Xbox Gaming in South Africa

Despite averaging around 83 on Metacritic, Remedy Entertainment's action thriller Alan Wake only managed 145,000 units in the US last month, which is far lower than expected from a AAA title which took nearly 6 years to complete. What's up with that?

“There is no doubt that Alan Wake hit the shelves during a very competitive launch window," Remedy's Oskari Hakkinen told VG247, "with some games dominating with extremely aggressive marketing."

We assume Hakkinen is referring to games such as Red Dead Redemption, which managed around 946k units on the Xbox 360 in the US for the same period.

The developer insists, however, that there's growing interest in the brand.

"This breath of fresh air for gamers seems to now be working to our advantage, as those that have already enjoyed Wake are clearly inspired to talk more about the game and tell their fellow gamers to try it also," he explains. "The word of mouth phenomenon is very apparent with Alan Wake. There has been a growing interest in the title and it certainly seems to 'have legs' to sustain."

That sequel is on-again, off-again like Alan's torch. Hopefully it's just a minor bump in the road for what is a truly outstanding game and potential franchise. In the meantime, of course, the first DLC add-on The Signal arrives on 27 July - free for everyone else, 560 MS Points for us.