What's the biggest bomba of all time?

E.T. is the biggest bomba. Daikatana and Hellgate: London have to be up there too. Maybe Tabula Rasa?

Surprised nobody has mentioned Lair or Haze yet.
 
Lair has been mentioned but I did not consider Haze.

LAIR is interesting to me...that game probably cost around 25 million and I would be shocked if it moved 200k worldwide.
 
3DO or Sega (Mega) CD.

(and whilst my brain is stuck that era of gaming, why no Road Rash or Desert Strike revivals EA?)
 
Y2Kev said:
did it sell a million or move a million? I know it was bundled for a while but it has kept its price fairly high since launch only dropping to 39 not too long ago.
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It sold a million. Ninja Theory announced it on their site: "19th May: Big thanks to our 1 million fans! Ninja Theory would like to thank all of its fans for helping Heavenly Sword surpass 1 million sales"
 
I'm guessing all 32x/sega cd games were big bombs too. I think Snatcher's complete failure is one reason why we haven't seen another. They should port it to PSP or DS or something.
 
cjelly said:
32X bombed harder than the MegaCD
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True, true. In my head though, I kind of think Sega had stopped really trying by that point and didn't even really expect it to succeed. Most of my friends at school were really excited by the Mega CD but the 32X barely registered to us.
 
Y2Kev said:
Lair has been mentioned but I did not consider Haze.

LAIR is interesting to me...that game probably cost around 25 million and I would be shocked if it moved 200k worldwide.
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Yea, I mentioned it way back. It jut didnt feel like it sold that much. if they had included the analog controls with the game to begin with, I feel the reviews would have been better, and it would have done far better. It has many things going for it, but the negative response to the controls totally undermined all its ups.

Haze on the other hand, I am sure it must have moved near half a million. Depending ont he budget, that my not be too bad.
 
Darunia said:
:lol

i never popped that NG: DS Legendary Version in my ds though, I got a legit copy soon afterwards!
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2u7t07c.jpg


Never forget!
 
Haze actually did well now that I think about it. It was mentioned in Ubisoft's financial statement. It's the game that pushed the PS3 ahead of the 360 by a sizable chunk for that quarter. It didn't sell at all in NA, but I think it did pretty well in Europe.

The Getaway-- what did that sell? That was really big budget for SCE.

I think LA Noir is guaranteed to be a bomb by now too.

Wikipedia says GF is somewhere between 100k and 500k...so kind of a wide range. :\
 
Link said:
I really don't think anyone wants to open that door.

Who am I kidding?
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Some of the so called "bombs" that are being listed don't seem to qualify as bombs. There are plenty of good games that failed to live up to sales expectations. Smilebit's Panzer Dragoon Orta and JSRF were overlooked on the Xbox, but if MS funded some of the development or paid to keep those games exclusive, is it still considered a bomb?

With all of the hype and media expectations placed upon the PS3, it's lack of anything but total domination makes it a bomb going by the logic in this thread.
 
Grecco said:
200162b.jpg


Guess im being ignored here :/
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Definitely. $30 million budget, expected by Midway to be one of the biggest games of the year, etc.

Didn't help the PS3 version was a staggered release. I don't think it's a great game but it isn't terrible.
 
Onix said:
huh?
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Exactly. LBP did just fine for what it is. Its not a one time millions seller like a COD/Madden title, its the kind of game that has legs through sales and also DLC. And its not like the budget was huge, it was done in less than two years by a few dozen people. The more popular levels have been hearted hundreds of thousands of times, and played near a million, so by no definition could it have bombed unless it cost hundreds of millions.
 
For those wondering or interested regarding Shenmue's so called 70 million budget, here how it breaks down according to an old Segaweb article.

While browsing segawebs news archive I came across this news piece dated Dec 26, 1999:

"Sega of Japan has announced its production budget for Shenmue. It might have been more cost-effective to make a motion picture! According to Sega, Shenmue's budget will tally up in the neighborhood of 7 billion yen! (That's around $69 million USD to you and me...the budget of a decent action flick, though less than most blockbusters.) Panic not! Of that total, Shenmue Chapter 1: Yokosuka's share is only 3 billion yes (or $29.5 USD). Of course, a large portion of those costs include the money spent to develop the revolutionary Shenmue game engine which will benefit several of Shenmue's chapters, so it'll take less for Sega to break even with each chapter they release. Daily Radar says that the $69 million figure for the series is expected to include all the approved sequels to date (5 so far, though Yu Suzuki plans 16 total) as well as the advertising budget. Still, there is little doubt that every Shenmue chapter needs to do exceptionally well in order for Sega to recoup its investment."
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AndyD said:
Exactly. LBP did just fine for what it is. Its not a one time millions seller like a COD/Madden title, its the kind of game that has legs through sales and also DLC. And its not like the budget was huge, it was done in less than two years by a few dozen people. The more popular levels have been hearted hundreds of thousands of times, and played near a million, so by no definition could it have bombed unless it cost hundreds of millions.
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If you don't acknowledge them, they get bored and go away :)


I was thinking lots of MMOs bomb. They cost a lot and then all head for the slaughter.
 
Grecco said:
Shenmue per se.

Recently? STRANGLEHOLDDDDDDDDD
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200162b.jpg


I think Stranglehold sold well over a million. The problem was that Midway spent way too much money on the title and was clearly expecting Gears of War caliber sales. It was a pretty dumb move to launch Stranglehold just a few weeks before Halo 3, since it was a new IP that didn't get a lot of exposure due to the Halo launch madness. The lackluster multiplayer mode didn't help the title's legs either.

Stranglehold gets way more hate than it deserves. It had some of the best firefights in an action game (if you played on hard). But I would rather have a time attack mode (ala The Club) or a survival mode (ala Max Payne 2's Dead Man Walking) than multiplayer. The lack of a mod community and Midway's financial troubles means that will never happen.
 
Onix said:
huh?
Click to expand...

:P

The game that was supposed to be all about online, has been released for over a month and still they have made their servers "stable enough" to handle some of the features that was supposed to be working day 1...

Christmas is just around the corner and the online is still broken, and I don't think their state will be any better during the holidays.

bottom line, for the expectations I had set for this title, it bombed to me...

It's their "most important title of the holiday season" and they can't advertise it correctly, they're not selling it as much as they're supposed to, they're not supporting it post-launch like they're supposed to... they just dropped the ball.

I doubt I'd be interested in playing it three months from now when they finally get everything working.
 
Y2Kev said:
Lair has been mentioned but I did not consider Haze.

LAIR is interesting to me...that game probably cost around 25 million and I would be shocked if it moved 200k worldwide.
Click to expand...
Sorry to quote you again, but... :p
Lair sales August/US said:
46,500 [2 days]
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Lair sales September/US said:
57,800 [1 month]
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Lair sales /Japan said:
22,000 [7 days]
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Unless it stopped selling after that, it sold way over 200k worldwide. :p
 
Y2Kev said:
Definitely. $30 million budget, expected by Midway to be one of the biggest games of the year, etc.

Didn't help the PS3 version was a staggered release. I don't think it's a great game but it isn't terrible.
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Its pretty bad. Like 1995 levels bad. For a 07 game.
 
mr_bishiuk said:
I seriously doubt that, it was never a pack in for a start... if it did then perhaps most games sell 1m eventually? There is also the issue with Shipped V Sales...
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According to this website it is 1 million sold:

http://www.videogamesblogger.com/20...ja-theorys-next-game-is-a-new-action-game.htm

It says that they thank their fans for getting the game to surpass 1 million sales. The way i understand this is that it is 1 million copies sold to the consumers. As ymmv said, that is from May 2008 and Heavenly Sword has also been released as a platinum "edition" (or what i shall call it), so i wonder how much Heavenly Sword has sold until now :)
 
master15 said:
For those wondering or interested regarding Shenmue's so called 70 million budget, here how it breaks down according to an old Segaweb article.
Click to expand...

According to Sega, Shenmue's budget will tally up in the neighborhood of 7 billion yen! (That's around $69 million USD to you and me...the budget of a decent action flick, though less than most blockbusters.) Panic not! Of that total, Shenmue Chapter 1: Yokosuka's share is only 3 billion yes (or $29.5 USD). Of course, a large portion of those costs include the money spent to develop the revolutionary Shenmue game engine which will benefit several of Shenmue's chapters, so it'll take less for Sega to break even with each chapter they release. Daily Radar says that the $69 million figure for the series is expected to include all the approved sequels to date (5 so far, though Yu Suzuki plans 16 total) as well as the advertising budget. Still, there is little doubt that every Shenmue chapter needs to do exceptionally well in order for Sega to recoup its investment."
Click to expand...

Since there was only one sequel, how much of the remaining 40 million was used? Honestly, Sega probably was able to get their initial investment back. Probably not enough interest out there to justify them closing out the story, but they should've broken even.
 
Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword

Excellent game, great graphics, tons of advertising, good track record for both developer and publisher. It was the perfect title, and it should have been one of the best-selling DS games, or at least one of the best-selling third party games on it. However, it resulted in an utter bomba in all regions. One of the best examples of third parties getting screwed over on Nintendo platforms.
 
Hotsuma said:
Since there was only one sequel, how much of the remaining 40 million was used? Honestly, Sega probably was able to get their initial investment back. Probably not enough interest out there to justify them closing out the story, but they should've broken even.
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It started with Saturn, so the costs spanned across 2 generations.
 
Y2Kev said:
Shenmue sold something like 1.3 million copies though. Even though it lost money because it had a lot of baggage attached to it, I still don't really consider it a bomba.
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Okay, I was gonna post this, but from what you said, that sounds reasonable.

I would have to go with E.T. or if I really wanna be a jerk, Motorstorm 2 in Japan.
 
Private Hoffman said:
forza 2?

Only sold like 200k in its first NPD...
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It had, like, four days of sales in its first NPD, and continued to have legs after that, and still continues to. Forza has sold a couple million.
 
In terms of absolute poor sales...
PS1: Amazing Sea Monkeys <1,000
N64: Carmageddon <5,000
DC: Urban Chaos <7,500
(excluding sports games and budget packs. numbers are from very old leaked numbers that were posted on public sites (there's no special source here, I don't have NPD numbers, etc), all numbers rounded in an effort to protect NPD's data while still contributing here)

Bomberman: Act Zero was still below 20k last numbers I saw, which was like 6-8 months after release.

Gunpey DS / PSP were both in 4 digits and pricedropped to <$9 within a month of release.

Escape from Bug Island is 4 digits. Magical Starsign is mid-5 digits despite Nintendo giving it some pretty substantial advertising muscle. Front Mission DS is low 5 digits (and bombed in Japan as well). Wartech 360 is below 20k. Fatal Inertia 360 is low 5. Dragoneer's Aria PSP low 5. Biker Mice From Mars PS2 is low 4 digits. Gitaroo Man low 5.

In terms of overshipments / so many trades / rapid price drops / bombas? Too Human, Alone in the Dark, Force Unleashed, Battle of the Bands Wii, Rock Revolution, PGR4, and Infinite Undiscovery are probably the worst in the last 15 or so months.
 
I AM JOHN! said:
It had, like, four days of sales in its first NPD, and continued to have legs after that, and still continues to. Forza has sold a couple million.
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I'm not sure if Hoffman was trying to be funny or not, but isn't it ironic how LPB's case is the same? :lol

4 days of NPD... 200K in sales?
 
that's the metric for being a considered a 'bomba' ?

people like saying ET, but it still sold like 1.5 million copies.
 
Jinfash said:
I'm not sure if Hoffman was trying to be funny or not, but isn't it ironic how LPB's case is the same? :lol

4 days of NPD... 200K in sales?
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I was thinking the same, about LBP and 4 days of sales of NPD :) There might have been some higher sales expecations around LBP compared to Forza 2 though, or how was the sales expectations around Forza 2?
 
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