Every man and his dog seems to be talking about the ‘terrible’ sales LittleBigPlanet has enjoyed, but what is the truth behind the spin?

LBP has now sold more than one million units worldwide, and still the game’s performance has its detractors. Confusingly, we remember the sheer joy in the collective media when Motorstorm hit the one million mark.

So how has Sackboy done in comparison, and what are the differences in the marketplace since that milestone was reached by Evolution’s racer?

It may surprise you that Motorstorm took over 22 weeks to reach the one million unit mark. In comparison, LittleBigPlanet has made that mark in 5 weeks.

Of course, the games market has grown since then. Specifically, the PS3 had around 4.5 million units in the field around the time that Motorstorm joined the millionaire’s club, whereas LittleBigPlanet enjoys a client base of over 17.5 million units.

That counts against LittleBigPlanet in the eyes of many, because a similar attach rate would see sales of 2.1 million units by weeks 5 (Motorstorm had managed 555,000 in the same time frame; a 1 in 8 attach rate).

But it is also true that LittleBigPlanet has to compete with approximately 13 times as many games as Motorstorm did. And if you compare so-called ‘worth buying’ games, Motorstorm really only had four or five competitors when it released versus dozens that are available now.

Analysts we have spoken to still expect LittleBigPlanet to top 3.5 million units across the life of the product, about the same as Motorstorm has managed, and we have still to see the fruits of the ‘six figure marketing package’ Sony have promised.

So we ask you, is LBP really doing that badly? Especially in the current ‘crunch climate’, we would say ‘no’.

Agree/disagree - the comments await your thoughts…