A bit of recent number crunching suggests that Sony’s first party exclusives are coming up short in the sales department, despite receiving critical acclaim. When compared to the AAA titles of other systems, Sony’s big-name games just aren’t performing how big-name games should.
According to the figures, only one PS3 game has ever managed to sell over a million copies (when we discount console bundles), and that was the original Resistance: Fall of Man, way back at the system’s launch. Since then, PS3 games have generally hovered around the 500-750K mark, with LittleBigPlanet being the only other title to sell over and above that region.
Comparing this to Gears of War selling over a million copies within launch month, Gears 2 selling 1.5 million in the same time, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii raking in four million and six million sales respectively, we can see that Sony has a problem on its hands.
This is a theory I’ve shared in the past (that Sony fanboys naturally crucified me for), but it’s the truth. The PS3 does have great games, but for some reason they are just not acting like proper AAA games. My weekly delve into the UK Charts demonstrates this enough, and the UK is where the PlayStation brand has always had strong support.
Sony has always lauded the strength of its first party lineup, but it seems that this focus, as well as the fact that its exclusive games are always dripfed to us inconsistently (seriously, it’s taken over three years for a God of War game to launch?), seems to have not paid off.
