Aliens: Colonial Marines sold 1.31 million units, Sega reports

Aliens: Colonial Marines has been through the wringer for a variety of reasons, but despite all the bad publicity, the game sold 1.31 million units since it released on February 12, according to Sega's year-end financials.

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Aliens: Colonial Marines has been through the wringer for a variety of reasons, but despite all the bad publicity, the game sold 1.31 million units since it released on February 12, according to Sega's year-end financials.

The report, which covers the year ended March 31, shows the game was one of Sega's best selling titles, with Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed performing slightly better at 1.36 million units sold, followed by Football Manager 2013 and the Olympics tie-in game London 2012.

The game has gone through numerous large patches to improve the game. Sega has had to deal with a lawsuit over its ad campaign for the game, and weathered a debate over why the game was released in such a poor condition.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    May 10, 2013 7:45 AM

    John Keefer posted a new article, Aliens: Colonial Marines sold 1.31 million units, Sega reports.

    Aliens: Colonial Marines has been through the wringer for a variety of reasons, but despite all the bad publicity, the game sold 1.31 million units since it released on February 12, according to Sega's year-end financials.

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      May 10, 2013 8:07 AM

      similar to Sim City.

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      May 10, 2013 8:13 AM

      This just illustrates what a tragic waste this game was. If it had actually lived up to expectations it would have sold triple.

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      May 10, 2013 8:20 AM

      Looking over the report, these could be sell TO numbers and not the more qualified sell THRU numbers. Still, I'm sure the hype machine did a decent job pumping up the pre-order numbers.

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        May 10, 2013 8:41 AM

        A sell To number is still a sale. Nobody splits hairs over gift cards sold during Christmas time by asking "Yeah.. but how many people actually used those gift cards?" The company doesn't care because they are already paid for it.

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          May 10, 2013 8:52 AM

          No, this is not accurate. GAAP states that you cannot count a gift card as a sale until it is redeemed. You can count it as cash in your cash flow statement, but you cannot count the amount as part of your P&L until product has been purchased. A gift card is actually considered a liability in your P&L until it is used.

          The problem with sell to numbers is that it is inventory usually purchased on credit or promise to pay. The publisher may not get paid for the inventory until the item sells; thus if it's a dud then the inventory gets returned to the publisher (well, some portion at least). You could have a 100 million sell to number and a very low sell thru number. The units would be returned to the publisher and the NPD-like numbers would be closer to the sell thru number (NPD cannot report Walmart numbers so there's always big fudge factors at work here). Sell thru numbers tells us how well a game really did. Sell to numbers is really just measuring sell potential and maybe cash flow.

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      May 10, 2013 8:59 AM

      1.2 million of those were from the 99 cent bin

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      May 10, 2013 9:01 AM

      At least this game has gotten patches. Anyone remember this or is it too far back in ancient history?

      http://kotaku.com/5933116/silent-hill-hds-bugs-get-patched-for-ps3++but-not-for-xbox-360

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      May 10, 2013 9:07 AM

      [deleted]

    • rms legacy 10 years legacy 20 years mercury super mega
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      May 10, 2013 9:14 AM

      $15 w/BugHunt and I'll buy it too!

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      May 10, 2013 9:27 AM

      I wonder what percentage was pre orders.

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      May 10, 2013 9:27 AM

      pre-sales suckers

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      May 10, 2013 9:45 AM

      that's great and all but i wonder how many bro-dudes who bought the game will ever buy another Gearbox game after getting burned by this one. You can release shit only a couple of times before it bites you in the ass.

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        May 10, 2013 10:01 AM

        All of them; as far as they're concerned it's a "sega" game

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      May 10, 2013 9:51 AM

      Glad I didn't buy it.

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      May 10, 2013 10:16 AM

      Colonial Marines was discounted heavily just weeks after its release, so many copies probably sold a quite a low price. It's similar to Rage, which sold 2.98million copies but had its price cut 50% after just a few weeks. Conversely, Call of Duty retains a high price for many years after release.

      Sales numbers don't show the complete picture, and revenue would be a much better indicator of success.

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      May 10, 2013 7:52 PM

      It's worth the $5 that it'll be in June or xmas IMO.

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