Gamasutra has an interesting article about the disappointing sales for two portable rhythm-action games - the PSP’s Patapon and terrific touchscreen tapper Elite Beat Agents on the DS.

While the former was a niche title which arguably overperformed - partly thanks to a low price point - EBA (based on the Japanese game Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan) was always expected to do better, with Reggie Fils-Aime having confessed that he’d hoped for roughly 300,000 sales - the game limped out of the charts with a comparatively paltry 179,000.

Yet the feature’s comparisons with Guitar Hero: On Tour seem a little unfair - the latter being an established franchise backed with officially licensed songs and a strong marketing push. While EBA theoretically had the might of Nintendo behind it, the big N was comparatively reluctant to heavily trail the game - any title without immediately obvious mainstream appeal tends to fall foul of Nintendo’s timidity when it comes to promoting new core IP.

Anyway, the cost for procuring the licenses to cover the songs featured in EBA would have been a not insubstantial amount, and thus - despite the success of Ouendan 2 in Japan - a western sequel seems very unlikely. Shame.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 6:15 pm by Chris Schilling
(Probably not) forthcoming titles, DS, Disappointment, Quirky.