Hiku said:
Darashiva said:
I thought I'd go and check the difference between the sales of PS3 and PS4 at the time FFXIII and XV were released on them in Japan. On the week of FFXIII's release, there were 4.34 million PS3's in Japan, so basically 1 million more than there are PS4's currently in Japan.
Based on the attachment rate FFXV achieved on its first week, if the PS4 would have had as many consoles sold, the sales would have risen to roughly 850k. Still not quite on the same level, but considering the increase in digital sales between the releases of the two games, I don't think that selling 690k on its first week is in any way a poor achievement.
There was a smaller number of consoles sold, home console gaming has been on decline in Japan overall, and digital sales will likely account for much more than they did in 2009. |
Two important things to consider.
1.) People got burned by the FFXIII games. They did a lot of damage to the FF brand.
So even if FFXIII sold better, that doesn't mean it was better for SE than if it had sold less, and not made people lose faith in the series. Because the subsequent games, including XV, are affected by that loss of trust.
However, it's likely that XV stands to gain a lot more positive word of mouth than XIII recieved.
2.) There were no digital day 1 sales for the previous FF games to account for. XV sold 707k if you add the XBO and movie collection versions. The digital sales however were described as "the biggest of any digital launch in Japan's history". What is that, 100k? 200k? Whatever it is, it seems like the number is closer to 1m than than 700k. Either way, while not fantastic, it's not terrible, and a big step up from the 277,08k of the previous game.
Add to the fact that FFXV has a season pass, and it seems to be doing well in the west from the initial info, (5 million shipped which is a record for the series, and it was the second fastest selling FF game in the franchise's history in the UK), the doom and gloom from some people is very premature, no doubt about We will have a much better idea once we have more numbers.
The majority of FF XV's sales have come form the west for quite some time now. And this game, while obviously still Japanese, is doing more to appeal to the western audience than any of the previous games have. That's the bigger market for FF, and that's where SE stand to gain the most. So that they've seemingly tripled the week one sales of the previous game in Japan, but not reached XIII's sales, I think they'll be satisfied if the game ammends the faith that was lost in the brand, has decent legs due to generally positive word of mouth, and does well in the west.
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