Last year, THQ’s UFC Undisputed 2009 surprised the masses. Garnering critical acclaim and nearing 4 million in sales, the future was bright for the new IP. UFC Undisputed 2010 may have received above-average reviews – mirroring its predecessors critical success – but its sales have unfortunately failed to reach the same success on the commercial sides of things. THQ has again reiterated the sales have been disappointing and the reason is Rockstar’s wild west shooter, Red Dead Redemption.
THQ had previously warned investors that its sales for the current fiscal quarter would be roughly 18 percent lower than it had previously expected, due to lower-than-expected sales of UFC and a stronger US dollar. Today, similar comments have been echoed again as THQ’s UK Marketing Director, Jon Rooke admitted to MCV that instead of UFC Undisputed 2010 making competition submit, Red Dead Redemption did exactly that to the title.
“Our sales were softer than where we would have liked them to be. We know our UFC and MMA fans have bought it, but we haven’t delivered the broader sales yet. That’s largely down to Red Dead Redmeption. Rockstar have probably taken a fair amount of our market share. They shipped 5m units, taking a lot of consumer dollars.”
Rooke, however, continued to speak about the success the game actually has achieved commercially:
“Last year, we had the perfect storm. This year Rockstar did. That’s not to say our sales were in any way disappointing. We still managed to ship 2.6m units, which is a fantastic achievement, and that figure is still growing. And we’ve got a long tail with that product. We absolutely believe we will deliver our initial sales expectations for UFC and the 2010 edition has been a phenomenal success.”
Signal Hill analyst Todd Greenwald, a while back, said THQ will need to run a lot of promotions and price cuts on UFC Undisputed 2010 over the next 3 to 6 months to help retailers move all those copies of the game. And we’ve already witnessed small hints of just that happening. It’s sad, as a gamer, to see the series not doing as well as previously thought as the first installment in the series showed signs of a start to a promising franchise. Hopefully THQ achieves the sales expectations of UFC Undisputed 2010 and we see the continuation of the franchise for the unforeseeable future.
For more information on UFC Undisputed 2010, check out PlayStation LifeStyle’s review.
