I didn't know where to post this, in this thread or the one about usurping Final Fantasy :P but I saw this on the front page.
Is not impossible to sell over a million copies for a new RPG IP in Japan (by their time), but only a few have managed to do it, I searched in vgchartz the sales of the first game of some series and only two games sold over 1 million (Excluding FF, DQ and Pokemon).
Seiken Densetsu: FW 71K LTD 380K
Tales of Phantasia: FW 109K LTD 395K
Star Ocean: FW 105K LTD 228K
Tactics Ogre: FW 312K LTD 709K
Chrono Trigger: FW 805K LTD 2m
Mother: LTD 400K (according to wikipedia)
Soul Blazer: LTD 200K (according to wikipedia)
Parasite Eve: FW 442K LTD 1m
Vagrant Story: FW 160K LTD 300K
Valkyrie Profile: 311K LTD 634K
Xenogears: FW 511K LTD 890K
Suikoden: FW 41K LTD 213K
White Knight Chronicles: FW 207K LTD 360K
Blue Dragon: FW 83K LTD 210K
The Last Remnant: FW 159K LTD 178K
Infinite Undiscovery: FW 89K LTD 123K
Lost Odyssey: FW 56K LTD 106K
The World Ends With You: FW 80K LTD 208K
Eternal Sonata: FW 47K LTD 80K (360) FW 34K LTD 75K (PS3 one year later)
ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat: FW 55K LTD 115K
Of course there are many more RPG series/games but these are the ones that came to my mind, I was specially interested in the FW and LTD sales of the first Fire Emblem and the first Shin Megami Tensei but I couldn't find them.
I would like to be wrong when I say that The Last Story wont break 1m but I think that it will need a lot of luck to do that, the sales of others RPG on Wii doesn't help either.
Arc Rise Fantasia: FW 27K LTD 58K
Tales of Graces: FW 140K LTD 220K
Xenoblade: FW 82K LTD 148K
Final Fantasy Fables: FW 46K LTD 109K
Final Fantasy CC: FW 35K LTD 80K
Dragon Quest Swords: FW 310K LTD 502K
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn: FW 76K LTD 165K
Like I said before its not impossible to break a million for a new RPG IP, but The Last Story will need a lot of advertising, great reviews and word of mouth. And even if it has all that I could only see it reaching 600K-700K.
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
