Reports are that Darksiders II managed 247,000 units for the August reporting period for the NPD, making it the best selling game during that month. Sleeping Dogs saw only 172,000 copies sold at retail; both games had PC versions, though those numbers were not tracked as they were digital releases and not at retail.
“I think that the sales are below what they had hoped for. I presume it sold around 500,000 globally in the first two weeks (the NPD cutoff was Aug 25), so it’s probably over 1 million now, but my understanding is that breakeven is greater than 2 million units, so it’s not likely to get much higher than that,” said Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter of Darksiders II. “We should probably give it another month and see if it’s tracking better.”
This demonstrates the current difficulties with original IP in the AAA sphere these days. Despite generally favorable reviews and Metacritic scores in the mid-80s for both titles, they may not sell well enough to see sequels.
