New Tony Hawk sells 3,000 in US

Analyst Cowen and Company is claiming that the most recent title in the Tony Hawk series, Tony Hawk’s Shred, sold just 3,000 copies in its first week on sale in the US.

The game was a virtual no show”, the analyst is quoted as saying by GamesIndustry. It adds that fellow peripheral-based release DJ Hero 2 managed sales of just 59,000 in its first two weeks.

Tony Hawk’s Shred failed to enter the UKIE GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top 40 upon its debut last week.

The franchise was once one of the true powerhouse brands of the games industry, but began to suffer as the last decade progressed as gamers grew tired of its established but now aging formula.

At the same time, EA debuted its new extreme sport series – Skate – which came complete with a brand new and very effective twin-stick control system. The first game in the series managed to better sales of the latest Hawk title by two-to-one.

Activision’s response, which arrived on the back of the guitar game boom, was to reinvent the title and package it with a skateboard peripheral. Great in practice, but when the publisher confirmed a 100 RRP consumer appetite quickly began to fade.

Any hope of success was then scuppered by an absolute demolition with critics, who almost universally panned the game.

Shred tried to mix things up by taking Tony Hawk to the ski slopes. Sadly, it’s a plan that appears to have proved ineffective.