Why are Shin Megami Tensei sales so low in Europe?

[Devil_Survivor]

Darwinianevolution said:

So I was looking for some JRPGs for my 3ds and because Shin Megami Tensei 4 is arriving to the Eshop (and ONLY Eshop) I decided to see if I could learn a bit about the series. I have played Atlus games before (Ettrian Odissey in particular) so I was curious about the series, and I wanted to find one cheap game to try it. I discovered that not only most of the games were not released on Europe (and a lot of the ones who are don't have a physical release), but also the sales numbers are terrible.

I know that the series doesn't sell that much to begin with, but look at the difference:

Best selling SMT games

Pos	Game	Platform	Year	Genre	Publisher	North America	Europe	Japan	Rest of World	Global
1	Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4	PS2	2008	Role-Playing	Atlus	0.34	0.04	0.36	0.08	0.82
2	Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES	PS2	2007	Role-Playing	Tecmo Koei	0.22	0.20	0.16	0.05	0.63
3	Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable	PSP	2009	Role-Playing	Ghostlight	0.16	0.05	0.34	0.03	0.58
4	Shin Megami Tensei IV	3DS	2013	Role-Playing	Atlus	0.19	0.00	0.27	0.01	0.48
5	Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3	PS2	2006	Role-Playing	Tecmo Koei	0.22	0.03	0.00	0.20	0.45
6	Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne	PS2	2003	Role-Playing	Ghostlight	0.07	0.05	0.25	0.02	0.38
7	Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner	SAT	1995	Role-Playing	Atlus	0.00	0.00	0.38	0.00	0.38
8	Shin Megami Tensei II	SNES	1994	Role-Playing	Atlus	0.00	0.00	0.37	0.00	0.37
9	Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2	DS	2011	Role-Playing	Ghostlight	0.15	0.01	0.12	0.01	0.30
10	Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2: Innocent Sin	PSP	2011	Role-Playing	Atlus	0.11	0.03	0.11	0.02	0.26

Total difference (all games, not just the ones already mentioned)

						North America	Europe	Japan	Rest of World	Global

Total	2.20	0.56	3.54	0.51	6.82

 

NA sales are almost 4 times the European ones, not to mention Japan. Why is that? I don't know if this trend happens to all JRPGs in Europe or just this series. What do you think?

 

P.D. Also, if you can recommend me a good (and cheap) JRPG for my 3DS I would appreciate it.

P.D.2 Why Persona 3 on the PS2 sold that much compared to the others?

Have you played all SMT games before? I would recommend them and you can find the 3DS port of Soul Hackers for cheap now.