April 2011 XBLA sales
With no NPD-style analysis of XBLA and Microsoft announcements of sales data few and far between, Gamasutra has made it a habit to do monthly analyses of leaderboard data to get some kind of grip on relative success and failure in the marketplace. April’s deluge of new releases alongside a handful of sales for previously released titles meant that Gamasutra contributer Ryan Langley had a lot to parse.
While some of the most interesting new releases for last month (Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, Section 8: Prejudice, Outland) lack leaderboards necessary for this type of analysis, the failures of both Red Faction: Battlegrounds and Yar’s Revenge are fairly well documented through the paltry sums of 2,133 and 880 (respectively) new players for each throughout the month. Fancy Pants Adventures experienced a much bigger rush of players despite a release later in the month, totaling 24,827 after all was said and done. The new releases are capped off by Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, which doesn’t have leaderboards for anything but the multiplayer but does face some optimistic comments coming out of publisher Ubisoft.
Deals of the Week saw healthy boosts on almost every front, with the critically successful titles like Limbo, Monday Night Combat, Toy Soldiers, and Perfect Dark all seeing fantastic sales numbers. The big piece of DLC to hit the scene was the Mars board for Pinball FX 2, which saw almost equal numbers of downloads to the first expansion table released (meaning maintained support from fans). Finally, Langley observed the continued success of A World of Keflings, Full House Poker, and Torchlight from March.
For a more detailed analysis of these numbers along with some helpful charts, be sure to check Gamasutra’s article at the source link.
Source: Gamasutra