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Lego Star Wars II Sells 1.1 Million
LifesBlood writes "Lego Star Wars II has gone Platinum in under two weeks, reports TheForce.net. The title, showcasing the adventures from the original Star Wars Trilogy, has sold over 1.1 Million copies already." From the article: "Set in a tongue-in-cheek Star Wars galaxy, LEGO Star Wars II allows gamers to build and battle their way through the events of Star Wars: Episodes IV through VI. It has earned rave reviews from both consumer and trade press, largely because it is designed for the entire family."
The only reason I bought it was for the super-awesome and really fun co-op (on xbox). I also own it for PC, and it needed a replacement 3rd-party msi before it would install.
If I had one complaint, it's that it doesn't have online co-op on PC, but the co-op on the xbox version more than makes up for it.
Anyone else think the comments just weren't rendering right before they turned off ABP and saw ads?
Honestly, I was intrigued a bit by the box when I was in EB last weekend and found a rather odd screenshot on the back showing Darth Vader's head on top of the body of Princess Leia's Jaba outfit holding a lightsaber. Subtle?
or does anyone else find the picture of the Lego version of Leia on the game packaging mildly attractive?
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And some people were saying that the game wouldnt do that well becuase ofthe first one to come out.... Guess a few people were way off on this one.
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Somehow, through digital representations of Legos they captured the feeling of Star Wars. They did a lot of things right unlike Sony Online Entertainment and Star Wars Galaxies. SOE continues to try to make the game into something it can't be - World of Warcraft. Games like this bring fun, adventure and nostalgia to new and old fans alike not to mention it opens up the market for small children.
Because, believe it or not, every person doesn't buy every SKU of the game. In fact, it'd be rare for someone to buy more than one SKU.
Why does it matter how many platforms they release it for? 1.1 million is 1.1 million. It's not like many people are buying multiple copies for different platforms.
Vader in the gold bikini...
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My carpooling buddy it for his PSP and I played it this week -- INSTANTLY hooked me. I haven't played the first installation, but I'm going to go and find it now for my mac, since Lego StarWars II isn't out for the mac yet.
The humor (like two stormtroopers in a hot-tub at the end of the first level), the sheer perfect joy of seeing the SW world as legos, and great gameplay make this a real winner.
Why does it matter how many platforms they release it for? 1.1 million is 1.1 million. It's not like many people are buying multiple copies for different platforms.
Because developing for 8 different platforms is going to cost you a lot more money. So 137,500 copies per platform doesn't sound that spectacular business wise. I doubt they've even recouped their costs yet. (Granted it's only been a week). I didn't see
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...the first LEGO Star Wars game. My son is five, and this is the best thing as far as gaming is concerned. Great Co-Op, funny, great storylines, interesting enough for me to play, easy enough for my five year old to cut his teeth on gaming systems.
I know, I know, plenty of five year old out there are already master gamers.. but my son's been riding without training wheels since he was three and a half... *and* swimming, underwater, unassisted since just about the same. I'll trade that for some underdeveloped hand-eye coordination.
Man, I loved the first one and the second one looks to be mighty good as well :)
Now I hope the second one will get ported to the Mac as well (the first Lego Star Wars has a Mac version), I think it would do well on the Mac platform and seems to be a good title for the Mac as it has a wide family and casual appeal and is not too demanding on system specs.
They actually named them ...
There are DS titles that have sold 3 million now individually.
And it's taken them months to reach those numbers; e.g. Animal Crossing has been out since last year, and New Super Mario Bros since May.
FFIII for DS in Japan sold almost 600,000 copies in less than a week. How is this impressive?
Total sales of FFIII have only hit 655,533 a month after release.
this is completely true. Just because they have 8 skus doesn't mean you add up all the skus. While it's a correct number on sold and does denote profit it does little else. There needs to be a way to score this game versus others with multiple skus. I'm sure madden 07 hit 1 million in the same time frame (if not day 1).
Just because they did sell 1 million copies, it's 137 per Sku, when compared to other games that are for one system you can't just say well 1.1 million, you also can't say 137,500. Personally I'd say somewhere around 390,000 as I see it as 3 times the single SKU performance would probably equal the performance of this game if it was released for one system.
However I have no scientific fact that 3 is a good number. However I know 1.1 million isn't a very valuable number to use.
After all that though it's a great game for those fans of the classic trilogy.
Love Lego Star Wars! Here's an excerpt!
Obi-Wan: Yes, your father wanted you to have this block-saber.
Luke: You knew my father!?!?!?
Obi-Wan: Yes, I knew your father. But Darth Vader betrayed and [very solemnly] disassembled your father.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Sheesh.
If you would've told me watching animated Lego-men pretend to be Luke and Leia would've saved the fortunes (or slowed the decline, depending on how you look at it) of one of the biggest toy companies in Denmark, I would've called you crazy.
Shows what I know.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
There are several factors at work:
1. LEGOs are awesome and often Slashworthy.
2. Star Wars (most notably the original trilogy) is nerd porn.
3. Final Fantasy III for the DS is a remake of a game that was never released in the US in its original form and, thus, is slightly obscure.
4. Slashdot is a site based in the US and as such will usually have little interest in the sales of a particular videogame in Japan.
5. FFIII for the DS will be here in the US before Christmas, giving Slashdot more than enough time to geek out over it when it arrives in English (if the previews and screenshots are right, it'll be huge in the US, too).
and, finally, 6. 1.1 million is a much cooler number than 600,000, whether the number relates to 1 hardware platform or 20.
I've got a LSW worshiping video collection for those who need more than screen shots. After playing about 100+ hours of this with my son, I decided to record a speed run through the entire game.
http://kalak.dhs.org/
and LSW II looks like they's integrated it into the extras. You can unlock a timed run of an episode. Started it this morning, but I didn't get to finish. I did get to play the race to collect 1,000,000 studs in a giant battle with my son. This one is even better than the last (more challenging too, but not so much my 8 year old gets frustrated).
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
Just think, you've changed into the droid version with the Princess Leia head, and you activate your light saber as the Wii controller vibrates with sound ... HMMMMMMMMM .... oh, yeah, I'm there.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Except it's not going to cost you a ton more money unless you need to have cutting edge effects that push the envelope of all those systems. (more, yes. Tons more? no. Anything like 8x for 8 consoles, no) As long as you live within the least-common-demoninator constraints, it's bad but not THAT bad, especially if you already have experience developing for each platform.
I haven't seen this game, but it sounds like it's well written and well executed - not necessarily the most cutting edge graphics ever seen. (Which doesn't mean they're not, say, really good for a couple years ago)
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Not that impressive? The "impressive" sales numbers you mention are from two cases that are very different from this game: the 3 million sellers are all games that are targeted at non-traditional gamers, and FFIII getting released in Japan is an FF game getting released in Japan.
This game, on the other hand, is targeted at regular gamers so much it's almost funny. It's Legos and Star Wars, for crying out loud. How much nerdier/young boy-ish can you get?
The 8 platforms thing is pretty cool though.
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Total sales of FFIII have only hit 655,533 a month after release.
This is only because it sold out and you can't actually buy it anymore
Are you dense? The point the GP was trying to make was that development costs go up as you port your game to different platforms. 1.1 million across 8 different platforms ISN'T an astounding success by any metric. If the game was sold on 1 platform and sold 1.1 million copies in one week, then you're talking Halo 2 or GTA 3 success or something...this is relatively banal by comparison.
Ignore the fact that the .NET DRM prevents the game from installing on a properly patched Windows XP SP2 machine. WinTrustVerify is broken and prevents the install from completing successfully.
QA failure. Atleast there was a 3rd party hack, but I have to say that I was pissed for buying something that came broken. They may have sold 1.1m copies, but about a third of those were PISSED.
Informatus Technologicus
My 6 year old daughter loved the first Lego SW, so we're going to get this one. I like the drop in/drop out co-op especially, because I can play with her for a little while, and not be chained to it the whole time she wants to play.
It was my understanding that a lot of the big development houses can compile simpler games like this to many systems at once, so there's not much extra work to put it on major systems (I don't know about handhelds). From what I read the games are all identical, even the XBOX360 version just runs in a higher resolution.
I think the real point here is the amount of sales for this in comparison to other "kids games" that are also released for all platforms like this. Since LSW is appealing to everybody apparently (even me).
It had sold out, and you couldn't buy it anymore. A quick google search shows several vendors with both the game and the special edition bundle in stock.
i guess i'm in the minority here but i got the first one and watched a 12 year old play it for a few hours.
shoot everything that moves, run through room to open next door. repeat 10,000 times.
i found it VERY boring. the graphics are simplistic, perhaps by necessity. but the gameplay is simplistic too. seemed to me like they made the 3d engine, the character models, the weapons and the other details, and then just bailed on the story/mapping.
The news is that it's a million seller. You can make a game like Beyond Good & Evil in as many SKUs as you like and you're not going to sell a million of them. Nothing (except exclusivity contracts and you aren't forced to sign those) is preventing other games from being released in multiple SKUs so I don't see why games that didn't get released for all platforms should have an advantage over games that did.
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a) It'll cost you a LOT more to develop for 8 platforms.
No, not at all. It'll add a bit to your costs but not much. This most likely uses the Renderware platform which makes multiplatform development very easy. Sell a thousand copies on each of those port platforms and you've recouped the cost.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
A little offtopic perhaps, but has anyone checked Lego's new products? Harry Potter? Batman? WTF? It's all cash-in crap! I know videogames have ravaged the toys industry, but this is absurd. Perhaps Technic and the trains line would remain Lego's last decent toy products.
...if you find drag queens attractive, I bet (s)he is :)
I mean, Lego-people got a cheek from here to Tokio with heavy masculine overtones.
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this???
Eeeerrrwwww...
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You're assuming an even distribution across all platforms, which I could almost guarantee is not true. Most people probably bought one of the the console versions. Still, 1.1 million copies in ~ 2 weeks is pretty impressive, considering the amount of people that probably downloaded it from BitTorrent or newsgroups.
How do these sales figures compare to more 'mainstream' and 'mature' games released recently?
Sounds to me like the huge success of a fun, family friendly title like this is a good sign for the Wii.
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My girlfriend and I somewhat enjoyed the first LSW. The combat is fun, death penalty is very minimal, and the option to jump in and out whenever you wish is a master stroke. The sequel boasts a lot more of everything which is a blessing and a curse. Levels are LONG!!! I haven't gotten past the 3rd level because after 45 minutes I find it a little tedious (or the game crashes [on PC]), but there are no intermediary save points!
I'd love to play this game through just to see the wretchedly adorable cut scenes but at this rate Han will never even make it to the computer generated jelloey Jabba!
The original game (ep 1-3) is AWESOME for the lightsaber chopping action. "Why look it is Jar-Jar!" *chwooom* "yeoww!" *chwoom* "Yeahhoooww!" *schwoom* "Yeagh" *pops into jar-jar bits*
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Once again: So what? Nobody cares? What's your point? Stop whining.
Yes, we get it. X divided by 8 is not quite as much profit as X divided by 1. We can do simple math, or at least know how to use a calculator. Shut up about it already.
I'm surprised no one's mentioned yet that the DS version is infamous for having been pushed out the door early, containing many troublesome bugs. The gaming blogs have been sniping about it for days.