Max Payne 3, originally set for release in 2009, released in May 2012 to the delight of Rockstar fans everywhere. But the game fell short of its mark according to multiple sources.
The NPD group released underwhelming statistics for the game. It tallied retail sales at about 440,000 units, putting Max Payne 3 at second place in game sales (behind Diablo III and just ahead of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier). With those numbers, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter felt safe to call it a flop:
“So much for the May launch window: Max Payne 3 a flop, according to NPD; can’t believe Rockstar put off releasing GTA to work on that game.”
Earlier analysis of the game has put its lifetime sales at 4 million units. If that’s true then Max Payne 3 has a lot of ground to cover.
Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s parent company, has revealed that Max Payne 3 has sold about 3 million copies to retail stores. There’s quite a disparity between the 3 million sold to retail and the 440,000 sold to customers from retail. Expect some great deals at the local level if the shelves remain frozen.
NPD industry analyst Anita Frazier says that 2012 on the whole hasn’t been that exciting so far:
“YTD 2012, there have been 27 percent fewer new software title introductions into retail which we believe is a big part of the softness we’re seeing in May sales. A title obviously continues to see sales beyond its launch month, so there is a longer term impact from a narrower array of available new content.”
Max Payne 3 reviewed pretty well on this site as well as others, but consumers may just be waiting it out for a while. That or they simply chose Diablo III to be their game of choice in May.
Not a Max Payne game. Gone is the film noir tone / feel as is Sam Lake’s fantastic writing. PC version has so many keyboard handling bugs it makes it unplayable in some areas. Max Payne 1 was good; Max Payne 2 was brilliant; Max Payne 3 was DOA for me (and that’s after I shelled out over $100 US for special edition). I also like how Rockstar Games automatically closes defects and artificially makes it look like they have fewer defects than they actually do to management. If they ship a patch then all defects are automatically closed unless you proactively respond in just a few days; some of us work for a living and have to wait for a weekend or two to install and see if our issues were fixed. Same is true if their support folks ask for any information back (even if an automated request)–if you don’t respond in 7 days “Look Ma! It wasn’t really an issue! Claim we never had the issue and close that ticket as solved!” Poor quality on the PC and poor customer service makes for poor future revenues.
That’s what has me waiting it out before I try it. I quite liked the whole film noir thing that Max Payne 2 was dripping with.
I’m waiting for when it gets discounted.