physical. When it comes to replay value, it's no different than any other game, but since play is 100% online, you've got to believe that Respawn is watching the player numbers and will announce a DLC release when they start to see a drop off in the number of players.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Its not going to be the COD killer yet, maybe come sequels, but to call it a failure is harsh.

Pretty sure sequels will end up being MP.

[vcfan]

Titanfall is blowing the doors off, literally and figuratively.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/20/microsofts-game-exec-phil-harrison-explains-how-xbox-one-will-catch-the-playstation-4-interview/

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

No custom titles for news posts please

 

OP updated too.

[GotBored]

http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/20/microsofts-game-exec-phil-harrison-explains-how-xbox-one-will-catch-the-playstation-4-interview/

 

This was a week after the release, no sales figures given. We are now in week 5 and still nothing.

 

Side note: The 1.45 million figure given in the news post from VGChartz is incorrect, VGChartz indicates 1.25 million.

[spenser.d]

:laugh: The idea that Titanfall is a failure is laughable, especially when their best guess at physical sales is 1.45 million.  Wish I could fail and make that much money and be so popular among gamers.

[McKay]

Its not going to be the COD killer yet, maybe come sequels, but to call it a failure is harsh.

Pretty sure sequels will end up being MP.

I don't think cod will be killed. Titanfall doesn't need to though, both can coexist.

Once 360 versions launches it'll help I'm sure, but I'm guessing Titanfall sold relatively well, especially for a brand new IP.

Infamous was helped by it being a recognised brand. Both games will have sold well I'm sure, I mean both games caused a spike in sales for their respective consoles.

Looks like VGChartz will start becoming irrellevent to look at game sales if they only do physical sales, I'm betting most of titanfalls PC sales were done digitally. My 2 friends at work who own PS4's bought digital copies of second son.

[vcfan]

This was a week after the release, no sales figures given. We are now in week 5 and still nothing.

 

Side note: The 1.45 million figure given in the news post from VGChartz is incorrect, VGChartz indicates 1.25 million.

this is a number for EA to reveal, and they are most likely holding off announcing until their quarterly earning results,because it has a big impact on investors and stock price. Despite what some outlets want to predict at retail(vgchartz[inaccurate imo],NPD), there is a big chunk of sales as digital( 40% of ea revenue is from digital).

[GotBored]

:laugh: The idea that Titanfall is a failure is laughable, especially when their best guess at physical sales is 1.45 million.  Wish I could fail and make that much money and be so popular among gamers.

 

Considering some AAA titles cost over $100 million just during development, then include marketing where Microsoft spent over $80 million for Halo 4 and I believe the Titanfall marketing campaign was much bigger.

 

So lets say it cost them at least $180 million which means at $60 a game they need to sell over 3 million copies to break even if they took the entire value of a game as profit which they do not. typically 30% of total game cost goes to the developer which means it needs to sell around 10 million copies. But there are other factors like the cost of the exclusivity contract, shared marketing costs, lost sales due to free bundling with Xbox One and etc which judge if the game was a success or not to EA/Respawn or Microsoft.

[neoadorable]

Titanfall will sell at least 3 million by the summer, wouldn't be surprised if it sold that by now. Which isn't that much considering it's on three platforms. Second Son I believe is a faster seller but if there are six million PS4's active, then just one million copies sold is not really that impressive, even if it was in one week. You'd expect nearly every PS4 user to want one. But software sales don't work like this, people have diverse tastes. Anyway i'm sure both titles will make a nice profit so all will be good, whatever the numbers are. I know I had a lot of fun with both. Why are we even comparing these two hahaha they are totally different? :D

[spenser.d]

Considering some AAA titles cost over $100 million just during development, then include marketing where Microsoft spent over $80 million for Halo 4 and I believe the Titanfall marketing campaign was much bigger.

 

So lets say its cost them at least $180 million which means at $60 a game they need to sell over 3 million copies to break even.

 

I would hazard a guess that Titanfall didn't cost nearly as much as many other AAA games. This isn't Halo 4, or even COD. Nobody is spending that kind of money on this game. Stop making complete nonsense guesses at these things.

[neoadorable]

I would hazard a guess that Titanfall didn't cost nearly as much as many other AAA games. This isn't Halo 4, or even COD. Nobody is spending that kind of money on this game. Stop making complete nonsense guesses at these things.

 

Agreed, this wasn't a huge project, more like a tester for Respawn. And as that it's a marvelous success. You can tell that it's quite barebones, the campaigns are really a joke and people just bother with them for the achievements, at least on Xbox devices (not sure if Origin version has achievements for Titanfall).

 

EDIT: when saying barebones I mean very focused, not incomplete. It does one thing and does it spectacularly well.

[+Asmodai MVC]

My impression, which is probably about as reliable as an industry metric as VGChartz, is that Titanfall is doing great.  However I do feel like inFamous has edged out the XB1 version of Titanfall (not including PC sales) since it came out.  The only question in my mind is if Titanfall made enough sales in it's first week before inFamous came out to cover the margins it has lost each week since it was released.  It is true that there are less XB1's then PS4s but isn't that what Titanfall was supposed to resolve... getting people to buy the XB1 to close that margin?  Also inFamous: Second Son isn't available on PC or PS3 so total Titanfall (across all platforms) will do much better than inFamous, especially with the 360 version. (although that does call into question how next-gen the game really is when the 360 version I hear is every bit as good as the XB1.)

 

I think Titanfall is just an unfortunate victim of unrealistic expectations and over hype.  It's a great game but many were looking to it to single handedly launch XB1 past PS4 in the console wars which isn't really a reasonable thing to do.  I'm sure it's doing well overall but it's not going to be the savior of the XB1.  In my opinion if Microsoft thinks a single title will launch the XB1 past the PS4 (which is doubtful to begin with) it would need to be a first party title that really drives home how important Kinect MOTION CONTOLS (not just voice) are to gaming.  Not a game with just some optional Kinect features that runs just fine on a PC or 360 with no Kinect.  The fact that MS keeps cutting the system price, even after Titanfalls launch shows that they get it isn't going to save them though, nor do they expect any game in the near future to do so.  For example recent news has some retailers in the UK cutting the Titanfall Xbox One bundle to the same price as the base PS4 system.  MS wouldn't be doing that if they were selling well.

[spenser.d]

My impression, which is probably about as reliable as an industry metric as VGChartz, is that Titanfall is doing great.  However I do feel like inFamous has edged out the XB1 version of Titanfall (not including PC sales) since it came out.  The only question in my mind is if Titanfall made enough sales in it's first week before inFamous came out to cover the margins it has lost each week since it was released.  It is true that there are less XB1's then PS4s but isn't that what Titanfall was supposed to resolve... getting people to buy the XB1 to close that margin?  Also inFamous: Second Son isn't available on PC or PS3 so total Titanfall (across all platforms) will do much better than inFamous, especially with the 360 version. (although that does call into question how next-gen the game really is when the 360 version I hear is every bit as good as the XB1.)

 

I think Titanfall is just an unfortunate victim of unrealistic expectations and over hype.  It's a great game but many were looking to it to single handedly launch XB1 past PS4 in the console wars which isn't really a reasonable thing to do.  I'm sure it's doing well overall but it's not going to be the savior of the XB1.  In my opinion if Microsoft thinks a single title will launch the XB1 past the PS4 (which is doubtful to begin with) it would need to be a first party title that really drives home how important Kinect MOTION CONTOLS (not just voice) are to gaming.  Not a game with just some optional Kinect features that runs just fine on a PC or 360 with no Kinect.  The fact that MS keeps cutting the system price, even after Titanfalls launch shows that they get it isn't going to save them though, nor do they expect any game in the near future to do so.  For example recent news has some retailers in the UK cutting the Titanfall Xbox One bundle to the same price as the base PS4 system.  MS wouldn't be doing that if they were selling well.

 

And I don't think Microsoft expected Titanfall to launch them past the PS4. I think people just thought they said that and made dumb assumptions.

[neoadorable]

And I don't think Microsoft expected Titanfall to launch them past the PS4. I think people just thought they said that and made dumb assumptions.

 

True, Titanfall was supposed to help sell consoles but it's not exactly the defining moment. I don't get the impression MS is in panic mode, they will be more than comfortable selling less than PS4 so long as X1 makes money and maintains a solid presence in the market. It's too early to tell anyway, 2016 will be the showdown/heyday year for these two.

[vcfan]

The fact that MS keeps cutting the system price, even after Titanfalls launch shows that they get it isn't going to save them though, nor do they expect any game in the near future to do so.  For example recent news has some retailers in the UK cutting the Titanfall Xbox One bundle to the same price as the base PS4 system.  MS wouldn't be doing that if they were selling well.

i'd wager EA is at least partially funding this to prop up the numbers, to help the perception of the company especially after the whole BF4 fiasco.

[hardway]

Considering some AAA titles cost over $100 million just during development, then include marketing where Microsoft spent over $80 million for Halo 4 and I believe the Titanfall marketing campaign was much bigger.

 

So lets say it cost them at least $180 million which means at $60 a game they need to sell over 3 million copies to break even if they took the entire value of a game as profit which they do not. typically 30% of total game cost goes to the developer which means it needs to sell around 10 million copies. But there are other factors like the cost of the exclusivity contract, shared marketing costs, lost sales due to free bundling with Xbox One and etc which judge if the game was a success or not to EA/Respawn or Microsoft.

 

Total BS here, TF was made on the old Source engine by a small dev team, and has no single player campaign.  No way it cost $180 million to make and market. 

 

Everyone I play with bought their copy digitally, except the guys that bought the TF bundle, so I think VGChartz will be missing a large portion of sales in any case.