Level-5 sent Ni no Kuni off yesterday night in typical fashion, with a premier event that was attended by celebrities and a few lucky fans.
Famitsu.com, in its coverage of the event, reported that Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino greeted the crowd by revealing an initial order number of 600,000 units for the game. This is the highest initial order for any new Level-5 property, said Hino.
He added that the staff hopes to build Ni no Kuni into a title that sells one million or two million copies. "We consider Ni no Kuni to be Level-5's next big title to follow Professor Layton and Inazuma Eleven."
The event consisted of a live gameplay demonstration followed by appearances by the primary voice cast as well as child actress Mana Ashida, who appears in the game's commercials. Songstress Mai closed off the evening with a performance of the game's ending theme, Kokoro no Kakera.
You can see pictures from the event at Famitsu.com.
Level-5 also provided a look at some cross promotions for Ni no Kuni.
Ni no Kuni will be seeing special downloads via the various Nintendo Zone services. Tsutaya and McDonalds will both be offering unique Imagine (Imagine are the monsters you collect and raise in the game) starting today. McDonalds will also offer patrons an image gallery featuring artwork from Studio Ghibli. Viewing this will not require the game.
The DS Ni no Kuni is actually one of two Ni no Kunis that hits later today. The other is the previously announced cell phone version, Ni no Kuni Hotroit Stories, which is being released to Level-5's ROID mobile portal as a series of ¥525 chapters.
The first chapter, "Oliver and Mark," is available today and tells the story of Ni no Kuni main character Oliver and his friend Mark. The two live in Hotroit City, a town with a major car industry. They're out to create their own custom car and end up heading to an abandoned factory outside of town in search of parts.
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/12/09/ni_no_kuni_event/
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The next big DS franchise in the making?
