Every week Xbox 360 flagbearer Major Nelson (not real name) points out the last seven days worth of Xbox Live activity, which shows who’s playing what and, in some cases, what’s being bought. The latest one, for the week of Nov 22nd, shows a clear preference (and not for the first time) for the First Person Shooter.
The top three most played games over Xbox Live are Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Halo: Reach. You get the idea, although quite how the hardcore CoD crowd has managed to split themselves across two games and still beat Reach is beyond me. And still, Call of Duty 4 is in number thirteen and World at War is at number eleven. Bonkers.
So, whilst such a phenomenon won’t be exclusive to the Xbox 360 platform, it does beg the question: why don’t Sony publish similar stats. There’s a wealth of information in there, such as the top Arcade titles published (something that we normally need to guess at for the PlayStation Network) and even extends to the Indie Games section too.
Top selling Arcade game last week? Splosion Man. Hardly a surprise given it’s dramatic price reduction, but that, along with the likes of Trials HD and Portal: Still Alive show that a brief chop in price really can have an affect on sales (and, presumably, this is why Super Meat Boy isn’t in the charts – it went up in price). Elsewhere, Crazy Taxi hits home at number six and the sublime Pac-Man Championship Edition DS is in number eight.
And Indie Games? Nuclear Wasteland is at the top spot, Get Rich or Die Gaming is in number two and the evergreen I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 is still up there at number three.
cc_star
It’d be nice to see Sony open up
dpb135
I don’t believe this is the issue, but maybe they cant report on this kind of stuff due to their network infrastructure
Samiro05
Nice stats! I love stats. Is there a Yu-Gi-Oh game on PSN or retail? Tis one of my favourite card games :)
It is surprising to see so many CoD titles being played. Just last night I signed up for a free XBOX Live account n was slightly ripped off when it didn’t give me a chance to say no I don’t want the free trial YET as it’s on my friend’s XBOX 360 n I’m leavin’ in a week lol.
I need to get playin’ FIFA 11 again soon cus otherwise it’ll just not get played much like FIFA 10. I didn’t even get 50 hours playtime!
3shirts
Hmm, I always assumed CoD fans leapt from one to the next as they came along, picking up a few newbies as well (hence each one selling bigger than the last).
This just indicates quite how many people are playing these games!
BrendanCalls
I was surprised that Blops is above MW2, Blops online is abysmal compared to MW2, my opinion only of course
Nauraph
You’re not alone with that opinion. ;)
ico
Abysmal? This seems a little unjust. I loved COD MW1 and 2 though really didn’t like some of the unbalanced elements of MW2 with the kill streaks and perk combinations so glad some of these have been removed for BLOPS. I’m enjoying BLOPS but neither this nor MW2 had the initial ‘this is different and rather exciting’ hit that MW1 hit me with originally. As you say though horses for courses!
jcor
I haven’t played Black Ops in about a week. That never happened with MW2. I really enjoyed it for the 1st few days but the problems with the servers (parties being broken up, getting kicked out of games etc) seem to have put me off it now.
BrendanCalls
I’m not totally in favour of these kind of figures being released. I think they can only dampen the chances of a publisher taking risks with new projects or ideas (“Heavy Rain”-esque risks).
bunimomike
Much like the crazy sales of something like Angry Birds (on iTunes) I’d like to think all devs are thinking “we can do something just as good as that, if not better… and look at how well it sells?”. Spurring them on.
My rose-tinted specs feel nice. :-)
igotmy9milli
Since when has it been called “Call of Duty: Halo: Reach”???
Vaile23
;)
tonycawley
I’m assuming that was a joke as the top 2 are call of duty’s,
JoshHood
Since the TSA staff used “wit”. It was super effective.
tonycawley
Isn’t it because all xbox games go through the ms server as a closed network, but ps3 has a totally open network and different games run on different servers or something?
Watchful
Sony’s PSN ‘presence’ servers know what we’re all playing, so they could get the data from those (and probably do internally).
Tuffcub
I’m sure Activision know how many people are playing COD without MS having to tell them, I’d rather Sony spent their time on other things rather than give internet trolls something to rant about.
Tesco’s dont have a big sign above the door saying “We sold 1.4 million cans of beans last week! In second place was oven ready chips with Mars bars coming in a close third!”
jikomanzoku
bananas do very well apparently
Tuffcub
Yes, this week they moved three places up to number 5, however Cupcakes have fallen five places to number nine and Fairy liquid has dropped off the chart altogether!
More pointless charts next week!
CCasey123
Thats because those stats don’t interest anyone. There are, however, plenty of people who are interested in the sales figures of games.
You wouldn’t ask the music industry to take away their charts because its a waste of time, your album would never sell.
colmshan1990
It gives an indication of the size of the online community.
Such as I know now that I could buy MW2 (a game over a year old and with a massively successful sequel for fans to migrate to) and still get access to one of the biggest online communities out there.
Charmed_Fanatic
No shock there …
Nauraph
FPS are generally the only genre of games I play online. And I think many people are thinking the same thing. (Perhaps racers/sports comes second)