NPD: Sonic Lost World LTD on Wii U and 3DS leaked

[Badnik Mechanic]

For those asking/hoping that the rest of the world figures would make any difference. I think I should point something out. The rest of the world regions which would make up the bulk of a games total sales would be the following.

 

Europe: The Vita is outselling the Wii U here...

 

Japan: Sonic games don't sell here.

 

It's not going to make much of any difference to the figures at all.

[SuperLink]

@Hoggy don't forget that Europe is Sonic's best market, 3DS version of Lost World will probably have sold best here overall.

[Willsy]

On wow, this is just abysmal. I kind of think it was the reviews that did this though.

[SuperLink]

On wow, this is just abysmal. I kind of think it was the reviews that did this though.

See that's what confuses me most, the grand majority of consumers don't pay attention to reviews, so unless the 3DS version goes on to have lasting legs and sell really well in the end, I just don't understand why Generations did better.

 

Maybe Nintendo's marketing was really bad, or maybe Sonic Generations was just a big event that people who only had 3DS didn't want to miss out on. I honestly thought Lost World 3DS would do better than this.

[Gabz Girl]

Those sales aren't...very good. =[ Not surprised it sold more on 3DS even though that's supposedly the inferior version (Diiiiimps!). I hope the third exclusive game is something big, something of Unleashed proportions. And maybe that could sell more on the Wii U, so long as they don't let Dimps make yet another 3DS port.

 

What I want to see though are the worldwide sales, just to see how bad it did overall. =P

[Detective Shadzter]

See that's what confuses me most, the grand majority of consumers don't pay attention to reviews, so unless the 3DS version goes on to have lasting legs and sell really well in the end, I just don't understand why Generations did better.

 

Maybe Nintendo's marketing was really bad, or maybe Sonic Generations was just a big event that people who only had 3DS didn't want to miss out on. I honestly thought Lost World 3DS would do better than this.

The only thing I can think of is maybe people didn't like the idea of this one featuring 3D gameplay instead of 2D gameplay, like the handheld games usually have. It's one of the reasons I've not picked up the 3DS version yet.

[Tani Coyote]

With regards to Sega not going with exclusivity again, I don't know. It would really depend on the circumstances of the deal. It's a safe assumption Nintendo gave SEGA a fair amount of money directly or indirectly for the deal, and that could very well make up for the lower sales. SEGA not having to deal with marketing costs, publishing costs, etc. can really help a company that's always changing whether or not it's struggling. "We're struggling! *buys Index Corporation*"

I don't think it actually costs that much to go multiplatform. Lobodestroyo is an indie game yet was doing it for only 3k. Sure, a larger release game would cost more to do it but... a larger release game is also going to have more sales. I think it's another case of big companies losing track of the simpler, cheaper way to do things in an era where the average video game company's board of directors' jaws have slackened and they're mesmerised by the concept of "more money = better product."

[Cyalume]

It didn't look like that great of a game to begin with, IMO. Sonic has a very negative stigma surrounding him/his public image is rather poor these days, which isn't helping the fact that the platform the game was designed for is also suffering from the same problem (a poor public reception).

Whenever I ask people here on campus (who game) what they think of Sonic, it usually isn't "Sonic is too childish for me and I grew out of it" (which is what I'd typically expect). Instead, it tends to run the gamut of "Sonic was ruined by SEGA", or similar. One guy even ranted at me about how Shadow the Hedgehog ruined the entire series for him from that point on. Asking about the Wii U usually leads to a "no games" response. Those who do own the system usually moan about it out of buyer's remorse.

Had the game been given a PC version, I would've at least considered giving it a spin if it had eventually become part of a Steam sale.

[PerfectChaos]

Generally selling MORE units is considered a good thing, it's not rocket science. I also like how you took offence to me basically answering your question, I wasn't even being rude, unfortunately emotion doesn't translate well into text, so sorry if it seemed that way.

"More" than what? How are the numbers in the grand scheme of things, where were they expected to be at this time, how does it compare to other Sonic games at this point in their lives? That's what VicToes was wondering. 

 

 

 

Generally selling MORE units is considered a good thing, it's not rocket science.

If you don't want to sound rude, don't post things like this.

[Your Vest Friend]

@Hoggy don't forget that Europe is Sonic's best market, 3DS version of Lost World will probably have sold best here overall.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if it only managed to sell half of NA in Europe to be honest. It looks like our market just hasn't warmed up to SLW whatsoever. 

[MamboCat]

I haven't seen many copies of Lost World in the games shops here in Prague.

 

I don't know if that's crappy stock or selling them all, though.

 

Still, this is a shame. I don't have any bitterness about the exclusivity deal, but I do wonder if it was released on more platforms it might have sold a bit better. Steam, perhaps? Getting a boost from their insane Winter sale? Hmm.

[Autosaver]

For those asking/hoping that the rest of the world figures would make any difference. I think I should point something out. The rest of the world regions which would make up the bulk of a games total sales would be the following.

 

Europe: The Vita is outselling the Wii U here...

 

Japan: Sonic games don't sell here.

 

It's not going to make much of any difference to the figures at all.

...But the 3DS is outselling the Vita by a large margin.

 

And Sonic is most popular in Europe.

 

The hell you mean it won't make a difference to the figures?

[Charmander]

It's been a long time since I've posted something around these parts but I thought I would throw in my two pence. Make no mistake ladies and gentlemen, these are disastrous numbers.

It has been a long time since a mainline Sonic game sold this little and we must traverse back to 2006/7 with the release to find a poorly selling mainline Sonic title (Sonic the Hedgehog 2006) Now whilst Sonic is normally a long selling title, the big problem SEGA will have is that going forward the Wii U will show little growth. This leaves them with the fairly lacklustre 3DS version which seems to be doing worse than Sonic Generations and Colours so it will not be able to offset the poor sales of the Wii U version. Infact, it's not even been half a year and the 3DS version of Lost World is no longer in the UK top selling 3DS titles, not that it matters, the 3DS software sales are absolutely pathetic in the UK (1.7 million 3DS titles sold between December 2012 - November 2013 compared to with 7.7 million Playstation 3 titles and 10.6 million)

People trying to point to European sales should look away from MCVUK list of the 100 top selling video games for 2013 in the UK as Sonic: Lost World makes no appearance at all. Sonic & Allstars Racing Transformed is there (45th) Sonic Generations in its third year is still selling strong (72nd) even Mario & Sonic London 2012 Olympic Games is there (87th) Before people point to these games having a full year of sales vs 2 and a half months of sales should bear in mind that Sonic Generations in it's debut year was the 63rd best selling title in the UK for 2011 and Sonic & Allstars Racing Transformed was at 79th for 2012.

The good thing is that overall the Sonic franchise is in a healthy position considering the sales of the other titles.  However SEGA need to ensure the series remains multi-platform, the deal with Nintendo looks like a terrible decision. If Knack sold so well, even as poor as Sonic was, it would have made SEGA much more than whatever they got in exchange from Nintendo.

[Chooch]

Everyone's throwing around "Sonic is the most popular in Europe" but outside of some funny popularity contest from 2008 that didn't have a considerable amount of voters, is there any real evidence that points towards this claim? Can I get something substantial and actually important like sales figures?

 

I'm not trying to be a downer I'm just genuinely curious.

[Hero of Legend]

I personally think the 3DS version's sales are the bigger picture, I mean if they're not much higher than the Wii U version, despite being a gajillion times higher in userbase, that's telling as I think the poor reception caught up with the game, also considering how ASRT did quite well on Wii U, which was very well recieved.

 

I hope Sega is smart enough to blame critical reception and not Wii U itself.

[Sami]

Good. That would teach Sega not to release Sonic games exclusively in future. Not everyone has a Wii U. There is a portion of Sonic fans missing out on this game. Because of this deal, I have to miss out on Lost World which I would have bought at launch. But according to the reviews and looking at the piss poor story, I wasn't missing much. While I'm no longer upset about missing out on LW, there is still one more game coming out exclusively again that I may miss out.

I know, somebody has got to say this.

 

Thanks for saying it for me.

 

I also hope they don't try to catch Mario's audience again. Maybe this is the slap in the face they needed to try something ambitious again. Maybe. I hope. Maybe.

 

they won't

[Soniman]

Good. That would teach Sega not to release Sonic games exclusively in future. Not everyone has a Wii U. There is a portion of Sonic fans missing out on this game. Because of this deal, I have to miss out on Lost World which I would have bought at launch. But according to the reviews and looking at the piss poor story, I wasn't missing much. While I'm no longer upset about missing out on LW, there is still one more game coming out exclusively again that I may miss out.

I know, somebody has got to say this.

 

Wanting games to fail because you personally can't get it. That's fair I guess.

[Sami]

Everyone's throwing around "Sonic is the most popular in Europe" but outside of some funny popularity contest from 2008 that didn't have a considerable amount of voters, is there any real evidence that points towards this claim? Can I get something substantial and actually important like sales figures?

 

I'm not trying to be a downer I'm just genuinely curious.

 

Actually... I don't remember any sales either.

 

Odd. I had thought that point would be brought up and had kind of accepted that statement as fact in the past, but now that you mention it I'm not so sure either. I'm genuinely curious where this comes from as well now.

[KHCast]

I get the feeling had LW been on a bigger console with a larger consumer base, this complaint of "THEY SHOULDN'T MAKE IT EXCLUSIVE" would be immensely smaller. Cause all I'm hearing really is, I can't play it, so don't make it exclusive.

[The Kid]

Do Sonic titles sell that well in the first place? I thought the only title that made decent numbers in years was Generations.

[Sami]

Wanting games to fail because you personally can't get it. That's fair I guess.

 

Yep. Now they have a reason not to pull that shit again. Good.

 

I get the feeling had LW been on a bigger console with a larger consumer base, this complaint of "THEY SHOULDN'T MAKE IT EXCLUSIVE" would be immensely smaller. Cause all I'm hearing really is, I can't play it, so don't make it exclusive.

 

Your point? A throwaway spin-off like Secret Rings or Black Knight is whatever, but making the first big mainline game in two years exclusive to a system with a tiny install base, and play radically differently from anything in the franchise's past in a vain attempt at catching the install base of another franchise?

 

Yeah, fuck that. I don't like Lost World and I'm hopeful that this failure will bring something completely different next time.

[Soniman]

Yep. Now they have a reason not to pull that shit again. Good.

 

 

Well more power to you then, I just find that extremely petty and kind of entitled because at the end of the day you still can't play the game so there's no point for hoping that its a financial failure.

[KHCast]

Yep. Now they have a reason not to pull that shit again. Good.

 

 

Your point? A throwaway spin-off like Secret Rings or Black Knight is whatever, but making the first big mainline game in two years exclusive to a system with a tiny install base, and play radically differently from anything in the franchise's past in a vain attempt at catching the install base of another franchise?

 

Yeah, fuck that. I don't like Lost World and I'm hopeful that this failure will bring something completely different next time.

....If you read my first post in this topic, you would know that I wasn't defending it being on the Wii U. I was just saying complaining about a game being exclusive in the first place, and claiming that to be the reason for poor sales is just ridiculous. Sure in the Wii U's case, that was the reason, but exclusivity in general is not at fault. At the time it actually did seem like they could get somewhere with it. I'm willing to bet had Lost World been on PS3 would have done much better. It has a larger consumer market, and probably Sonic fan following.

[SuperLink]

I also hope they don't try to catch Mario's audience again. Maybe this is the slap in the face they needed to try something ambitious again. Maybe. I hope. Maybe.

Fair enough if you didn't enjoy SLW, but to say it isn't ambitious is daft. Anyone who's played it regardless of how much they liked it can see they tried to do something new.

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

Wanting games to fail because you personally can't get it. That's fair I guess.

 

Ah, controversy.

Well yeah, I said "I"...but I also represent those who cannot play the game because of this exclusivity. Are you saying I'm the only one who cannot play the game because it's a Wii U/3DS exclusive? Please....

 

Most Nintendo fans will be shortsighted into why they think what I'm saying is "evil" or "bad", while not thinking for those who only afford one console, or in the army where this only one console or those who don't have a console but a solid PC... Yeeeah, and you are saying (well 'implying') that I'm the "bad" guy.

 

Do I want LW to fail? Well no because it's Sonic...but heck yes for solid reasons and for the future of the franchise. I mean, crap. Gosh. Imagine if LW sold a million copies in 2 months.

 

Sega: "Congratulations Sonic Team! 1m+! Guess we know where the fanbase is! From now on, let's put all our efforts in to Nintendo!"

 

No.

 

I understand that yeah, Sonic fits better with Nintendo and all that. But regardless of that, Sonic is a Sega character not a Nintendo character. And I hope it stays that way. I don't want Sega to hand him over to them and lose what made Sega. This "fail" will show Sega that it's a bad idea to continue with this exclusivity and let those other non-Nintendo owners play Sonic games.