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[C4Lukins]

Out of the ones you need numbers for (the ones with the question marks), I own Bankshot Billiards, Bejeweled 2, Frogger, and Gauntlet. I'll try to get some numbers for you, but I might not be able to until tomorrow. That is, if no one else beats me to it first.

That just leaves Jewel Quest and Outpost Kaloki X (and Hexic, if someone can get a more accurate read).

Thanks a lot. Be sure to send me a friend invite with the profile you use. Gamertag: C4lukin

I plan to put a much more detailed list up at the end of each month, with an overall list, top performers for the month, weekly sales for new games, and top ten lists. I don't know how long it will last. Once there are more then 50 games on there, it wil become quite a hassle, but I'll try to keep it up through December at least.

 

[heavy liquid]

Thanks a lot. Be sure to send me a friend invite with the profile you use. Gamertag: C4lukin

I plan to put a much more detailed list up at the end of each month, with an overall list, top performers for the month, weekly sales for new games, and top ten lists. I don't know how long it will last. Once there are more then 50 games on there, it wil become quite a hassle, but I'll try to keep it up through December at least.

Done. Gamertag: heavy liquid

 

[Big Takeover]

Reminds me of this blog by the creators of MBU, in which describe why creating MBU for XBLA was hugely important for them:
http://makeitbigingames.com/blog/?p=7
http://makeitbigingames.com/blog/?p=13

Already in February, he was saying MBU was selling faster than any gane he was worked on in his career.

Here's another entry by him where he describes how XBLA is going to get very competitive and big publishers are already jumping in.
http://makeitbigingames.com/blog/?p=15

Those are great links, thanks. MBU remains my favorite XBLA title to date, so it's nice to hear the whole process worked out well for them.

 

[Arsenal]

Any numbers on Wik? That game seems to be very underrated.

 

[C4Lukins]

Any numbers on Wik? That game seems to be very underrated.

Whoops, I accidently skipped over them. 15,591
Wik gets no love.

 

[LakeEarth]

Whoops, I accidently skipped over them. 15,591
Wik gets no love.

Two days and Cloning Clyde already beat it. Poor Wik.

 

[Mario]

So I thought it would be interesting to do a monthly chart that shows total sales of each game...

Awesome. Consider me a subscriber

 

[GhaleonEB]

Whoops, I accidently skipped over them. 15,591
Wik gets no love.

I don't get the love it does get. Myself, daughter and wife couldn't figure that game out.

 

[soul creator]

I don't get the love it does get. Myself, daughter and wife couldn't figure that game out.

it's bionic commando in gollum form!

did you mean that you don't get how you actually progress through the game or just don't get why anyone likes it?

 

[duk]

i bet SF2 sales will go through the roof

 

[Parch]

The Hexic HD numbers would also be a good stat on how many 360 owners are connected to the internets. If anybody cares about that.

So ~540K have a Hexic score and how many 360's have been sold? The % of 360 owners subscribed to Xbox Live isn't very high this gen either.

 

[Mario]

So ~540K have a Hexic score and how many 360's have been sold? The % of 360 owners subscribed to Xbox Live isn't very high this gen either.

I'm not sure its necessarily a good indicator of connectivity. There are probably a large proportion of online owners who haven't even bothered playing the game (or at least haven't played it to the point where they posted a high score).

 

[jedimike]

I'm not sure its necessarily a good indicator of connectivity. There are probably a large proportion of online owners who haven't even bothered playing the game (or at least haven't played it to the point where they posted a high score).

That's true. I have a couple "casual" friends that are connected to XBL but don't even have a clue about XBLA. The points system was too confusing for them I guess.

 

[C4Lukins]

So ~540K have a Hexic score and how many 360's have been sold? The % of 360 owners subscribed to Xbox Live isn't very high this gen either.

You actually have to play the game for a good 15 minutes just to get to the point where you can die and get a high score. I know it wasn't until several months into the lifespan of the system that I actually completed a full game of it.

 

[Jesiatha]

My wife no longer has the worst Hexic HD score - there are 14 people below her. As of right now there are 566,230 scores on the Marathon leaderboard.

 

[LakeEarth]

I'm not sure its necessarily a good indicator of connectivity. There are probably a large proportion of online owners who haven't even bothered playing the game (or at least haven't played it to the point where they posted a high score).

Sadly true. My two best friends who own the 360 never touched Hexic (not even a simple achievement), and barely even looked at Live Arcade.

 

[goldenpp72]

I know people who have yet to play hexic who use XBL, of course I will eventually tell them about it. Microsoft should work on pimping XBLA to hell once it gets a more robust lineup.

 

[Mojovonio]

I beat Cloning Clyde today and got 200/200 achievement points!
w00t!

 

[goldenpp72]

I did too, I also finished all the frogger achievements as well

 

[Mojovonio]

I did too, I also finished all the frogger achievements as well

yeah, that.... I can't do.

 

[GhaleonEB]

it's bionic commando in gollum form!

did you mean that you don't get how you actually progress through the game or just don't get why anyone likes it?

We all struggled with the game mechanics. It just didn't feel natural, didn't flow well, and, well, wasn't fun. I felt like learning the controls was work, and I'm one of those guys where if a game does not hook me early, it's lost me. I don't mind lenthy tutorials - Oblivion, for example - but I just didn't find it fun. The art was amazing, though.

 

[Sean]

Wow, I didn't expect Frogger to sell so well. The retro games are doing really great surprisingly... I would've thought more people would be more interested in the newer titles.

I have someone on my friends list with Cloning Clyde as 19,200 something so its sold at least an extra 5,000 since yesterday. I really hope it sells well because it's a lot of fun IMO.

 

[soul creator]

We all struggled with the game mechanics. It just didn't feel natural, didn't flow well, and, well, wasn't fun. I felt like learning the controls was work, and I'm one of those guys where if a game does not hook me early, it's lost me. I don't mind lenthy tutorials - Oblivion, for example - but I just didn't find it fun. The art was amazing, though.

hmm. didn't seem to difficult for me to pick up, *shrug*. It's mostly point where you want to go and click...or in this case, point and press the A (jump), B (tongue swing), or RT (suck up enemy)

I actually thought they translated it pretty well, considering it was originally designed for a mouse.

 

[boutrosinit]

Very creative method you have there and my hat off you. FYI, Uno sold A LOT more.

 

[monoRAIL]

Good job - these are very useful.

I hope in future Live Arcade game developers will include a 'jump to bottom of the leaderboard' option so you can count all the players more easily ;-)

 

[Jesiatha]

FYI, this thread made joystiq.

 

[Dr_Cogent]

Joust needs more love.

 

[Open Source]

I knew I'd seen this methodology used before.

http://www.ninjabee.com/blog/2006/04/estimating-live-arcade-sales-from.html

Nice to see the updated numbers, though.

 

[LakeEarth]

I wonder if Gauntlets high sales are due to the fact that it seems to be the most common game that is advertised at the top banner.

 

[C4Lukins]

I wonder if Gauntlets high sales are due to the fact that it seems to be the most common game that is advertised at the top banner.

I have noticed that. All of the classic games seem to be kicking ass though, with the exception of Robotron. I think Galaga is going to become the new number 1.

 

[LakeEarth]

Robotron deserves more love, but the sales were hurt bad cause Smash TV and Geometry Wars both came out weeks before it.

Galaga though, I am actually excited for. Why, I have no idea. I've played the game a million times. I guess now the score means something

 

[Zonar]

Here is what NinjaBee (Cloning Clyde/OKX) had to say about this method:



http://www.ninjabee.com/blog/

That is very interesting.

 

[Spencerr]

Buy Cloning Clyde

 

[Zonar]

Sooooo can sombody guesstamate about how much it cost to make some of these game and what is the profit. If I remember correctly MS get's %30 if they dont code it them selves, and %50 if they do.

 

[LakeEarth]

That's such a good deal though. You can get MS to make your game for you, all you have to do is own the game property.

The cost of each varies obviously, the retro games probably cost less than $50000 while last I heard, Roboblitz (the one that uses the Unreal 3 engine) is gonna cost them a million.

 

[C4Lukins]

That is very interesting.

I think it is funny how in April he mentions that no games on Live have the ability to jump down to the end of the leaderboard, and with the release of Cloning Clyde, you can do just that.

 

[Speevy]

Wik definitely deserves better sales. Neat game.

 

[C4Lukins]

That's such a good deal though. You can get MS to make your game for you, all you have to do is own the game property.

The cost of each varies obviously, the retro games probably cost less than $50000 while last I heard, Roboblitz (the one that uses the Unreal 3 engine) is gonna cost them a million.

No kidding, and the developers should just love that. I can imagine Konami wanting to release something like TMNT Turtles in Time on Live, but they may not have the resources or the time to really deal with it. No problem, just get the Microsoft guys to do it for you and then wait for the check. I'm sure it is much more complicated then that, but it still seems like a nice deal.

 

[TheDuce22]

How is the online coop in cloning clide?

 

[Speevy]

How is the online coop in cloning clide?

Do a search for the game. I think there's some impressions of the co-op which say it's a riot.

 

[MarkRyan]

Over 20,000 Uno players have not managed to win a single single player game.
Somehow people are managing to get a lower score then 200 on Joust, despite the fact that you get 4 lives, and 50 points each time you die.
The worst finishing time on the first level of Marble Blast Ultra, is over an hour.

Best info in the thread.

 

[Spencerr]

XBLA is the best idea ever for Microsoft. I get paid weekly and can justify 5-10 dollar purchases out of each one...

I have a feeling I'm going to be a sucker every wednesday. Except for pac man, **** pac man.

 

[mollipen]

Somehow people are managing to get a lower score then 200 on Joust, despite the fact that you get 4 lives, and 50 points each time you die.

This cracked me up.

 

[thorns]

cloning clyde is up to 25,550 now.
I rather see more original games on XBLA than old arcade games. :/

 

[LakeEarth]

Galaga flying, in one day is well passed 20000.

 

[C4Lukins]

I decided I'm going to do this on the last wednesday night of every month so we can get first day numbers for the last release of the month. I'm also going to try and update it weekly just for titles that are less then a month old. These numbers should be complete now, thank you to everyone who helped out with this, especially Mario who gave me some older numbers. I'm just going to post the initial numbers now, then once I get it all down on a spreadsheet I'll break it down further.



First Day Sales:

Pac Man- 22,307
Galaga- 18,890
Cloning Clyde- 8,500

First Week Sales:

Galaga- 45,000
Cloning Clyde- 27,870

Second Week Sales
Galaga- 11,013 (56,013 total)
Cloning Clyde- 9130 (37,000 total)

Third Week Sales
Cloning Clyde- 5412 (42,412 total)

Hexic Players: 566,230 (Thanks to Jesiatha)

Overall Sales:

Astropop- 22,006
Bankshot Billiards- 37,616
Bejeweled 2- 65,433
Cloning Clyde- 27,870
Crystal Quest- 30,188
Feeding Frenzy- 51,730
Frogger- 56,677
Gauntlet- 87,607
Galaga- 18,890
Geometry Wars- 192,981
Jewel Quest- 24,076
Joust- 46,131
Marble Blast Ultra- 117,937
Mutant Storm Reloaded- 39,521
Outpost Kaloki X- 35,276
Robotron 2084- 23,384
Smash TV- 80,643
Uno- 148,392
Wik Fable of Souls- 15,897
Zuma- 71,636

 

[Big Takeover]

I decided I'm going to do this on the last wednesday night of every month so we can get first day numbers for the last release of the month. I'm also going to try and update it weekly just for titles that are less then a month old. These numbers should be complete now, thank you to everyone who helped out with this. I'm just going to post the initial numbers now, then once I get it all down on a spreadsheet I'll break it down further.

That is fantastic, nice work. I do have one request though. Could you include the price (points) for the games listed. I don't see much correlation between price and sales right now, but maybe in the future trends may appear. Thanks.

 

[C4Lukins]

That is fantastic, nice work. I do have one request though. Could you include the price ($ or points, don't care) for the games listed. I don't see much correlation between price and sales right now, but maybe in the future trends may appear. Thanks.

Yeah, I'm adding that now. I'm also going to try and compare sales month to month starting next month, I do not have complete numbers for last. I'm trying to relearn Excel to make this all a little easier. I need to learn it for my real job so this is nice practice for me.

 

[LakeEarth]

Lets see the changes on the ones we had the exact last number for.

Last week (removed the ones with ??? on it)
Astropop- 21,321
Cloning Clyde- 14,063
Crystal Quest- 29,557
Feeding Frenzy- 50,229
Geometry Wars- 188,428
Joust- 45,010
Marble Blast Ultra- 107,886
Mutant Storm Reloaded- 38,726
Robotron 2084- 22,887
Smash TV- 78,790
Uno- 143,223
Wik Fable of Souls- 15,591
Zuma- 70,264

This week:
Astropop- 22,006 (+ 685)
Cloning Clyde- 27,870 (+13807)
Crystal Quest- 30,188 (+ 631)
Feeding Frenzy- 51,730 (+1501)
Geometry Wars- 192,981 (+ 4553)
Joust- 46,131 (+ 1121)
Marble Blast Ultra- 117,937 (+ 10051) - probable error here
Mutant Storm Reloaded- 39,521 (+ 795)
Robotron 2084- 23,384 (+ 497)
Smash TV- 80,643 (+ 1853)
Uno- 148,392 (+5169)
Wik Fable of Souls- 15,897 (+306)
Zuma- 71,636 (+1372)

So the popular one keeps selling while the unpopular ones aren't. At least its consistant. Poor Wik though, its the Ridge Racer 6 of Live Arcade.

 

[C4Lukins]

I was going to do that comparison, but I must have screwed up Marble Blast last week. There is just no way it sold that many more. At this rate Uno and Geometry Wars are still selling 20,000 a month. The hollidays will probably be crazy.