And while its already been made clear in the past that Madworld failed to live up to expectations, Bayonetta was a big ticket for developer and publisher, having become a million-seller. Vanquish? Not so much: Hayes told us that it had sold as much as three quarters of a million worldwide since its release last October.
This, he says, is due to struggling whilst going against big shooter IPs last year like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor.
Binary Domain from the Yakuza team.
And Anarchy Reigns from Platinum Games.
We released it at a time when a lot of the existing core shooter IP came out on the marketplace, he said. I think that was a big learning for us with hindsight, no big surprise. And also, it didnt have as much point of difference as, say, Bayonetta. So thats a big learning of how we deal with Binary Domain.
Were trying to release that in a window where as a new iP, its got a chance to be able to be seen and to be shouted above all a lot of the noise of what the other shooters are doing.
So even though Vanquish was highly-regarded, I think for a market conditions point of view, it really struggled going up against Call of Duty, Battlefield and everything else that was out there.
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Which brings us to Anarchy Reigns, the next tile from Platinum. While its previous games was under a previous publishing deal under Sega, Anarchy Reigns, says Hayes, is a standalone deal. Its releasing the game in January next year, which is normally a relatively quiet period, which may have been part of the reason why Bayonetta did well when it released 18 months ago.
I think weve got reasonable hopes on Anarchy Reigns. Were going for this point of difference of a multiplayer brawler with the Platinum Games seal of quality. I think Anarchy Reigns is going to be a solid game that works very well. Were not expecting Anarchy Reigns to break out and sell 2 million units, thats not our expectations at all.
But Id like to think Anarchy Reigns is going to sort of notch up the numbers sort of in between Vanquish and Bayonetta. And if thats the case, that will be the success we want it to be.
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But one other title Sega has planned for the relatively quiet Q1 period is Binary Domain from Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi. Segas aiming big for this one, with it being aimed to be in the Bayonetta A++ position in terms of potential breakout chances