In-Depth: PlayStation Network Sales Analysis, October 2010

[GamerBytes editor Ryan Langley examines PlayStation Network's debuts and successes during October of this year, using Leaderboard and chart data to analyze how they're doing.] Several high-profile downloadable PS3 titles were released during October for the PlayStation Network -- Sonic 4, Costume Quest, Blacklight: Tango Down, and more. In this article, we'll use Leaderboard statistics, as well as PlayStation's Pulse program's own Top 10 for the month, to gauge how well games have been selling on the service, and what developers and publishers can learn from the trends in order to help new games sell more copies. Top 10 For October For the first time in a few months, Playstation’s Pulse program released a Top 10 downloaded games for the month. These lists have generally been on the money, but have been known to be inaccurate on what it was portraying. For instance, in the past, a Top 10 for the month was once released before the month was officially over, though it doesn't seem to have happened this time. Also note: this list is based off of North American sales only, and not Europe or Japan. Nonetheless, Sonic The Hedgehog 4 appears to be a winner this month, alongside the release of Deadliest Warrior and Lara Croft: Guardian Of Light. While Costume Quest appears near the bottom of the list, it was only released on October 20, while the other titles had much more time to sell over the month. A quick additional note – Halfbrick’s Echoes, a PSP Minis, is on the list. However this is thanks to the fact that it was a free download via the PlayStation Plus program for the majority of the month. Tango Up Of all of the new releases for the PlayStation Network during the month Blacklight: Tango Down was the only one we were able to follow. Most titles either had poor implementation of Leaderboards (Sonic 4 is limited to 10,000) or none at all (Costume Quest). From our statistics, Blacklight has done incredibly well, with over 81,000 players on the Leaderboards for the month. This was not in the Top 10 at all, but since it was released at the very end of the month, it may have not been included in the Pulse list statistics due to the date. Castle Crashers has continued to perform strongly, DeathSpank is still seeing decent sales after being released some time ago. Also, our stats claim Sonic Adventure hasn’t done well, but it is doing well on the Top 10, so that’s something we’re looking into. Outside of those, there's not much else to talk about. Into November Looking at the lineup, November has had 14 new games, including such titles as Funky Lab Rat, Crazy Taxi, Pac Man CE DX, Dragon’s Lair and many other titles. Hopefully we can keep tabs on them all.