THQ Blames RDR for MIA UFC

UFC Undisputed 2010’s poor sales, earlier reported to be down more than 50 percent from last year’s breakout hit UFC 2009 Undisputed, now have a reason: THQ says Red Dead Redemption sucked up all the oxygen in May.

“Our sales were softer than where we would have liked them to be,” THQ’s Jon Rooke, the director of marketing in the UK, told MCV. “We know our UFC and MMA fans have bought it, but we haven’t delivered the broader sales yet.

“That’s largely down to Red Dead Redemption,” Rooke said. “Rockstar have probably taken a fair amount of our market share. They shipped five million units, taking a lot of consumer dollars.”

That said, Rooke doesn’t classify UFC’s performance as a disappointment: “Last year, we had the perfect storm,” he said. Indeed it did, with only Infamous as any competition with acclaim in that month. “This year Rockstar did. That’s not to say our sales were in any way disappointing. We still managed to ship 2.6 million units.

“And we’ve got a long tail with that product,” Rooke said said. “We absolutely believe we will deliver our initial sales expectations for UFC and the 2010 edition has been a phenomenal success.”

THQ Blames Red Dead for UFC Sales [CVG]