Sony.

I feel like I could put together a 30-second ad for Uncharted that would sell a metric shit-ton of copies with a minimum of effort. Just patch together some of the crazier scenes with some sweeping music and list award after award. Hell, buy some Superbowl time. I don't watch a ton of TV, but I don't think I've seen a single ad for Uncharted...good bad or otherwise. Still, I think it will sell fine over the long term. CoD just sucked all the air out of the room for a bit there.

The surprises to me were Assassin's Creed 2 being so high and L4D2. I know AC sold really well, but I thought it was a mediocre game...and I just didn't think L4D had that kind of penetration. Happy for Valve.

GT5 will sell more than GOW3 guaranteed, the GT series has over 50 million sold and is 10 years old.

I'm amazed at Assassin's Creed as well since the first was so critically panned, but as far as Uncharted goes, it still had one of the funniest PS3 commercials out there. How soon we forget:



Then again, a new ad with all the accolades might help.

I always think the world has passed Gran Turismo by. A lot of the appeal for me back in the day was that it really was the best looking/tweak happy simulation game you could get on a console for a while. Now, every simulation seems to be great and look amazing.

I'll certainly be interested to see if people are still clamoring for GT myself.

I don't see GOW3 being a system seller, I see it at having Uncharted 2 numbers at best.

I'm not sure about Grand Turismo 5, Grand Turismo 3 - A Spec was certainly a system seller for the PS2.

Here's what Sony and MSFT need to do. Stop only targeting ads on channels where "gamers" watch. I never see ads for their stuff on non demographic channels. The Wii? All the time.

Might just be me but I thought the last demo for GT5 sucked. It just feels like a polished PS2 game. Which is my guess to why they are pushing it back again.

I haven't liked a GT since the first one on PS1. My 3000GT was a beast! These days, I'll take a Burnout Paradise or a Motorstorm over a GT any day.

As for GoW being a system-seller, my instinct is that the knuckle-draggers like them some God of War. On the other hand, I think the first one sold largely on graphics, and these days, every game looks good. I think it will sell well and will be one more AAA title on PS3, but I don't think it will sell a lot of consoles.

People like to joke about how every game is going to save the PS3, but I don't think they need a single game to do it. They just need a critical mass of great exclusives, which they have either reached or are about the reach (depending on your tastes). 2009 brought us exclusives like Killzone 2, Infamous, Demon's Souls and Uncharted 2; and there are several on tap for 2010 including a few we probably haven't heard about (because Sony is so great at keeping secrets).

No love for Ratchet?

But yeah, last year I played KZ2, inFamous and Uncharted 2 and had a lot of fun in the PS3. I also loved, really loved, Flower (that's from 2009 right?) from the PSN Store.

Still spent more time in the Xbox 360.

I thought that Uncharted 2 commercial was kind of demeaning toward women. Regardless, that commercial was on constantly during Oct and Nov. That is a lot of money spent on marketing by Sony. With all that marketing, I think the sales are below what Sony expected.

I wouldn't call the first one critically panned. I recall quite a mix of reactions, with a few really high ratings and some poor ones. Even still, the hype around the game seemed to make it critic proof and everyone had heard of the game by the time it came out. Jade Raymond helped, i'm sure.

I don't think any game in itself is going to be a system seller anymore for most people (coming from a guy who is tempted to get a PS3 again for God of War 3 though ) I think a lot of car junkies though still know the Gran Turismo name and that will help, and God of War still has name recognition.

My Nissan Skyline would have ate your lunch, son!

I agree with you about there not being one game. Consoles are expensive, with PS3 costing the most, so it's hard for folks to justify buying on just to play Little Big Planet, Motostorm, Uncharted, Ratchet, Kill Zone, Infamous etc alone. But when you look at all those games combined? Things start to look really appealing. It certainly does to me. The PS3 has a great lineup of games.

Here are the Top 10 Games of the entire year based on NPD numbers via Gamasutra:

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward, Activision), Xbox 360
2. Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo), Wii
3. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo), Wii
4. Wii Fit (Nintendo), Wii
5. Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo), Wii
6. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo), Wii
7. Wii Play (Nintendo), Wii
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward, Activision), PlayStation 3
9. Halo 3: ODST (Bungie, Microsoft), Xbox 360
10. Pokemon Platinum Version (Nintendo), NDS

I can't believe so many people bought into that Wii Fit hype. Unfortunately I was one of them. Played it once and it's collected dust ever since.

Uncharted 2 had an amazing ad campaign actually, one of the best in recent memory, and it aired a lot (I saw it a lot at least). I had several friends who had no interest in the PS3 til those ads popped up.

The ads were extremely cinematic in nature, had some witty dialog, great action gameplay bits, a few of the "oh damn!" scenes and generally a review or two making note of how fantastic it is.

similar to:

<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qukrDHWpuQs&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qukrDHWpuQs&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

I think it's incredible that on Yahoo they used this to justify putting up a 'Nintendo falls out of top spot in 2009' headline. I mean, the Wii probably sold as much as the PS3 & 360 combined, the DS had another amazing year and 7 of the top 10 selling games were Nintendo. If a reporter looks at those facts and the main story they see is 'Nintendo falls out of top spot', I almost wonder who's signing their paycheck.

Yeah, I LOL'd at that Yahoo headline.

Way to commit, fatty.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6246627.html

Top games to date -

Wii Play should not count. And neither should games that come as pack-ins with consoles.

One could argue that if Wii Play shouldn't count because it comes with a controller, Guitar Hero should be excluded too.

If anything doesn't belong on the list, I'd say it's the Namco Museum. It's had different titles included on different platforms over the years and I think it's a tough sell to argue the N64 and Xbox 360 versions are the same title. It's kind of like if they lumped all the Maddens into one.

I had more fun with Wii Play than a lot of other Wii games .

The Wii number last month was the biggest number for any console, ever, in December. Wow.