Tony Hawk and EA MMA Struggle at Retail

[ChaseB]

The NPD results for October were released yesterday, and while the news about NBA 2K11's successful launch was the big story, some other sports games disappointed. To be more specific, NHL 11, EA Sports MMA and Tony Hawk: Shred all struggled during the month of October, according to analyst firm Cowan and Company.

In an article published by GamesIndustry.biz, Cowan and Company points out that Tony Hawk: Shred sold just 3,000 units during its first month at retail. Yikes.

The Tony Hawk franchise has struggled for a couple years now, so it's no surprise that Shred did poorly at retail, but 3,000 copies is frighteningly low. Robomodo, the developer of the last two peripheral-based Tony Hawk games recently underwent staff cuts and is off the Tony Hawk series, so it will be interesting to see how Activision tries to breathe life back into a once-dominant sports franchise.

EA Sports MMA sold 45,000 copies, which may explain why I have trouble finding anyone to play online that is anywhere close to my skill level. As has been said before, this is not entirely surprising news given the lack of a "true" license backing the title. It will be interesting to see how much of a tail there is to the EA MMA sales because word of mouth has been strong here at OS and on Metacritic. Perhaps we may see a TV-style situation where a critical darling gets a second chance.

Finally, what I found to be the most interesting part of this sales analysis is that Cowan and Company places some of the lack of industry software growth on the shoulders of NHL 11.

Quote:

Cowan also noted that the low 6 per cent in software growth for the month was largely due to poor continued sales of games released in September, including Halo: Reach and EA's NHL 11.

This seems strange to me because NHL 11 actually was in the NPD's top five for September 2010, and that was after it did not even break into the top 10 during September 2009.

Source - Tony Hawk: Shred flops with only 3000 units sold in US (GamesIndsutry.biz) via Joystiq

[Pappy Knuckles]

I didn't even know a new Tony Hawk game came out.

[Bellsprout]

Activision needs to take Tony Hawk back to it's roots. Return it to a traditional controller based game, make it ridiculously arcadey, fast, and frenetic, and finally just make it fun like it used to be.

[RUFFNREADY]

Price, price, price, is what i believe it comes down to; more peole are budgeting better for game that they may want, and not for the ones that they just don't care for. EA is just shooting themselves in the foot more and more lately. I would pick up UFC Undisputed because it is cheaper than EA's MMA; everybody is looking for deals knowadays.

[TracerBullet]

No much of a surprise to me. Tony Hawk games are just bad now and Skate has put it to shame. Like Dayman said, it needs to return to it's roots like the 4 or so were. EA MMA is suffereing from the lack of UFC fighters. That's why most people won't touch it. Strangely people are bashing the controls as well which in my mind are better than the competition. It's a shame it won't sell just becasue of the brand name of UFC not being on it.

[BrngDaRckus]

TracerBullet hit it right on the head. EA MMA will never sell because of the lack of UFC fighters and the control scheme. A shame though, because while the buttons seem simple to the casual, they offer incredible depth and strategy too the hardcore strategist. Reminds me a lot of old school gaming. Other than that, there's not much to say about the licensing deal. It is what it is, no matter how much it sucks. It'd be great to see EA's improvement of the game engine in the future while being fully licensed with the UFC, but chances are they'll drop the title before that licensing deal runs out.

[Qball128]

Not all sports should become video games....