Capcom: Dead Rising 2 Case Zero Breaks Xbox Live Arcade Sales Records

It appears that Capcom's Xbox Live Arcade/Demo experiment has paid off. Today, the publisher revealed that the XBLA-exclusive "prologue experience" Dead Rising 2: Case Zero has "broken all records on Xbox Live" selling more units in one week than "all content" distributed in the downloadable platform's history.

According to GamerBytes, more than 320,000 users were found on the Dead Rising 2: Case Zero leaderboards seven days after the game launched. According to their estimate, Capcom could have raked roughly $1.15 million for the downloadable prequel. Of course, Capcom insists that "these are NOT official numbers."

However, the last title to tout XBLA record breaking numbers was Microsoft's own Shadow Complex. In August 2009, Microsoft revealed the Chair-developed action-adventure sold "over 200,000 copies" in its first week of release. Shadow Complex was priced at 1200MSP ($15) versus Dead Rising 2: Case Zero's 400MSP ($5) asking price.

With history in mind and the existence of public Xbox Live Arcade leaderboards we think Capcom's "prologue" plan proved to be a worthwhile experiment. It's safe to assume THQ is hoping for similar commercial reaction to its own downloadable tie-in titles.

Now we wait to see if the premium demo's existence will help sales of the retail sequel launching later this month or if the downloadable title will be blamed for giving players too much if the sequel falls below sales expectations.