2003's Best-Selling UK Games Analyzed

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Gamesindustry.biz article analyzing the best-selling UK videogames of 2003 so far. This intriguing analysis also includes sales figures, often difficult to come by in US charts, and notes the biggest selling all-formats title was The Sims, with "..total sales to date across the three console formats.. [of] a whisker short of 300,000, with the PS2 sales of the game accounting for over 90 per cent of that figure." Close behind it was soccer sim Championship Manager 4, which "tempted over a quarter of a million PC owners to part with their cash." Overall, they gave 'top marks', amongst others, to "Ubi Soft for bothering to port Splinter Cell properly", and 'must try harder' to "Sony for ignoring [marketing efforts for] any first party titles not developed in the UK."

Comments

Stat Analysis - Japanese Developers

[jxa00]

I pulled up the TRST Data from last year, and I counted how many of the top titles for Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2 were made in Japanese top 10, top 20, top 30.

On PlayStation 2, two of their top 10 were made in Japan, and two of the next 10, and three of the next 10. That's got to be a record for low games from Japan.

On Xbox, there were none in the top 10, two in the next 10, and none in the last 10.

On GameCube it was six, five, and a few more in the last 10. (Almost all of them were Nintendo 1st/2nd party titles as you prolly guessed.)

Anyone care to draw any meaningful conclusions from the above or just a blip in the graph?

Re:Stat Analysis - Japanese Developers

[Kris_J]

Since I don't know what TRST stands for, this probably isn't a meaninful conclusion, but if it's an english-language chart, then the results probably reflect the fact that most Japanese games aren't properly marketed outside of Japan. Mostly the UK/US managers don't have a clue what to do with Japanese games. They don't understand the target audience anymore than the game itself. I'm reminded of a quote: "The trailer for a movie always reflects what the executives wanted the director to make." Or something similar. Anyone know the source of that wisdom? What happens is that if the advertising is too far from the product, the people who would have enjoyed it won't try it and the people who do try it won't enjoy it.

Study not representative

[forkspoon]

This data is not representative of the U.S. market. European gamers have much different tastes in entertainment, leaning towards RPGs and American's are more into live action FPSs.

Travis

Re:Study not representative

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, its basically the same sales as here, except for the championship manager game. No fps except possibly half-life has made the top ten selling games of all time list, which includes the lego game. Again, there is a big divide between good selling games (that are mostly enjoyed by hardcore players) and outstanding selling games (which are the ones that are enjoyed mostly by people who don't usually play games).

So..

[dr ttol]

I wish I could analyze 2,003 games and get paid for it.. oh you mean 2003 is a year? But it's only half over!

Re:So..

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps you'd like to explain to me then why the 2004 models of cars are coming out?

surely the year must be over when a business says it is...

Re:So..

[MojoMonkey]

There's a difference between a year and a fiscal year. July 1st is the end of the fiscal year for many businesses.

Porting splinter cell properly?

[WasterDave]

To the PS2, you mean?

The PC demo of splinter cell was completely unplayable. After the noises the XBox fanboys were making I was hugely keen to give the game a go. I downloaded the demo, it fell over. Some googling revealed a collection of hacks to .ini files that made it work, mostly. In a window. And then it was just a bit crap.

Note to self: XBox fanboys are just that. Save money and effort for GT4.

Dave

Re:Porting splinter cell properly?

[Recoil_42]

*shrug* everyone i know who got SC for PC loved it; and we still talk about it often.

And i have it for XBOX, and was raving about it till it came out for the other systems.

maybe its just you.

PC Piracy

[NexusTw1n]

Elsewhere, PC gamers were incredibly selective with their purchases, with many well-rated games such as Tropico 2, Frontline Command and Anno 1503 struggling to sell upwards of 5k. Piracy impacting on sales?

I wonder how much Broadband is damaging sales? And how much is people getting tired of RTS,FPS and Civ building games.

1503 is a great game, but who is going to buy that at full price as well as Tropico 2? They are essentially the same game, appealing to the same audience. Just as I'd also question whether people would buy RTCW as well as C&C - Renegade, or Warcraft III and some different RTS.
Perhaps when they are in the bargin bucket, but there are only a certain number of games from the same genre people are going to want to buy at full price.

If the industry wants to blame piracy, then bite the bullet and start releasing DVD only games. Most people don't have DVD burners yet, which should reduce piracy, and all the extra content DVD offers might freshen up a tired PC gaming market, boosting sales even more as people flock to buy something different.

Championship Manager 4

[shippo]

Championship Manager 4 is a football (to give it it's proper name!) management game, probably the longest running genre in the UK. The player picks the team and tactics, buys and sells players and so on.

In fact the first computer magazine I ever purchased back in 1982 not only carried an advertisment Football Manager by Kevin Toms (a game originally written in BASIC that itself was available for many years), but also had a listing for another game of the type for the Apple II.

I spent hours during 1983 playing Football Manager on the ZX Spectrum. I still can remember the match highlights consisting of stick-men and long time it took to sort the league table after every match!

Re:Championship Manager 4

[malf-uk]

Football Manager can be found here - downloadable for zx spectrum emulators or can be played via a java applet

World Of Spectrum

For a good windows-based emulator try: Spectaculator

The sims, of course.

[butane_bob2003]

Offensive and inlammatory comments follow: The SIMS? This goes to show what complete stupid cows 99% of the computer using population are. How anyone can really get into a game like that is beyond me. This is almost as baffling as the popularity of 'Reality Shows'.