Ben-DutkaCheck it out: the gaming world still loves Mortal Kombat .
The NPD Group has released their findings for the month of April and there's good news all around: sales are up across the board, starting with overall industry retail sales hitting $961.2 million, which is a 20% jump over last year's April haul.
Software sales were up 24% and NetherRealm's Mortal Kombat reboot led the charge with around 900,000 copies sold. Valve's excellent Portal 2 came in second on the charts, followed by LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars and the ever-present Call of Duty: Black Ops . Now, as a side note, the NPD says SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs would've cracked the top 10 if they counted sales of the PlayStation Move bundle that includes Zipper Interactive's latest. Overall, five games topped the 250,000 sales mark, as opposed to only two in April 2010.
Hardware sales were also up, with non-PC sales of game systems rising 21% to $279.9 million. Microsoft's Xbox 360 led the way with 297,000 units sold and in a statement by SCEA Sr. Director of Corporate Communications Patrick Seybold, we learn PlayStation 3 sales were up 13%:
"NPD reported that the PlayStation 3 continues to see double-digit hardware growth. PS3 hardware sales are up nearly 13% and our PS3 software sales showed a 40% increase year-over-year. We continue to see a lot of great momentum at the retail level, and appreciate the support we've received from our partners, retailers and customers since the criminal attack on the PlayStation Network. We hope to have services restored as soon as we can."
I got Mortal Kombat last week and I love it. Haven't really got to play it much because of midterm exams but I am enjoying it when I do play. That's a good thing because I could not stand playing any of the Mortal Kombats for the PS2. After I played deadly alliance I hated the series. This brought me back.
MK was fun, but than got boring really quick. the tower challenges are great and all but after awhile it got repetitive and boring. did like the story though the final fight with Shao Kahn though was the most ive ever got mad at a game, biggest cheater i know.
He's always been a cheater.
The quick onset of boringness in fighters is why I'm resolved to always wait to buy them. I'll still get MK, and SCV, but it's hard to ever justify more than $40 for a fighter.
I'd probably get a PS3 DOA on day one though… we all have our weaknesses.
agreed, this is why I never pay more $20 for a fighter, they just don't hold my attention for long enough.
I enjoy a good fighter every now and then, but I'm an rpg man at heart.
If you're good at fighting games you spend 100+ hours on them year round.
If you suck at them you spend a week or two on them.
It's a matter of how good or not you are.
Last edited by Scarecrow on 5/13/2011 3:47:37 AM
If you spend 100+ hours on them year round, you're good at fighting games.
If you spend a week or two on them, you suck at them.
It's a matter of how good or not they are (at holding your attention).
A fighter needs to be deep plain and simple. If you suck at fighters then you'll get angry and/or bored with it.
If a fighter doesn't have enough depth as far as game modes then anybody will get bored with it. Which was the case for me with SCIV.
MK is pretty deep and don't see how you could get bored with it. But everybody has their own gaming taste..
That's ridiculous. If you don't play online then there is no reason to play any fighter for a hundred hours unless you just have to get a platinum and ace the moves of every characters, which would be weird.
@World
That can be said about any game you play
You also have to factor in versus offline (against friends)
Last edited by Scarecrow on 5/13/2011 12:04:31 PM
Even with friends around, how long can you pound on each other? Alcohol would help keep it going I suppose.
I'd like to see numbers on how many people really traded in their kickass PS3s for an Xbox during the outage. I'm curious if it's even a relevant number.
I was thinking about Socom 4 today and, while I have no stake in the game nor am I interested in it, I found myself considering how us PS3 fans often find ourselves complaining when our exclusives don't get their just dues. But nobody is doing that about Socom 4. What I see is people being perfectly reasonable, saying "Yeah it isn't great but it's fun" or "It's a love it or hate it type of game"
Kind of tosses those Sony fanboy arguments out the window that crop up when games like Killzone 3 get raped in reviews.
The so-called "journalists" are just sensationalizing the outage again. First of all, in their articles, the increase of trade-ins was expressed as a percentage (200%, I believe). That does not really tell us anything, especially if the initial amount of trade-ins is very low. And of course, the "journalists" failed to give a rough estimate of trade-ins. Overall, they did very poor research.
Also, the articles say that only about half of the people who trade in their PS3's purchase a 360 afterwards.
I think the stories of people lining up to trade in their PS3s for 360s is a myth. Like the Yeti or his North American cousin, the Sasquatch.
Those stories aren't providing any real numbers. When I read PS3 trade-ins increased 300% by a retailer that could mean they went from 1 trade-in a week to like 3.
Oh yes, 3 a week in contrast of the tens of millions of PS3 owners.
The story should be spun as.. CoD addicts need their fix and will EVEN sell their PS3 for an older game system to have it.
See. We just have to clump "those" gamers within another category altogether.
Dude, Sasquatch is real.
I met him on the set of a beer commercial.
ha, thanks Sony360, I try to keep it real and Highlander is the smart one. You can catch my regular game news and stuff over at TitanReviews dot com.
We're uh, experiencing technical difficulties right now but haven't been hacked and will get back on updates very soon 🙂
@Porkchop nice use of a Seinfeld quote.
"I think the stories of people lining up to trade in their PS3s for 360s is a myth. Like the Yeti or his North American cousin, the Sasquatch."
Well, Sasquatch is alive. He shaved off all of his hair and went to work as the CEO of MS.
Steve Balmer. Look at his brow ridge. See. Sasquatch'y
Dude, Sasquatch is real! I cast him for a beer commercial!
MK was a blast
I find it interesting that when a Cod $150 package comes out they include all editions of the Cod game, but because the Socom package had move stuff in it they don't include it?
Sure it still wouldn't have matched Cod sales, I guess I'm just stating the obvious, NPD is practically useless.
the reviews, combined with psn being down probably held socom 4 back.
as far as ps3 trade ins go…it's hard to say anything without solid numbers behind it. i did witness 1 such trade in myself at my local gamestop.
Last edited by Excelsior1 on 5/13/2011 3:22:15 AM
Mortal Kombat is back!
Fighter of the year!
tis a good game, but i miss the 3D and 3 style moves of deception.
i wish netherelm studios would give us deception 2, or that fire and ice game they canned.
fire and ice preferably, i mean who does not want to play as scorpion and sub zero in a shaolin monks styled game!?
Fire & Ice does sound entertaining. I mean you could play as Sub-Zero and Scorpion in Shaolin Monks but their move sets were extremely limited compared to Liu Kang and Kung Lao. After a while I got bored doing the same 4 moves repeatedly. Too bad it got cancelled. I think it would have sold well.
I LOVE the new MK but I'm with you 100%. Deception is my favourite MK game and I miss a lot of the awesomeness that was included in that. As deadly as this "back to the basics" is, I miss the 3D fighting and cool extras like Konquest. In fact, I loved Konquest. Best bonus feature in a game EVER!
As for Fire & Ice, I'm sure something will come along such as that. If you think about it, each generation has at least one action/adventure MK game. PS1 had Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Special Forces and the PS2 had Shaolin Monks. Personally, I'd love to see an action/adventure prequel featuring Raiden and Shang Tsung. That'd be sweet.
agreed, deception is by far my favorite MK game!
konquest was the bomb!
i enjoyed the puzzle and chess modes too.
best part was the 3 style fighting moves though, it was so much fun racking up 100+s combos!
i remember getting to sparky in the conquest mode for raiden, took me ages to finally get it.
hardest combo, was so freaking long i had no skin left once i finished it!
as for fire and ice, to be honest i cant see it happening.
shaolin monks was not exactly the most popular MK game, and there not exactly in a position to take risks like that now.
maybe later down the track, but i honestly cant see a shaolin monks game releasing.
i wish they would bring back the features of MK V DC universe.
you know the close combat, falling combat, all the new things it brought to the series.
thats the only thing i have always hated about MK, every title they bring in something new, everyone loves it, so the first thing they do for the sequel is remove it!
what the?
i thought you were suppose to keep things fans loved, not remove them!
Well it depends on how old you are, once upon a time the quintessential social gaming experience was done entirely within the confines of an arcade. As such, we have very fond memories of those days so perhaps we even attach more love to the games than they deserve.
Other than that, fighters are great for gamers who want to master intricate fighting styles and look damn good doing it. It is also much more satisfying to beat your opponent to death for many versus putting a bullet in them from a great distance. It's a challenging genre that takes skills and gives great satisfaction.
That said, I think the basic content of fighters (while things like MK's Tower challenges are very much appreciated) pale in comparison to what is being offered today in the likes of other AAA titles.
They are very straight forward games.
I'm a big fan of Mortal Kombat and I played this game before, but I just don't like it. Something about it is off, and it just doesn't feel like a Mortal Kombat game. I can't quite put my finger on it.
Maybe it lost its magic for you.
You've probably just become accustomed to the 3D fighting engine. I've loved MK since the beginning and I own almost all the installments. I still play the originals from time-to-time and I still love the 2D fighting in them because that's how the originals are supposed to be. The 3D engine has improved massively since being introduced in MK4 and it's a lot of fun. It adds tons of depth to each fight, along with more strategy (i.e. instead of standing and blocking one spot, do a side-step instead and get behind your enemy). I do enjoy the new MK but I think it's lost something by going back to 2D. I hope NetherRealm returns to their 3D engine again one day… otherwise I'm afraid that instead of buying another new MK, I'll just pop Deception back in to play.
@ Tridon
I agree the 3D is worlds better then when MK4 came out and you had to actually hit R2 and L2 to step into a different plane.
I think that 2D was the simpler way to go to appeal to the masses. Especially after what SFIV did
Ed Boon's eyebrows must be dancing with joy. xD
I honestly didn't think that Sony's hardware sales were going to go up, but I'm glad that they did.
great news for gaming. i dunno if yal know bout the MK webepisodes but MAN IF U ALWAYS BEEN FASCINATED WITH THE MK SERIES & STORY I HIGHLY & STRONGLY RECCOMEND U TUNE IN TO IT ON YOUTUBE. i stop watchinh TV since 04 if i turn TV on its only for G4TV SPEED MTVJAMS CARTOONS & MOVIES.
the MK webepisodes i give it a solid 10 for the quality & delivery i havent been entertained by shows in so long. its nothing i can really say the show lacks the actors i think they got to act the characters is 95% LEGIT. so yall check it out if u like RAW ACTION or just enjoy MK.
Both MK and Portal 2 completely deserved those sales, so that's great news. I'm still a bit PO'd that CoD's still up there though. Doesn't everyone in the world (excluding the smart people from this site) and their grandma have it yet?