Mass Effect 2 PS3 Launch Editorial

I hadn’t really thought about it, but Examiner.com’s Scott Grill fairly points out that we haven’t really heard much about how Mass Effect 2 has fared on PS3, and speculates that – like many one-year-later console ports – it was not a great success.

NPD press releases are typically a time to crow about performance but Sony didn’t even mention any of the games released in January and instead focused on upcoming titles. Similarly, neither Electronic Arts or BioWare have made mention of how Mass Effect 2 performed. With the NPD no longer reporting sales numbers it is left to the console manufacturers and publishers to reveal that information and it’s typically not a good sign when they don’t. We’ve contacted EA and BioWare for a comment but have not heard back at the time of this article

This news shouldn’t be all that surprising however as past experiences have shown that Xbox 360 and PC games relaunched on the PS3 a year later don’t come close to matching the original’s sales. When The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released in March of 2006 for the PC and Xbox 360 it came in at a sold fourth place in sales for the Xbox 360 standard edition and eleventh place for the collector’s edition. Oblivion was released exactly a year later to the Playstation 3 with improved graphics, additional content and positive critical reception but it didn’t even place in the top 20 games sold that month. BioShock was later released to the PC and Xbox 360 and did 490,000 units in sales. Just like Oblivion, it made its way to the PS3 a year later and didn’t make it into the top 20.