Dead Space: Extraction Fails to Extract Money From Gamer’s Wallets

Dead Space: Extraction is EA’s latest attempt to crack the Wii marketplace and the first spin-off title for the Dead Space franchise. Although it was released on September 29th, DS:E has sold a meager 9,000 copies in September. They only had five days to sell those 9,000 copies (NPD’s figures go through October 3rd), but that number includes pre-orders and the first five days of sales.

In an interview with Edge Online, EEDAR analyst Jesse Divinich suggested sales of 20,000 plus for October wouldn’t be out of the question. Still, at that rate EA’s probably taking an enormous loss on the title. A supposed EA-Visceral employee has sounded off their disappointment along with a promise of repercussions for the company’s future Wii development. It’s almost a given that we’ll see a major price drop on DS:E by Black Friday.

Recently EA has seen success on the Wii with their EA Sports: Active fitness product. I think it’s clear to almost everyone by this point that mature titles on the Wii, regardless of their quality or potential for success will be met with apathy or complete disregard by the general public. The only way to sell a ‘core M-rated title to the Wii gamers out there is to get the fans of the franchise or genre energized and involved with the game’s success (see No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle). EA has done nothing of the sort for this game.

Maybe Michael Patcher was mistaken when he labeled Borderlands as a title that was “sent to die” this holiday season. I think he might have confused the two.