Seriously. When you cut out the PSP games, it's easy to say the sales are great. But... these games (except the WiiMake) were all released before the Monster Hunter brand really took off. Look at the sales from a pure releasedate perspective and the Wii sales are abysmal.

0.28m
0.23m
0.63m
1.42m
2.38m
3.72m
0.24m
0.83m

The previous Monsterhunter game sold comparable to Dragon Quest. The Wii Version sold around a quarter of that. Yes, it sold more than the previous console versions, but in that time the brand recognition skyrocketed.

If I was the CEO of capcom, I'd be disappointed. Yes, the game was profitable, but not the golden goose I assume they expected it to be.

Yes, I'm aware that it isn't done selling. It just feels wrong to defend the game by cherrypicking data.

Obviously, I think CAPCOM is Happy with Monster Hunter Tris Sales on the Wii. Remember that is the first Third Party game company that 'll sell one million copies for a Game in Japan. Only nintendo did this achievement in Japan, so I think they are happy, specially when sales could grow up again in a few months because of the Xmas.

I think CAPCOM is a smart company and they knew MH3 would never reach MHFU sales. If CAPCOM have thought that MH3 will sell 4 Mio units they had released it on PS3. Comparing free multiplayer game on a handheld to a console game with online fees and lack of the fandbase is just insane. Also i kind of expect the sales to raise when the 2nd shippment of CCpro bundles rolls out.

Just read all the Posts in the "FFXIV got fees" thread. Many people who would had actualy bought the game said they won't.

It's funny you mention cherry-picking data and leave out two, very important, data points when using PSP sales to extrapolate to console:

1. Monthly fee: there isn't one on PSP. This, alone, will constrict sales substantially from the PSP version, all other things being equal and is likely why it never really took off on PS2.

2. Social gaming: in Japan, people get together with their friends and sit around and play MH for hours on end. You cannot, without dealing with some serious logistical issues, mimic this feat in the Wii iteration which, again, seriously limits its appeal.

That all said, anyone that uses portable iterations of an IP to automatically extrapolate out to how a console edition will perform without any actual data that there is some sort of causation-involved (which you don't provide beyond stating that it "feels wrong") is nearly altogether worthless.

The first statement is referential why the second will never happen.

Actually viepr, the misuse of was instead of were is why Killergran'll never be a CEO :P

On topic - this is a subscription based game, its sales cannot be compared to the sales of the PSP games, which are free to play online

"Yes the game was profitable, but not the golden goose they expected it to be"

Err... even beyond what was said by the above posters, this statement is completely wrong for a very simple reason - it is based on the false assumption that the profits from this game were expected to be malnly from the game sales... You see, 1 million games can easily surpass the profits of 4 million games (or more) once you put monthly subscriptions into the equation. I would take 1 million games shipped and 200,00 monthly subscriptions any day over 4 million one time copies sold (200,000 is just a number I invented, no basis for this data) .

The causation you're looking for would be the fact that over the PSP iterations Monster Hunter has grown to be one of the biggest series in Japan. From the first to the third game, sales increased by 160%, and that is on top of an increase of over 100% for the first PSP game over the last PS2 game. So from the PS2 games era to the PSP era, sales for Monster Hunter increased by almost 600%. Yet Monster Hunter 3 has (yet) only managed a 32% increase over the PS2 era Monster Hunter games. I would say that Capcom cannot be happy with this, even though they might be satisfied.

Killergran - and what of the fact that (as you conveniently ignored) the PSP games are free to play online?

English is difficult. Thanks for pointing out my grammar mistakes :)