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Pachter: Recent Racing Games Run Out Of Gas
The recent poor sales performance of three high-profile racers has been dissected by industry analyst Micheal Pachter from Wedbush Morgan, and it's one ugly demolition derby.
Of May's three racing titles -- ModNation Racers, Split/Second, and Blur (click on each for our reviews) -- only Sony's ModNation Racers posted in the NPD top 20 sales chart. Although each game didn't clock in a full month of sales (Split/Second came out May 18, while ModNation and Blur came out May 25), the underwhelming initial response doesn't seem to foretell a retail surge.
Pachter didn't give exact sales figures in an interview with IGN, but in his NPD monthly analysis (via Joystiq) he says that Blur came in "well below our estimate of 100,000 units." And that's across two systems. Ouch.
To put that in perspective with the other racers, Pachter says that Split/Second sold as many copies as ModNation, but only when you combined the sales units of the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. In that case, there may actually be hope for ModNation Racers since it managed to land in the NPD top 20 while only selling on the PS3. Beyond that, Sony first-party titles have a way of hanging on and selling over time.
I personally liked both and Blur and Split/Second (I haven't played ModNation, although I think Annette loves it), so in my opinion quality is not the issue but rather the poor timing of three arcade/kart racers hitting at almost exactly the same time. Unlike shooters, for example, perhaps your average gamer just doesn't budget for more than one racing game in their stable. If this is true, it could make for an interesting showdown when both Criterion's Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and Gran Turismo 5 square off in November.
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