Forza Motorsport 2 has raced straight into first place in the all-formats software chart, becoming the third fastest-selling Xbox 360 title released so far in the UK.
It's also the fourth fastest-selling game on any format this year, according to Chart-Track, behind World of Warcraft expansion pack The Burning Crusade, Final Fantasy XII and Resistance: Fall of Man.
"...progressing through the competitions feels something like Gran Turismo, but with an even better sensation of really driving the cars. Of all the driving games I've played, none gets the feel of four tires meeting the pavement as well. That's cool for just zoning out with your car and all, but online, it's not just driving, but racing that really has been the deal."
The above linked article, by Garnett Lee, sums up what I've heard from everyone that I've spoken to about playing Forza 2.
What I've read, and heard, about Forza 2 leads me to believe that, while this game is selling well now, it will continue to sell at consistanly high levels for a while to come. I'm not saying it's going to keep it's current pace but I really believe that, at the moment, we're underestimating the life time sales of this game.
Those Amazon lists change all the time, so I wouldn't post one as an article. I followed the link, and Forza was third behind Mario Party and Pokemon Diamond.
VGChartz actually have the game as the #1 game of the week, though obviously that should be taken with a shaker of salt.
They have it edging out Mario Party 8, with ~149K sales. Not bad, but it at least has me considering if this 1.84 million estimate is a little too high. I'm not going to short the stock now, but I'll be watching the numbers.
This picture keeps causing a login window to popup for me. Please transfer your picture to an image posting site instead of hotlinking from the source.
The reviews rolling in for this game seem to be very good. I have read the Gamespot, IGN, and Team Xbox reviews, and though they try not to make comparisons, they clearly think this game is in the same league as Gran Turismo.
Now my point: each of the Gran Turismo games (1-8) sold at least 8 million copies.
Do I think this game could equal that? Probably not, for a few reasons, but I do think it could do around 4M. I think recently, gamers, especially the Xbox crowd, has been liking the less technical racing games like PGR3 or Burnout, so they might not respond as well to this one.
That said, I think racing is the genre where good reviews are likely to turn into good sales. The big sellers for racing games (Gran Turismo, Burnout, PGR) all come up at the top of Gamerankings list of racing games. Ridge racer, which is never reviewed great, has never had a million seller on a console. I think reaction to good reviews will drive sales of this game for several months, and I am positive that it will do well more than 2 million.
"The car physics are fantastic, the amount of customization you can do on a car is unheard of, and the community features are some of the best around. Car lovers finally have something worth diving into on Xbox 360."
6
(2) Just released in Australia entering at number 1 in sales.
(3) It's also 2nd place in both in Germany and Spain for last in the latest released statistics.
-don't have any sale figures for europe unfortunately.
(4) U.S sales had Forza at no. 4 on 10th June, selling 69,500 per week.
(4) http://www.vgchartz.com/aweekly.php