Prime>echoes at NPD,...and RE4=STRONG SALES so far
January 13, 2005 - Despite widespread critical acclaim for the Retro Studios-developed first-person adventure sequel Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, the game failed to perform as well as its predecessor during the same holiday period two years ago.
Data gathered by the NPD Group through December 2004 shows that approximately 470,000 copies of Prime 2 were sold to GameCube owners. By comparison, the original Metroid Prime sold more than 722,000 copies during the same period in 2002. This is true despite the fact that the GameCube installed base has grown substantially in the two years since the original Prime was released, toppling more than 16 million users worldwide.
Some analysts believe that the lower sales count for Metroid Prime 2 is a direct result of a Nintendo that has largely skewed its games for a younger audience and alienated many older players. The T-rated Echoes, a dark and eerily atmospheric shooter with complex puzzles, was marketed to the teenage and up crowd, but anticipation for the product never seemed to gain an overwhelming amount of steam with the demographic.
Perhaps they were too busy playing Microsoft's Halo 2, which debuted shortly before Echoes and never looked back. The Bungie-developed first-person shooter sequel sold 3.6 million units for Xbox in the US through December 2004, in just two months matching life-to-date numbers for the original game, which released in 2001 and has remained an Xbox best-seller ever since. Incidentally, the original Halo sold 783,000 units during its first two months of release.
Prime 2 debuted at number fourteen on NPD's Top 100 in November of last year with about 200,000 sold. Although the game actually saw a sales spike of an additional 270,000 units in December 2004, it failed to compete with a barrage of third party releases by such powerhouses as Electronic Arts and Konami. Echoes ranked number twenty-nine for the month. It is on track to top 500,000 units in January. The original Metroid Prime has sold 1.2 million units in the US since its release.
Perhaps most telling of all is that Mario Party 6, the sixth installment in Nintendo's board party game series, opened in December with 470,000 units sold, almost as many as Echoes garnered for November and December combined.
While it's clear that younger-skewed games often perform better on GameCube, the battle for the adult player isn't over yet. In January, third party Capcom released what critics believe is the strongest reason yet for the teenage-plus crowd to pick up a GameCube: the M-rated survival horror sequel Resident Evil 4. If any game can grab the demographic that has for years remained just beyond Nintendo's grasp, it's this one. And sure enough, retailers are already reporting robust sales of the game, which was designed from the ground up for Nintendo's console. Nintendo and the industry will undoubtedly be waiting to see how the title stacks up when final sales figures are released next month."
http://cube.ign.com/articles/579/579600p1.html
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Originally Posted by Boomer
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