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Fire Emblem Echoes sold less on its first week in Japan than either Shadow Dragon or New Mystery did.


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On its first week, Echoes sold less than Shadow Dragon and New Mystery did, also on their first week:

[NDS] Fire Emblem: New Shadow Dragons and (Nintendo) - 144,905 {2008.8.7}
[NDS] Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem - Hero of Light and Shadow (Nintendo) - 136.367 {2010.7.15}
[3DS] Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia # <SLG> (Nintendo) {2017.04.20} (¥4.980) - 131.668

it's worth noting that Japanese game sales tend to be extremely front loaded when it comes to RPGs.

in comparison, this is what Awakening and Fates sold in their first weeks:

[3DS] Fire Emblem: Awakening (Nintendo, 04/19/12) – 242,600

[3DS] Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright / Conquest (Nintendo, 06/25/15) – 260,675 
[3DS] Fire Emblem Fates: Special Edition (Nintendo, 06/25/15) – 42,991

so about 345,000 considering the special edition as two copies.
 

These bad sales could be blamed on the fact that its the remake of an unpopular game (while FE1 and FE3 were very popular) on the lack of features that were liked in previous entries (yup, you know which ones i'm talking about), maybe on the fact that it's on a system whose successor was already released (Monster Hunter XX was recently released on the 3ds as well and also underperformed). Either way, it's a bit worrying, and we better hope it doesn't reflect on FE Switch's sales. 

If western sales follow the thread, this might make IS make their future games a bit more like Awakening and Fates (hopefully the latter, since gameplay is much better), than like Echoes.

Edited by Nobody
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That's sad, but I am more interested in what the sales will be like for the western release since Echoes is a remake of a Japanese only game I am expecting it to sell better in the west.

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Hmm, I was worried this might happen. Didn't think it would sell below the DS remakes though.

That said, I don't think the leaked version had much of an impact. In terms of the big picture, few people knew about it and even fewer people could play it.

I can't tell which factor had the bigger impact, but the 3DS nearing its end of life and Echoes being a remake are the more likely suspects.

Hopefully the game has bigger legs through word of mouth and also Western sales help to patch up the difference. Because despite some of its inherent flaws, Echoes is an amazing game that deserves more sales.

Edited by VincentASM
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This does have a digital version unlike the DS games that is not counted for Media Create, so it should be closer with it (maybe even above, but digital in Japan tends to be fairly low)

Hopefully western sales are substantially better than Shadow Dragon's

Edited by Tonton
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4 minutes ago, Tonton said:

This does have a digital version that is not counted for Media Create unlike the DS games, so it should be closer with it (maybe even above, but digital in Japan tends to be fairly low)

Hopefully western sales are substantially better than Shadow Dragon's

Oh yeah, we should wait for more numbers. I bought my copy digitally to save time on shipping, for instance. Might not make a lot of difference, but if it could at least equalise, I would feel a lot happier : P

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Selling below the DS remakes is a bit worrying, but it's also worth nothing that the DS remakes were Marth's games, and Marth is pretty popular.

That being said, since Echoes is releasing outside of Japan, i expect Western sales to remedy the lower of sales of Japan. Even if it has low sales in the West, the combined sales would probably make up for it.

But as mentioned before, the game is releasing near the end of the 3DS' life. Still, in the long run, i expect it to at least reach decent sales. Echoes not selling more than Awakening or Fates in it's first week is no suprise though. And I don't think we have to really worry about FE Switch, since it's a new game, and it's on the Switch.

Question, since Fates is the highest selling FE (i think), what's the lowest selling FE game compared to Echoes? Obviously, we have to use Japanese sales for this, since Echoes is still Japan-only. 

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40 minutes ago, VincentASM said:

I can't tell which factor had the bigger impact, but the 3DS nearing its end of life and Echoes being a remake are the more likely suspects.

Sounds like FE12 all over again.

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14 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Question, since Fates is the highest selling FE (i think), what's the lowest selling FE game compared to Echoes? Obviously, we have to use Japanese sales for this, since Echoes is still Japan-only. 

The lowest selling are Thracia and New Mystery on ~260,000 and ~270,000 respectively (sourced from VGchartz, so might not be right)

Considering just Japan, PoR and RD had ~160,000 and ~170,000 respectively

Edited by Dayni
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Well. This is Japan, and Japan in my opinion isn't notable for fire emblem game sales aside from Fates. (But we all know why that sold more...) tbh, The West is FE's main frontline seller. Not to mention in the end, we shouldn't judge a game's future sales by just the first week alone.

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24 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Question, since Fates is the highest selling FE (i think), what's the lowest selling FE game compared to Echoes? Obviously, we have to use Japanese sales for this, since Echoes is still Japan-only. 

In terms of first-week sales, I believe the lowest is Thracia 776 with a soul-rending 30k, and Radiant Dawn is in second with around 75k. Echoes's first-week sales are roughly on par with Binding Blade's, which is reasonable but may be disappointing coming off of other post-Tellius games.

For lifetime sales, Path of Radiance is actually the worst at 156k, with Thracia being within a realistic margin of error at 159k. Radiant Dawn is the only other entry below 180k, and every game besides those three sold at least 240k (with quite a few entries straddling the 250k line.)

Edited by Iridium
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1 hour ago, VincentASM said:

Hmm, I was worried this might happen. Didn't think it would sell below the DS remakes though.

That said, I don't think the leaked version had much of an impact. In terms of the big picture, few people knew about it and even fewer people could play it.

Are you sure about that? The leaked informations could have still been around and It may have discouraged some Japanese players from buting the game. However, I could definitely be wrong.

Still, this is definitely a shame since Echoes seems to be a good game. I hope that at least the game will consistently sell well during time and reach a decent total of copies sold.

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Where's the link that showed that the numbers of the sales for the Japanese version of Echoes, I hope this source didn't come from VGChartz? Also, does the Japanese Nintendo eShop showed Echoes in the Best Selling category in their list yet correct?

1 hour ago, Dayni said:

The lowest selling are Thracia and New Mystery on ~260,000 and ~270,000 respectively (sourced from VGchartz, so might not be right)

Considering just Japan, PoR and RD had ~160,000 and ~170,000 respectively

VGchartz is not a reliable source.

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8 minutes ago, The Malign Knight said:

Are you sure about that? The leaked informations could have still been around and It may have discouraged some Japanese players from buting the game. However, I could definitely be wrong.

Still, this is definitely a shame since Echoes seems to be a good game. I hope that at least the game will consistently sell well during time and reach a decent total of copies sold.

I personally don't think it would've had much of an impact. Echoes, being a remake, there isn't really much to spoil. Plus I don't *think* there was anything negative in the leaks.

I just hope the game has decent sales and doesn't discourage the developers from pursuing more remakes. I think they made a huge gamble coming off the slightly disappointingly received Archanea remakes.

The scenario I really want to avoid is that many people may believe we're getting more remakes for certain, so they take Echoes for granted, but then the developers stop making more remakes because of poor sales. I would literally cry if that happened : /

Anyway, it's still early days, so I won't throw in the towel just yet!

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4 minutes ago, King Marth 64 said:

Where's the link that showed that the numbers of the sales for the Japanese version of Echoes, I hope this source didn't come from VGChartz? 

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1364230&page=1

source is media create, which is a japanese sales tracker that releases sales numbers every week and is as reliable as a sales source can get.

Famitsu's numbers will probably be out soon, but they tend to be pretty similar to media create's, so don't expect anything significantly different.

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

Question, since Fates is the highest selling FE (i think), what's the lowest selling FE game compared to Echoes? Obviously, we have to use Japanese sales for this, since Echoes is still Japan-only. 

Lowest selling was already mentioned, but best selling in Japan is Mystery of the Emblem at around 750,000 copies sold.

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12 minutes ago, King Marth 64 said:

Where's the link that showed that the numbers of the sales for the Japanese version of Echoes, I hope this source didn't come from VGChartz? Also, does the Japanese Nintendo eShop showed Echoes in the Best Selling category in their list yet correct?

Yes, in the physical software charts, it is No. 1, above Monster Hunter XX.

3 minutes ago, Nobody said:

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1364230&page=1

source is media create, which is a japanese sales tracker that releases sales numbers every week and is as reliable as a sales source can get.

Famitsu's numbers will probably be out soon, but they tend to be pretty similar to media create's, so don't expect anything significantly different.

Lowest selling was already mentioned, but best selling in Japan is Mystery of the Emblem at around 750,000 copies sold.

Just a bit of trivia. According to the TRS lawsuit documents, Mystery sold around 776,000 copies. Which is easy to remember because of Thracia 776 : P

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8 minutes ago, Nobody said:

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1364230&page=1

source is media create, which is a japanese sales tracker that releases sales numbers every week and is as reliable as a sales source can get.

Famitsu's numbers will probably be out soon, but they tend to be pretty similar to media create's, so don't expect anything significantly different.

Lowest selling was already mentioned, but best selling in Japan is Mystery of the Emblem at around 750,000 copies sold.

The link did showed up as there's no Thread specified. I think that web address could have been mistakenly incorrect that shows up as a Error 404 or that thread could have been deleted by Admins of NeoGAF.

Edit: Oh wait never mind, the link is working right now.

Edited by King Marth 64
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11 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Wait? Despite low-ish sales, Echoes is already in the best-selling catagory on the Japanese eShop?

It's not low, just low in comparison to previous FE titles. Also, it's biweekly rankings and I think Echoes was the only big game that launched within the 2 weeks.

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1 minute ago, VincentASM said:

It's not low, just low in comparison to previous FE titles. Also, it's biweekly rankings and I think Echoes was the only big game that launched within the 2 weeks.

Ah. So in terms of just general game sells, Echoes is doing decently?

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nngh, I'm conditioned to think bad sales in Japan may affect my ability to play the game in the following year. I need to keep telling myself that Echoes is indeed slated for release and is actually just a few weeks away.

I do think the downward trend of fire emblem remakes is a bit concerning given that this one is 9/7 years after the previous remakes, so it's not a matter of franchise remake fatigue. FE11 and 12 had online modes, and as far as I've heard Echoes has none of that. Does JP audience care much about battling armies against other players? I figured this being the closest the series gets to a dungeon crawler RPG would be a considerable draw.

The previous two games cleared the million mark eventually, I'm interested in whether Echoes will be the third to hit that milestone. Fire Emblem Warriors and info for FE Switch might create a slow burn that the DS titles did not have.

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1 minute ago, Armagon said:

Ah. So in terms of just general game sells, Echoes is doing decently?

Decent, yes. Trouble is, the market is extremely competitive and Nintendo may have high standards.

Previously, Shadow Dragon and New Mystery sold about the same (actually more) in the first week in Japan and Nintendo was on the verge of putting the series on ice. It doesn't help Echoes probably had a bigger budget than those two games.

That said, it's possible Echoes DLC and FE Heroes can bring the developers extra money.

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2 minutes ago, VincentASM said:

Decent, yes. Trouble is, the market is extremely competitive and Nintendo may have high standards.

Previously, Shadow Dragon and New Mystery sold about the same (actually more) in the first week in Japan and Nintendo was on the verge of putting the series on ice. It doesn't help Echoes probably had a bigger budget than those two games.

That said, it's possible Echoes DLC and FE Heroes can bring the developers extra money.

I did saw Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE was marked in the best selling category in the North American eShop when it was first launched, but I did saw some sources that aren't from VGChartz said it sold poorly in Japan when it first launched. (I wondered if Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE marked in the Japanese Wii U eShop in the Best Selling category right now or is it not?)

Also, I did saw a lot of good comments about Echoes talking about it looks way better than Awakening and Fates with the Art. I just hope that Echoes will be good in outside of Japan.

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