This Eurogamer article feeds into this thread so I'll post it here http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-17-platinum-games-president-rates-its-sales-as-a-c-or-even-a-d
I only payed £10 for my copy because I didn't have a 360 at that time, although Vanquish and Bayonetta were major reasons beside shmups that I bought a console after been a PC only gamer for a decade. As to why Vanquish didn't sell is to do with several factors.
#Back then the gaming media was very different to how they are today, they were very much in it's "Japanese games suck & western devs can do no wrong" phase which would have put alot of stigma onto a Japanese shooter.
# While I love them, SEGA are f%ucking hopeless at marketing AAA mainstream games, PR is underfunded and they often totally missread gamers & the press by sending the wrong messages. For Vanquish there seemed to be abit of buzz surrounding the game pre launch, but SEGA marketed it as a Gears clone with a Japanese twist so ppl were looking to get the same things out of the game as Gears. So when the game launched most publishers tore it to shreds because it was short and having no MP, a killer for any Gears clone. If SEGA had marketed it as the game it truly is, IE an arcade style game that is meant to be replayed over and over in harder difficulties and played for highscore it would have been looked upon in a more positive light.
# The game is oldschool like Dark Souls in that it doesn't hold the players hand at the beginning while they learn to play, western gamers generally hate that, they want a game that panders to their false belief that they are gaming gods by been a cake walk during the first 1/4 of the game by drip feeding new gameplay elements and providing spoilers, making it so any trained monkey who can hold a pad can do it. So when a game comes out which looks generic on the face of it, it comes as a shock when the game curb stomps them into the ground while providing no clues how to do the awesome things the trailer footage does. I'm sure there were plenty of westerners playing it like a cover shooter and been bored silly.
Imo Platinum is really bad at timing what the market wants at any given time. Vanquish was released when everyone was demanding MP, while Anarchy Reigns was released when the MP fad was passed and getting enough ppl to play online is hard when every MP game is turning into a MMO to attact and keep gamers online. IMO Platinum should have released AR back in 2009 and Vanquish in 2013. I would hope the make Vanquish 2 soon to capitalise on the cult following, add in Dark Souls style MP and they have a hit imo. (that or make a Gantz game)
EDIT They should get SEGA to allow them to port it to PC, it would make a fantastic £20 Steam game, do what From did and make extra content for it which they can rerelease on consoles could net them a bit of cash.
KingsGambit said:
It was a boring, bland and generic shooter despite the "unique" elements. I played as long as I could, maybe chapter 7 ish, but ultimately it was just a boring chore to play. There are many better shooters than this and many more better games overall that I'd rather play than waste my time on something (generously described as) mediocre.
I would love to see your VG collection if you class Vanquish as generic, gameplay wise, generic and Vanquish don't belong in the same paragraph let alone the same sentence since there isn't a single game that plays like it. Unless you mean purely by looks alone then I guess it does look generic (even though the suit and robots are far from generic imo)