Capcom has been riding high with the phenomenal sales of Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5, but how did their latest game, Bionic Commando, fare? Terribly. 27,000 copies sold for both the 360 and PS3 versions in the month of May - its release month. Compare that with Street Fighter IV selling almost a million in its release month, and Resident Evil 5 selling almost 1.5 million. 27,000 copies may be expected for a completely new franchise, but Bionic Commando has quite the following. After all, the downloadable Bionic Commando Rearmed title sold more than 130,000 copies in its first week of release so it definitely had a fanbase.
What went wrong? Potential reasons could be:
- Lack of marketing
- Poor multiplayer demo
- Boring main character
- Frustrating single-player
Maybe it wasn’t quite accessible enough for the casual gamers either, so when the hardcore gamers aren’t really liking it and the casual gamers can’t even play it, no one is going to buy the game. Some blame the main character design: a generic white guy with dreadlocks. I still blame the multiplayer demo being terrible. I wonder if the game would have sold more if the multiplayer demo wasn’t released?
It’s a shame too because it was released during a time where there weren’t any “monster hits”. The last monster was probably Resident Evil 5, but that was back in March. Think about the wave of enthusiasm that Capcom had with their recent big titles…it would have been natural for Bionic Commando to continue the Capcom love but instead it brought the train to a screeching halt. I’d hate to be Grin right now.
