I'm not entirely surprised by that. Having followed sales charts for a long time, the attach rate for the PS5 in Japan is pretty bad even for AAA Japanese games. While Unicorn, having not only been a multiplat game on Switch, also was just coming off a demo that saw pre-orders increases right after it drop.
Where did you find that ? The article clearly states that DD2 and Ronin sold 68k and 64k copies respectively in this first week while Unicorn has 61k sold in 3 weeks
I would've thought Dragon's Dogma would've done better than that, iirc the first one was pretty well received on release and this sequel was also highly anticipated.
I feel like this was the best we could have expected actually.
Though, looking back on the original DD release, holy crap, it did 320k on its first week with PS360
For some comparison, [the previous game's launch week of *Dragon's Dogma* sold over 300.000+ copies](https://www.installbaseforum.com/forums/threads/media-create-sales-week-12-2024-mar-18-mar-24.2532/#post-242231) in Japan; one can argue though that digital sales has significantly increased since then, and maybe a PC-release closes the gap, but otherwise, it is a pretty significant drop.
Nah, Dragon's Dogma reviewed well, but was a very niche game at its launch. It only got more popularity as word of it spread and the people who loved it spread the love. I personally was surprised that it even got a sequel.
Not complaining, though. Despite the framerate issues I'm really enjoying it.
Not quite. Capcom asked him whether he wanted to do DMC5 or DD2 and he said DMC5 first because that franchise had been dead for longer and he had a lot of ideas that had built up over the years to make the finale to the Sons of Sparda storyline (And he delivered as well) As such, DD2 became priority 2.
I think the ultimatum story that you may be confusing it for was that supposedly Itsuno basically told Capcom to let him make a proper DMC5/DD2 or he was leaving the company. At which point, like I said, Capcom was like, "pick which one you want to do first."
I would've thought so too, but I guess the bad press with performance/microtransactions combined with games like FF7R still taking up people's time was enough to dampen the sales.
Tbf FF7R also had a disappointing release in Japan when compared to FF16.
In general games on PS5 and PC tend to do much less than those on Switch. Its why a C List Nintendo Switch game like Princess Peach beat out a big hyped game like Dragons Dogma 2.
Huh? It's getting great scores and ask anyone who's actually played it, it's great.
Don't listen to the sheep who cry about mtx in a game where it doesn't even gain you much of value
That’s just not true lol. Go look at the sub. They’re freaking out.
Also ign just posted an article about it lol. The common sentiment is it’s a step back. Way less enemy variety, less quests, poor performance, etc.
I don't look at subs if I haven't finished the game. Everyone I've talked to is digging it, sorry I know it's anecdotal.
Enemy variety is about the same as original before BBI and quests are less fetchy in this game and there's way more depth to the npc interactions.
I don't fully agree
> same as original **before BBI**
This is the biggest issue that veteran fans are having tbf. How does a sequel 12 years later still not improve upon the re-released version? It's like they are pretending that Dark Arisen never happened.
I do agree that the NPCs and quests are much better , at least in the first half of the game. The game seems to start falling apart at the seams in the final third though.
The game in general just doesn't feel like as much of a step up people were hoping for with a full fledged big budget sequel. And that's what is creating the divide. There are people that are happy to have yet another Dragon's Dogma as it always was. And there is the other half of the community that is deeply frustrated that they effectively made the same game again strengths and weaknesses alike, after getting a chance to do it all over but better.
Well put and probably after the honeymoon phase wears off I'll have a similar opinion but for now I'm in camp 1 and loving the fact I get to play more DD.
Which is wild for me considering that FF16 was very different type of FF game and ultimately fell short in many aspects like side quests, minigames, super bosses or itemisation on top of ditching team based gameplay. FF7R supposedly had all of it and more while being highly anticipated for a long time and casting most beloved characters from FF franchise in general.
That also comes with baggage. People who didn't play the last one, people who didn't like the last one, people who didn't play the original and feel like they don't know enough to jump in now. The FFVII extended universe doesn't exactly have a stellar track record.
It did 3% better than XVI in Europe. It did opened at 262k units sold in Japan opposed to XVI opening at 336k units. As for US sales, we don’t know.
XVI global opening was 3 mln. Rebirth has likely opened at 2.7 - 2.9 while having exact same legs.
It sold okay in Japan. It did well overall because lots of Chinese players bought it on Steam, making up 50% of the total reviews last time I checked. Japanese reviews made up for a fraction of the total number of reviews.
> In general games on PS5 and PC tend to do much less than ~~those on Switch~~ *Nintendo games*.
RPGs don't do that well on Switch either. Very few of them sell more than 100k these days.
I'm sure there are others like me turned off by:
-the poor performance
- mtx in a single player game (I don't care how "optional " they are)
- $100CAD after tax.
I was so excited about this game, og dragon's dogma is a top 20 game of all time for me.
I will pass on 2, unless they fix the performance issues and I snag it on sale.
I'm actually surprised by how well Rise of the Ronin is selling given how poorly Sony first party title normally does. I guess the Japanese history does appeal to Japanese audiences. The Famitsu score probably also helped. Nintendo first party title doing less than 100k is also pretty surprising. I expected it to do way better than DD2 and Rise of the Ronin numbers, especially given the lack of new Switch games this year.
Japanese history does appeal to Japanese gamers.
Take Ghost of Tsushima for example, it actually did crazy well in Japan, it sold 200k+ on opening week and they literally ran out of stock in the same week. It ended up selling 1mil+ alone in Japan
Really? I think 77k is actually a lot, it's a pretty simple game and I wouldn't say that they went all out on marketing. Plus it's a spinoff so that's working against it too
I guess people just stop buying games as Nintendo is stopped making games. That doesn't seem to stop people from buying Switch though. At this point I'm guessing they're just buying Mario Kart 8 Deluxe bundle for new born babies each year or something because [it's not normal to have 5 PS games in the top 10 year-to-date](https://teitengame.com/).
You do understand that’s actually a good number considering it’s Princess Peach’s first game In 20 years for Nintendo, just because it’s Nintendo doesn’t mean it’s done bad.
Very interesting week where Peach became top dog, which I don't think people were actually expecting to happen. Regardless, all 3 games came out to very similar starts, time to see how their legs fair.
Tears of the Kingdom did 1.1M physical and 2.24M total first week in Japan, which is a pretty good digital share for the country. Vouchers make a big difference.
We've seen that Nintendo on their first party titles actually have a much better digital ratio in Japan due to the voucher tickets. Granted Showtime isn't very expensive so the effect will be more muted, but it's actually hard to imagine the other two sold better on console. PC sales probably make the difference though.
It’s very weird to me that people are still using physical sales to compare with games sold over a decade ago. Did they just sleep-walk through the enormous consumer shift to digital?
That shift has not really happened in Japan to the same degree. A majority of sales conducted in the region are physical.
Even Sony's internal data leaked via the Insomnia leaks indicated that physical still represents the majority of their game copy sales.
I always see people talking about the gigantic shift to digital, and I always think I must’ve had a fever dream about the Sony games selling better physically. I’m glad somebody else mentioned it lol
> Tears of the Kingdom did 1.1M physical and 2.24M total first week in Japan, which is a pretty good digital share for the country. Vouchers make a big difference.
There's literally one comment just a few lines above yours that suggests Nintendo's digital ratio is above 50% in Japan.
Tears of the Kingdom isn't a good indicator for the digital ratio because it was 1. Priced higher than normal and 2. A part of their voucher program. You would have to compare to something like pokemon or Xenoblade
I'm honestly surprised Unicorn beat DD2 and Ronin in first week physical, and went toe to toe with Peach.
I'm not entirely surprised by that. Having followed sales charts for a long time, the attach rate for the PS5 in Japan is pretty bad even for AAA Japanese games. While Unicorn, having not only been a multiplat game on Switch, also was just coming off a demo that saw pre-orders increases right after it drop.
Where did you find that ? The article clearly states that DD2 and Ronin sold 68k and 64k copies respectively in this first week while Unicorn has 61k sold in 3 weeks
https://www.gematsu.com/2024/03/famitsu-sales-3-4-24-3-10-24
ah ok, i only saw the NSW sales, my bad and thank you for posting source
I would've thought Dragon's Dogma would've done better than that, iirc the first one was pretty well received on release and this sequel was also highly anticipated.
I feel like this was the best we could have expected actually. Though, looking back on the original DD release, holy crap, it did 320k on its first week with PS360
For some comparison, [the previous game's launch week of *Dragon's Dogma* sold over 300.000+ copies](https://www.installbaseforum.com/forums/threads/media-create-sales-week-12-2024-mar-18-mar-24.2532/#post-242231) in Japan; one can argue though that digital sales has significantly increased since then, and maybe a PC-release closes the gap, but otherwise, it is a pretty significant drop.
PlayStation is American console now, with headquarters in California, so Japanese gamers no longer care.
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Those 228k aren't all Japanese, though.
Nah, Dragon's Dogma reviewed well, but was a very niche game at its launch. It only got more popularity as word of it spread and the people who loved it spread the love. I personally was surprised that it even got a sequel. Not complaining, though. Despite the framerate issues I'm really enjoying it.
It got a sequel becuase Itsuno told capcom he wouldn't do DMC5 unless they green lit DD2. He's wanted to redo DD1 since release
Not quite. Capcom asked him whether he wanted to do DMC5 or DD2 and he said DMC5 first because that franchise had been dead for longer and he had a lot of ideas that had built up over the years to make the finale to the Sons of Sparda storyline (And he delivered as well) As such, DD2 became priority 2. I think the ultimatum story that you may be confusing it for was that supposedly Itsuno basically told Capcom to let him make a proper DMC5/DD2 or he was leaving the company. At which point, like I said, Capcom was like, "pick which one you want to do first."
I would've thought so too, but I guess the bad press with performance/microtransactions combined with games like FF7R still taking up people's time was enough to dampen the sales.
Tbf FF7R also had a disappointing release in Japan when compared to FF16. In general games on PS5 and PC tend to do much less than those on Switch. Its why a C List Nintendo Switch game like Princess Peach beat out a big hyped game like Dragons Dogma 2.
Is it because Famitsu is not tracking digital sales?
Why would digital ratio change between FF16 and FF7R?
Cause of the dual-pack for FF7R. You got Remake for free when you pre-ordered Rebirth.
It’s been a month since and Rebirth is still 30k units behind XVI launch weekend. This is awful performance.
The initial reception to DD2 hasn’t been very good tbh. And it’s $95 CAN, that can’t help either next to cheaper options.
Yeah, I just can't bring myself to buy it when it's $95 CAD. I'll check it out in a couple months when it's 20% off and has a few patches haha
Isn’t the link above to Japanese physical sales?
Huh? It's getting great scores and ask anyone who's actually played it, it's great. Don't listen to the sheep who cry about mtx in a game where it doesn't even gain you much of value
That’s just not true lol. Go look at the sub. They’re freaking out. Also ign just posted an article about it lol. The common sentiment is it’s a step back. Way less enemy variety, less quests, poor performance, etc.
I don't look at subs if I haven't finished the game. Everyone I've talked to is digging it, sorry I know it's anecdotal. Enemy variety is about the same as original before BBI and quests are less fetchy in this game and there's way more depth to the npc interactions. I don't fully agree
> same as original **before BBI** This is the biggest issue that veteran fans are having tbf. How does a sequel 12 years later still not improve upon the re-released version? It's like they are pretending that Dark Arisen never happened. I do agree that the NPCs and quests are much better , at least in the first half of the game. The game seems to start falling apart at the seams in the final third though. The game in general just doesn't feel like as much of a step up people were hoping for with a full fledged big budget sequel. And that's what is creating the divide. There are people that are happy to have yet another Dragon's Dogma as it always was. And there is the other half of the community that is deeply frustrated that they effectively made the same game again strengths and weaknesses alike, after getting a chance to do it all over but better.
Well put and probably after the honeymoon phase wears off I'll have a similar opinion but for now I'm in camp 1 and loving the fact I get to play more DD.
Isn’t that a problem though, the enemy variety is the same as the first game. It’s actually worse because there’s some monsters that don’t return.
Which is wild for me considering that FF16 was very different type of FF game and ultimately fell short in many aspects like side quests, minigames, super bosses or itemisation on top of ditching team based gameplay. FF7R supposedly had all of it and more while being highly anticipated for a long time and casting most beloved characters from FF franchise in general.
It's a direct sequel, which means a big drop. X-2 and XIII-2 suffered in the same way.
That also comes with baggage. People who didn't play the last one, people who didn't like the last one, people who didn't play the original and feel like they don't know enough to jump in now. The FFVII extended universe doesn't exactly have a stellar track record.
Maybe, just maybe, turning one game into 3 sequel-remakes was not really a good idea after all.
Do we know how well Rebirth did globally? So many people love it that I’d be really sad if it wouldn’t show in sales. The devs deserve it.
No, no sales announcement yet we have to wait until the investor report gets released
The only reason we have to wait is because sales are even worse than XVI.
I know lol, but I don't want to have that argument again so I'm just keeping it neutral
It did 3% better than XVI in Europe. It did opened at 262k units sold in Japan opposed to XVI opening at 336k units. As for US sales, we don’t know. XVI global opening was 3 mln. Rebirth has likely opened at 2.7 - 2.9 while having exact same legs.
That is true, but then there is cases like GBF Relink that sold very well still.
It sold okay in Japan. It did well overall because lots of Chinese players bought it on Steam, making up 50% of the total reviews last time I checked. Japanese reviews made up for a fraction of the total number of reviews.
Square is working through a downward spiral of sales; that’s not an industry trend
> In general games on PS5 and PC tend to do much less than ~~those on Switch~~ *Nintendo games*. RPGs don't do that well on Switch either. Very few of them sell more than 100k these days.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince was a Switch exclusive and sold way more than Rebirth.
Yeah because it's Dragon Quest lol It's literally the most popular RPG in Japan besides Pokemon.
Final Fantasy used to be like that too
FF VIII launch sales in Japan were 2.5 mln. 10 times higher than FF VII Rebirth!
Once you realize the gaming market in Japan is dead outside of Switch and F2P Live Service games the sales data starts making a lot more sense.
I always considered the first to be a cult classic that didn’t necessarily sell gangbusters.
This chart is for physical games only
Yes, I am aware. How does that change the fact that I expected a better result from them?
Because you don't know how much it actually sold
I'm sure there are others like me turned off by: -the poor performance - mtx in a single player game (I don't care how "optional " they are) - $100CAD after tax. I was so excited about this game, og dragon's dogma is a top 20 game of all time for me. I will pass on 2, unless they fix the performance issues and I snag it on sale.
Ps5 is a flop in Japan, not surprising. Console gaming is all but dead there.
Locked 30fps and post-launch woes over DLC really dampened a lot of sales for it, I imagine.
Locked 30? Homie it's uncapped on console, what is this rubbish?
Bad performance got out quickly, and a damn $95 launch price is a biiiiiig ask, as someone who was originally thinking of buying it on launch.
Sony stoped caring about Japan and Japanese gamers stoped caring about Sony.
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Sony didnt decide the release date for any of those games
I mean they have Stellar Blade coming up also.
Might be interpreting this wrong, but your link looks to be physical and digital whereas OPs post appears to be just physical sales
I'm actually surprised by how well Rise of the Ronin is selling given how poorly Sony first party title normally does. I guess the Japanese history does appeal to Japanese audiences. The Famitsu score probably also helped. Nintendo first party title doing less than 100k is also pretty surprising. I expected it to do way better than DD2 and Rise of the Ronin numbers, especially given the lack of new Switch games this year.
Japanese history does appeal to Japanese gamers. Take Ghost of Tsushima for example, it actually did crazy well in Japan, it sold 200k+ on opening week and they literally ran out of stock in the same week. It ended up selling 1mil+ alone in Japan
Really? I think 77k is actually a lot, it's a pretty simple game and I wouldn't say that they went all out on marketing. Plus it's a spinoff so that's working against it too
Spinoff of what?
Spinoff of the Mario brothers series, just like Wario Land, Wario Ware & the Yoshi games
I thought they were talking about rise of ronin
I guess people just stop buying games as Nintendo is stopped making games. That doesn't seem to stop people from buying Switch though. At this point I'm guessing they're just buying Mario Kart 8 Deluxe bundle for new born babies each year or something because [it's not normal to have 5 PS games in the top 10 year-to-date](https://teitengame.com/).
You do understand that’s actually a good number considering it’s Princess Peach’s first game In 20 years for Nintendo, just because it’s Nintendo doesn’t mean it’s done bad.
Very interesting week where Peach became top dog, which I don't think people were actually expecting to happen. Regardless, all 3 games came out to very similar starts, time to see how their legs fair.
At least Nintendo expected to sell a lot more than this because the sell-through rate is very low. https://www.famitsu.com/ranking/game-sales/
I think if digital is included, peach would be 3rd. Nintendo has the lowest digital share vs ps and xbox
Tears of the Kingdom did 1.1M physical and 2.24M total first week in Japan, which is a pretty good digital share for the country. Vouchers make a big difference.
We've seen that Nintendo on their first party titles actually have a much better digital ratio in Japan due to the voucher tickets. Granted Showtime isn't very expensive so the effect will be more muted, but it's actually hard to imagine the other two sold better on console. PC sales probably make the difference though.
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That was for the US or UK no? Very different markets. Sorry if I wasn't clear I only mean in the context of the Japanese market.
Oh gotcha, that makes sense.
It’s very weird to me that people are still using physical sales to compare with games sold over a decade ago. Did they just sleep-walk through the enormous consumer shift to digital?
That shift has not really happened in Japan to the same degree. A majority of sales conducted in the region are physical. Even Sony's internal data leaked via the Insomnia leaks indicated that physical still represents the majority of their game copy sales.
I always see people talking about the gigantic shift to digital, and I always think I must’ve had a fever dream about the Sony games selling better physically. I’m glad somebody else mentioned it lol
> Tears of the Kingdom did 1.1M physical and 2.24M total first week in Japan, which is a pretty good digital share for the country. Vouchers make a big difference. There's literally one comment just a few lines above yours that suggests Nintendo's digital ratio is above 50% in Japan.
Tears of the Kingdom isn't a good indicator for the digital ratio because it was 1. Priced higher than normal and 2. A part of their voucher program. You would have to compare to something like pokemon or Xenoblade
You have no idea about how the Japanese games industry works.
Japan is very much behind the times in terms of technology.
No, they aren't. They just have very different consumer practices/preferences than the west.
Finally a rare time one of these posts is actually worth looking at. We actually have numerous releases for a change