New Million Seller! Fire Emblem: Awakening
70 weeks after its Japanese launch, 28 weeks after its American launch, 19 weeks after its European launch -- physical sales of Fire Emblem: Awakening have surpassed 1 million units worldwide as of the week ending August 17, 2013. This is the first title in the 23-year-old series to reach one million sales.
There is something truly miraculous about this. Fire Emblem: Awakening is now the best-selling title ever released in its series -- yet it is not the best-selling Fire Emblem title in any single region. It was only able to achieve its impressive feat through a combined effort by 3DS owners in every region.
The game released first in Japan, where it has sold over 500 thousand copies since its release last April. Fire Emblem: Awakening ranks third among all 13 Fire Emblem games in Japan. Its sales have slowed to the point that it seems unlikely for the title to surpass the top-seller, which sold nearly 700 thousand copies. Neither game that stands above Awakening in Japan was released in the West.
In America, Awakening was released this past February. Despite high digital sales in the region spurred by a lack of availability at retail, the game managed to sell over 300 thousand physical copies. As in Japan, it is currently the third-best-selling title in the series in America. Unlike in Japan, Awakening was released rather recently and has not seen the end of its sales yet; it is unclear how the upcoming Holiday will affect its performance.
Finally, Europeans got their hands on Awakening just a few months ago, this past April, roughly one year after its Japanese release. Although it ranks third among Fire Emblem games in this region, too, it looks very likely to rise to the top of that list with a decent Holiday boost.
It really took a perfect storm for the series to reach this sales milestone. Even the "Rest of World" region was instrumental in the achievement -- without those 0.04 million sales, Awakening would still be just shy of the million mark.
This concludes my sales analysis of Fire Emblem: Awakening, but the celebration is just getting started. I'd like to kick it off with our first ever public shaming in the Million-Sellers Thread.
| Conegamer said: As much as I love Fire Emblem, no other title in the series has even come close to a million. 800k max. |
Shame on you, Conegamer! You should have shown more faith in this outstanding video game!
:P Really, he had a right to be skeptical. There was reason to doubt that this game would reach the 1 million milestone, given the series' declining popularity in the West and the lackluster sales of the DS iterations. And it should be noted that he predicted 0.98 million sales in tbone's thread. So don't be too hard on the guy.
But do shame him! Shame him as publicly as possible.
