Enslaved: Odyssey to the West managed to sell less than a half million units over the recent holiday season, falling far short of publisher Namco Bandai’s hopes. Despite the positive critical reception to the game, Namco thinks that the timing of the game’s release may have pulled it down.
“It’s an 80+ rated title [on Metacritic] it did extremely well from a game quality standpoint. At DICE… we got six nominations,” said Carlson Choi, Vice President of Marketing. “It speaks to the one element that is critical, which is the quality of the game.”
“To answer that question of the challenge of the unit number it really didn t do what we anticipated, he added. To be perfectly frank, I think as a company prior to us reforming this organization, going to market, I think the game went to market at a very busy season. It launched in the midst of a busy holiday season. Last year, there were like 4000+ games for consoles. We didn’t do a good job finding the right time for it because when you look at the quality of the game it speaks for itself. An 80+ rated game is guaranteed a hit. We got DLC that came out that got 10 out of 10.”
“Ultimately, I think that game had the quality needed to address the gamers. I think it s a matter of getting into the market at the right time, which is something you will see us do much better. Even this morning with some of the announcements, we re getting ourselves ahead of schedule letting you know when it’s coming and incorporating community communication.”
“When asked if Enslaved has a future,” Choi responded, “You tell me, do you think gamers want more I can assure you, a title like Enslaved, and every title we’ve worked on in the past we re going to re-examine them and say what is the potential for the game? We ve been doing a lot of studies, consumer engagement, and community engagement let s put it this way one of these days stay tuned there will be more news to come.”
Source: Siliconera
