I recently played Big Planet for the Playstation 3. I played a good solid taste of it, and it’s likely that had I played it to the fullest, as a reviewer of games I would have ended up giving it a score above 9.5 on the traditional scale.
Little Big Planet is a Platforming game with a cute, lovable, and quite realistic looking sock doll/hackey sack style humanoid critter, and his friends.
Gameplay consists of creative platforming levels along with tons of collectible add on elements for the user intertwined, as well as a full level creation feature that is really the centerpiece of the entire experience.
The truth about this game is that while it has some flaws, it is remarkably well put together. It is the type of effort that you would expect from Nintendo. While it’s not exactly revolutionary, it is very solid and intriguing. Not to mention that the characters are as cute and lovable as can be. The graphics on the game finally truly hit that “Pixar quality” that we were promised from the PS2 as well.
Sounds like the makings of a game changer for Sony doesn’t it? In fact, Sony fanboys have long hailed Little Big Planet as a “System Seller” for the PS3, the Youtube of console gaming, and crowned lovable little Sackboy as the Successor of Mario. But yeah, it’s just as you’re probably thinking. It’s not happening, nor will it.
When we look at recently released games such as Saints Row 2, PES: 2009, Fallout 3, and on the Microsoft side: Fable 2, Gears of War 2, and all of the above, Little Big Planet is getting creamed.
Don’t get the wrong idea, the title is selling well. But the truth is (all system specs aside) that if this had been a Nintendo title, it would have sold well over a million by now (probably 2), while LBP has yet to break 500k after 3 weeks. Meanwhile, the many games where you shoot each other (hey, nothing wrong with that), or compete directly such as sports continue to take the Lion’s share when it comes to sales.
PS3 gamers (as a whole) prefer titles that are more of the In your face competition type than of the cute, lovable, or even user-creative platforming type. They’d rather put together a team to go take out someone else’s team rather than put together a team to take on someone else’s level.
Mind you, this game will sell well. It may even sell 2 million by the end of the year if it’s very lucky, and eventually sell 5 or 6 million copies over the course of its long lifetime. But rest assured, by next January, the GTA4’s, Resistance 2’s and Guitar Hero’s will overtake it in monthly sales again since they have the base for the long haul. The as of yet unreleased Killzone 2 types, and the games listed earlier will continue to run circles around Little Big Planet. That’s just what the install base entails.
If Sony was truly serious about creating a successor to Mario they’d have done what Nintendo did to make Mario as popular as he’s become. They’d pack LBP in with every new console for free. However, Sony is still in the position of losing money on each console sold, and LBP cost a pretty penny to develop. So that is out of the question (taking into account the huge risk that would be considering the typical type of gamer that buys a PS3).
That Core HD gamer is for the most part appreciative of LBP, but not so much that they will buy it before the other games on the list, and that is a long list when you consider the cost of these games and the many others that will surely cut in line as they appear over the next year.
Little Big Planet is a brilliant game, that I will most surely buy at some point relatively soon now that I have a PS3. But successor to Mario it is not. Having played it, I’d rather wait 6 months or so myself until true quality user content reaches catalog levels. There are just too many games to buy, Sackboy frankly is no Mario; and as much fun as it is, LBP just doesn’t possess the must have magic that exudes from the games of Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto’s legendary plumber.
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Looks like all is right with the world again, according to the latest numbers from Media Create. This week on Sony’s home turf, the PS3 moved 39,587 units — outselling the combined figures of the Wii and Xbox 360. Also worth noting is that PS3 sales jumped a whopping 907% from last week, when the PS3 sold only 3,931 units.
As we reported yesterday,Grand Theft Auto IV for the PS3 took first place on the Japanese charts — now we know it has sold 132,676 copies, while LittleBigPlanet and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue: Spec III sold 51,705 and 34,965 copies, respectively. You’ll notice that Media Create has released slightly different numbers — for example, the 360 version of GTA IV is in eighth place now instead of fourth place. Hardware sales are below, software sales are after the jump:
Hardware and software sales for the week of October 27th - November 2nd:
October 29, 2008 - Guess which system came out on top when Japanese game publishers were asked for their opinion on the Tokyo Game Show? Wii? PS3? Try Xbox 360!
Famitsu polled 55 game makers on a variety of topics regarding the recent game event. Most notably, for the question of which system left the strongest impressions, Xbox 360 managed 26 of the votes, beating out the PS3’s 14 and the Wii’s 12. PSP and DS got 8 and 6 votes respectively.
Strangely, 360 didn’t place too highly when it came to the choice of top console games from the show. Monster Hunter 3 took top place with 31 votes, followed by Resident Evil 5’s 21. Last Remnant got 6 votes. Below it were White Knight Chronicles, Yakuza 3, LittleBigPlanet, and Let’s Tap, with 5 votes each.
For portable systems, Capcom’s Gyakuten Kenji, an offshoot of the Phoenix Wright series, took top honors with 15 votes, folowed by Dragon Quest IX and Level 5’s recently announced Studio Ghibli tie-up Ni no Kuni, each with 11. Dissidia Final Fantasy and Professor Layton and the final time journey rounded out the top 5 with nine votes each.
With Capcom games taking top honors in both categories, and with the well-known reports of four hour plus waits for Monster Hunter, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the publishers were impressed with Capcom’s booth. Forty-five responders selected it as the booth that left the strongest impression. Below that, Microsoft and Level-5 tied for 12 votes. Sega got 11 votes and Sony got 9.
This game should be called Little Gay Planet, Hands down that shit looks gay. I can’t see myself getting into a game that makes me run around like as a little furball or zombie chipmunk critter building all kinda of colorful pretty flowery mediocre stages. What demographic is this game being geared toward? pedophiles? Is Sony going to bundle this with a lollipop.?Whats the goal of this game? Build your own stages / games. Bitch If I pay $60 on a game I want it Built already with a purpose of playing. Why is this game so hyped? Is this really Sony’s big hope this Holiday season?
DC R1D3R, 09/10/2008 - The latest Media Create hardware sales data from Japan has been released and shows that not only is Microsoft’s Xbox 360 continuing to outsell rival Sony’s PS3, but it’s actually starting to have a negative affect on Sony’s highly treasured sysytem. This week Xbox 360 managed to sell 8,271 units, whilst Sony’s PS3 managed just 7,232 units……Sony’s lowest recorded sales ever, since the launch of the PlayStation 3. Many industry insiders predicted an upturn in fortune for the PS3 this week, considering the fact that TGS 08 conference would relinquish some interest in the system, but so far, it hasn’t panned out that way. Hit jump for the rest of this weeks sales data.
DS Lite 42,385
PSP 26,045
Wii 25,330
PS2 8,618
Xbox 360 8,271
PS3 7,232
You know hotcakes? The 360’s selling like ‘em. The company have announced during their TGS address this morning that, since a range of price-cuts were introduced for the console across the US, Europe and Japan over the past few months, sales have - shockingly - increased. According to Microsoft’s John Schappert, US 360 sales have “doubled”, European sales are up by “62%”, and they’re up “five-fold” in Japan. Whichever way you look at it, that’s an increase.
