Famitsu Sales (VF Nº1)

[Deleted member 7537]

Famitsu top 10 (2/5 -2/11)

1 (PS3) Virtua Fighter 5 <---- Finally.
2 (WII) Wii Sports
3 (NDS) Pokemon Diamond&Pearl
4 (WII) Wi Play
5 (PS2) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
6 (NDS) More Brain Age
7 (NDS) New Super Mario Bros.
8 (NDS) Luminous Arc
9 (NDS) Harvest Moon: The Island I Grew Up On
10 (PS2) J-League Pro Soccer 5
--------------------------------------------------------

 

[Rolf N]

I had two ideas for a reply and can't decide which is the correct one.

1)Do we have absolute sales numbers?

2)ZOMG Nintendo is doomt! The Wii controller was just a gimmick! The Pokémon franchise will be ended! Or could it be a small critical mass* ...

*roughly 5kg, 30cm tall etc

 

[Acert93]

Zeck, that is a decent question on the absolute sales. How many units did it sell? And what is the sample period (1 months? 1 week? Year-to-Date?) Also how long games have been out is helpful too. A lot of the Japanese numbers tend to have this info which is helpful for the big picture.

That aside (and not knowing what else was released this week) as the first big PS3 game it is not unsurprising. Hopefully for Sega it stays on top for a couple weeks with strong sales and stays in the top 10 for a while. With the arcade presence in Japan you never know though. VF is a solid franchise and VF5 has had a lot of good press which should be rewarded with nice sales.

 

[mrcorbo]

VGCharts just updated: http://www.vgcharts.org/japweekly.php

They list VF sales @ 49,500 and Wii Sports @ 47,750

 

[NBK-Steve]

I really don't see what is so special about VF5...maybe it's just me. I used to be in to fighters but I lost interest in them years ago.

 

[Nesh]

I really don't see what is so special about VF5...maybe it's just me. I used to be in to fighters but I lost interest in them years ago.

Have you ever been into VF?

 

[Rolf N]

Zeck, that is a decent question on the absolute sales. How many units did it sell? And what is the sample period (1 months? 1 week? Year-to-Date?) Also how long games have been out is helpful too. A lot of the Japanese numbers tend to have this info which is helpful for the big picture.

That aside (and not knowing what else was released this week) as the first big PS3 game it is not unsurprising. Hopefully for Sega it stays on top for a couple weeks with strong sales and stays in the top 10 for a while. With the arcade presence in Japan you never know though. VF is a solid franchise and VF5 has had a lot of good press which should be rewarded with nice sales.

I honestly am surprised. I didn't expect all these huge franchises being pushed away by what is arguably a very hardcore niche game. The PS3 install base, especially in Japan, has certainly been craving for something, I can see that, but still I'm shocked to see Pokémon and Wii Sports chart below a meticulous one-on-one fighting game.

I've dug around a little and according to this chart both Wii Sports and Pokémon Diamond/Pearl (combined) should currently be doing about 50k per week, in Japan. If these numbers didn't fall off a cliff in the current week, it means VF5 did more. How much more, though, is what I'd really like to know.

edit:

VGCharts just updated: http://www.vgcharts.org/japweekly.php

They list VF sales @ 49,500 and Wii Sports @ 47,750

Aha! Thanks!
So it was just by a hair.

 

[Rangers]

This is pretty much a big failure, as far as I know.

I know on GAF about a week ago they said first day sales were 33,000, they said that would mean 100k first week sales was a best case scenario (and we see it did about half that) and that was apparantly, a bomb for a VF game.

 

[ninzel]

I just can't believe how slow the uptake is with the PS3. I really expected by this point for it to be pretty even with Wii.
Edit:
How can vgcharts be still running or taken seriously when they are showing 9.04 million shipped for 360 and MS says there is more then 10 million sold. What am I missing?

 

[Carl B]

What am I missing?

Vgcharts indicates sold at retail and MS is claiming shipped to retail.

The problems with vgcharts are well documented, but their numbers are simply the aggregate of all the other numbers and reporting services we normally quote anyway. For Japan, VG = Famitsu. For the US, VG = NPD.

 

[Rolf N]

This is pretty much a big failure, as far as I know.

I know on GAF about a week ago they said first day sales were 33,000, they said that would mean 100k first week sales was a best case scenario (and we see it did about half that) and that was apparantly, a bomb for a VF game.

Stil according to vgcharts PS3 hardware sales increased by 42%, bucking the trend of an otherwise flat market. It's only 28k per week so there's no immediate need to get overly excited about the sales, but it looks like VF5 did something for the viability of the platform.

 

[Welshieinnz]

I never even knew VF5 was out yet!

I'll just trundle off into the sunset...with my straw hat and donkey....

 

[Nesh]

Considering PS3's hardware sales and VF5's top chart position surpassing Wii and DS sales this is very surprising. VF did extremely well for its type of game on a hardware that has a limited userbase.

If more games as demanded as VF5 appear on the PS3 it will surely boost tremendously its sales.

 

[Capeta]

So VF5's first week sales barely beat a Wii game that has been out for several months? Ok...

It says VF5 sold 50K for the week..does that mean it only sold 20K over the 6 days following the 32K in the first day?

 

[Acert93]

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?p=929070#post929070

Japanese Chart for Week Ending 11th February 2007

Pos Console Name Publisher Week Weekly Total
1 Virtua Fighter 5 Sega 1 49,500 49,500
2 Wii Sports Nintendo 11 47,750 1,035,250
3 Pokemon Diamond / Pearl Nintendo 20 36,250 4,896,750
4 Wii Play Nintendo 11 34,250 894,000
5 Brain Training 2 Nintendo 59 32,000 4,281,250
6 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Capcom 3 30,750 301,250
7 New Super Mario Bros Nintendo 38 30,000 4,310,250
8 Luminous Arc Marvelus 1 28,500 28,500
9 Harvest Moon: The Island I Grew Up On Marvelus 2 27,500 108,500
10 Common Knowledge Training Nintendo 16 26,500 1,257,750
11 Lets Make a J-League Pro Soccer Club 5 Sega 2 26,250 134,500
12 Animal Crossing: Wild World Nintendo 64 25,500 4,164,750
13 Mario Kart DS Nintendo 62 20,250 2,146,000
14 Brain Training Nintendo 91 18,000 3,398,500
15 English Training for Adults Nintendo 55 17,000 1,832,750

Hardware: Console Week Weekly Total

DS 115 167,500 (+3%) 15,197,750
WII 11 71,750 (-2%) 1,587,000
PSP 114 31,500 (-8%) 5,067,750
PS3 14 28,750 (+42%) 672,250
XBOX360 62 5,250 (-13%) 345,500

http://www.vgcharts.org/japweekly.php

What is really striking, IMO, is the strength of older titles. Just looking at the top 5:

1 Virtua Fighter 5 -- 1 week
2 Wii Sports -- 11 weeks
3 Pokemon Diamond / Pearl -- 20 weeks
4 Wii Play -- 11 weeks
5 Brain Training 2 -- 59 weeks

Although having a 2.3x userbase advantage, the fact a 11 week old game is selling so well is surprising. VF5 is hard to gauge due to the arcade. Yes, PS3 owners are in need of AAA titles. Yes VF has a HUGE legacy and popularity in Japan. But the 42% bump is only about 8k units, and in the broader picture I think a warning light may be going off in Namco HQ: Tekken multiplatform? If the genre is so limited and PS3 sales may be hindering sales as Nesh indicated then Namco may need to seriously consider branching out to recoup their investment. Which seems plausible considering the IGN rumor about some Xbox 360 "love" in 2007.

Trends change, but I am kind of shocked an 11 week old title is giving the VF franchise a run for its money in its opening week. I was expecting a higher tie ratio and a larger bump in hardware sales. Resistance, Motorstorm, and now VF don't seem to be having a big impact on hardware sales or making much noise in Japan which is really unfortunate.

Any guesses the first big game to sell well on the PS3 and to start moving units at a substantial (PS2-esque & Wii-esque) pace?

Will we need to wait all the way to Final Fantasy?

 

[Bad_Boy]

gundam will probably sell more than VF5 I would guess, comes out in a few weeks IIRC. Atleast in japan. I have a feeling VF5 might sell more in the NA/EU market than JPN. Just a wild guess though.. personally I cant wait to get my copy next week, but thats another story.

 

[thatdude90210]

Wiisports is now a million seller in Japan. And with only about 1.6 million Wii sold, that's an incredible attach rate. Wiiplay looks like it will join that club in maybe 3-4 weeks. I saw someone at another place mentioned that the GC only had one million seller in it's 5 years in Japan. The Wii will have 2 in the first 3 months... it's definitely no GC.

 

[Rolf N]

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?p=929070#post929070



What is really striking, IMO, is the strength of older titles. Just looking at the top 5:

1 Virtua Fighter 5 -- 1 week
2 Wii Sports -- 11 weeks
3 Pokemon Diamond / Pearl -- 20 weeks
4 Wii Play -- 11 weeks
5 Brain Training 2 -- 59 weeks

Although having a 2.3x userbase advantage, the fact a 11 week old game is selling so well is surprising.

It's the "touch generations" thing. Nintendo somehow manages to keep titles afloat for a long while. Satoru Iwata talked about that a good number of times, it's supposedly due to their broadened audience, but IMO it also plays a role how Nintendo has taught consumers that they will never price-drop software. That way people don't postpone their purchases ("I'll pick it up when it's in the bargain bin").

For an extreme contrast look at that:
http://www.vgcharts.org/japcomp.php?name1=Brain+Training&name2=Dragon+Quest+VIII

VF5 will probably have a little life left, but it won't imitate the eternal sales of Nintendogs et al.

 

[Acert93]

For an extreme contrast look at that:
http://www.vgcharts.org/japcomp.php?name1=Brain+Training&name2=Dragon+Quest+VIII

VF5 will probably have a little life left, but it won't imitate the eternal sales of Nintendogs et al.

That sort of curve is exactly what I was thinking of when I saw the VF5 sales (i.e. most traditional games see high initial sales and drop off significantly after the first couple weeks). The PS3 is a new platform and over the next 6 months won't see a ton of new titles, so new purchases will continue to breath life into VF5 as it will continue to stick out in the library.

For some perspective (thanks for the link Zeckensack!!):

VF4 1 week sales (02/02/02): 367,500 (All Time Japanese Total: 558k)

Similar time of year, of course by this time the PS2 had 7.9M units in Japan versus fewer than 700k PS3s in Japan right now. The VF 3TB numbers are probably the most similar (although going back that far probably opens far too many variables). Released around the DC launch in 1998 it was able to push out 110k units at launch in the first week, 367k total in liftetime in Japan.

It doesn't look very likely that VF5 is going to match the VF4 sales in Japan, which is unfortunate. Of course I think many gamers are looking for a new breath of life in the genre in general...

 

[NBK-Steve]

Have you ever been into VF?

I was big time, all I ever owned in the past was Sega systems and nothing else.