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07/03/2010 ModNation Racers' top 15 finish sets slow pace for May racing game sales Despite three high-profile launches in May, the racing genre got lapped that month, according to NPD sales data. Sony 's PS3-exclusive ModNation Racers , Activision's Bizarre-developed Blur and Disney's excellent Split / sec all fared poorly on the retail circuit with ModNation squeezing its way into the top 15 (on just one platform, mind you), while the other two multiplatform titles didn't crack the top 30.

Analyst Michael Pachter told IGN that he "thought the ModNation number was respectable, since the game came out only on May 25." Blurcame out the same day, so that relative to its sales were disappointing.

While sales figures weren't provided for any of the above games, Pachter writes in his monthly NPD analysis that Blur\\ "For sale significantly below our assessment of 100000 units," gives us some idea of how he and Split / sec performed. However, Split/Second was released a week earlier than ModNation and Spot .

With two much higher-profile racing games coming out this fall, in Gran Turismo 5 and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, it remains to be seen if the racing genre itself is toxic at the checkout counter or if gamers have simply passed over May's hybrid concepts, content to wait for the new models of their favorite makes.

ModNation Racers' top 15 finish sets slow pace for May racing game sales originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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