Am I wrong in thinking Final Fantasy XIII sales are good?

[binary solo]

ZenfoldorVGI said:

Gilgamesh said:

AkibaFan said:

it is a flop in jpn (wrst selling)

massive success in west like i hve sed before. (one ov th best selling)

I hate how people think this.

FFXIII has been barely out in Japan, there's still greatest hits, re-releases, international versions of FFXIII that's yet to be released, all other Final Fantasy games got big boosts from these re-releases. Just like how recently Resident Evil 5 was re-released and had a huge boost in sales for Japan.

Plus, he isn't taking into account the userbase for the console in Japan at the time of the other games released vs current PS3 userbase in Japan.

At the very least, XIII sold well. People who don't like the game apparently still bought the game because it sold strongly and there will be more games like it, due to those sales. It did expand the FF market over XII, and it did expand the Final Fantasy influence in the west. Overall a hit for Square-Enix, brand name or not.

Indeed. Selling to ~37% of the user base is bloody impressive for any game. There isn't a developer in the world that would consider capturing >35% of the potential market for a game is disappointing or worthy of being called a flop. How many games (not auto-bundled) have sold to a higher proportion of the user base in Japan?

Not a single game on 360 has got above 30% (best so far is just under 20%)

Only NSMB on Wii, (Wii Sports & Wii Fit are >30% but lower % then FFXIII)

None for PSP

None for DS

And for PS3 only FFXIII

Worldwide, other than the auto-bundled games, only Wii Play is selling above 35% of the install base.

So from an attach rate perspective, this gen FFXIII in Japan shares it's position with only one other title: NSMB Wii. That's pretty good company to be keeping.

It's the ONLY million selling PS3 game in Japan so far this gen, and when it gets to 2 million it'll be the only 2 million selling PS3 game in Japan for PS3's entire lifespan I'd wager. So for a PS3 game in Japan it's actually a massive success.

So I think S-E and Sony are more than happy with FFXIII's sales. The one thing Sony might be a bit disappointed with is that other than the temporary spike in HW sales FFXIII didn't raise PS3 sales to new heights, but even so it still pushed adecent amount of hardware if you consider the PS3 sales from the demo release early in 2009 as well as the full game release spike. But having captured 80% of the FFXII market means there aren't all that many die hard FF fans who don't have a PS3 already. And It'll probably get to 90% of FFXII at least.

The only metric by which you could say FFXIII can be called a flop is in relation to the sales in Japan of other FF titles. So OK it's probably going to be the lowest selling main title FF game in Japan on a PS console (but it's not the lowest selling main FF title ever). But it's selling in the main title ballpark as opposed to spin-off / secondary title ballpark (<1 million). So the only way you could really say FFXIII is a true flop in Japan is if it sold at the spin-off / secondary title level rather than getting into the main title sales level.

Can you say Japan sales are good? Maybe not. Can you say sales are acceptable? Yes. Can you say sales are in line with expectations? I'd say yes, because it seems S-E didn't over ship in Japan. Can you say sales are OK? Yes.

A flop = unacceptably low sales. FFXIII sales are not unacceptably low in Japan.