badgenome said:
To use VGChartz numbers (of which I'm usually skeptical, but numbers for older games eventually get changed to reflect what publishers have released in their reports): Monster Hunter Portable launched with 140k and legged its way all the way to 1.31m. Almost ten times launch, but this was where the series started to take off so it's definitely not typical. MHP2 launched with 793k and had lifetime sales of 2.52m, over 3 times first week sales. Freedom Unite launched at 914k and all told did a whopping 5.37m all told, more than 5 times launch. The closest it's come to doing twice initial sales was MHP3, which did 1.97m launch and 4.87m lifetime, which is still about 2 1/2 times launch. And MH3U had aligned launches of about 623k and has sold 2.26m to date, better than 3 1/2 times launch. |
You're using global numbers, which is throwing off the legs ratio. For instance, Portable 2 had a 40k launch week in the US and sold over 320k lifetime there... 8 times its first-week sales.
Portable launched with 123k in Japan and sold 1.03 million in the end, about 8.4 times its launch.
MHP2 launched with 742k in Japan and had lifetime sales there of 1.75 million, about 2.36 times its launch week.
Portable 2nd G actually legged out to almost 5 times its launch week sales in Japan, so I wonder why you didn't bring that one up. It illustrates your point best.
Portable 3rd was never released in the West, which is why your numbers showed it being closer to lifetime being 2x launch week than the other games -- but it's actually the opposite when you isolate Japan.
Tri for Wii sold 561k first week and 1.05 lifetime -- under 2x its first-week sales.
3 Ultimate sold 987k first week and so far has sold 1.93 million, also just under 2x, but of course that hasn't quite finished selling yet.
Also, using Japanese numbers should eliminate your skepticism about their accuracy, since VGChartz's figures usually reflect Famitsu and Media Create reports.
So I would say that modern Monster Hunter games will tend to have very strong launches, and then leg out to about 2 to 2.5 times their launch week sales. Their legs could also be dependent on the strength of the platform, in which case a Vita MH game would be lucky to achieve 2 times its launch week sales.
