Fire Emblem Warriors sells almost 60k units in its first week

[RedRob]

Why am I not surprised?

Edited October 5, 2017 by RedRob

[Baron the Shining Blade]

A big part of game development is experimentation, right? This is just wild mass guessing here (I do that a lot, haven't you noticed?), but I think that after a crazy planning phase and crap PR, KT and Nintendo/IS know that there's several fans of older FE's as well as new ones. They may know by this point that this game's roster is not as pleasing as they had originally planned, which will dock some of their sales, a little impact on the average sales they are already expecting. If international sales are enough to have made the endeavor worthwhile, they will experiment with a sequel that features representation from older FE's; which includes more popular characters like Ike, Roy, Hector, etc. (permitting there's less influence on Nintendo/IS' part this time around); so they can see if it sells better than the first one did. The result I think could influence Nintendo/IS to not leave fans of older FE's behind, helped by FEW's developers also being fans of the older games. It could incentivize them to do more remakes (if they aren't already working on one).

The uncertainty of it all, though, is what's worrisome. Never knowing whether it will all pull through, or just fall apart. I wish these positive scenarios I give were more than just wishful thinking. Personally, I don't think the situation's as bad as it looks. I mean, I would hope that the minority who pass on the game due to the roster are indeed a minority. Like, a few hundred at most. At least that won't put a huge dent on sales. I think I'd be understandably pissed if they somehow ruined our chances for a sequel. I think this is why we're so concerned about the roster and sales. No one wants to see this game fail. Except the idiots that do. Screw them. For a game that we've wanted for years, it's been a hell of a rough road. But like the lords within, we shan't give up.

[Neghis]

13 minutes ago, Jedi said:

For being "Repetitive, pretty much yearly games that are all the exact same" Mind you thats not true but its something that has stuck around for quite some time, especially for people who follow a certain Jim Sterling.

Omega Force (The branch of Koei in charge of Warriors). has been stated to be the Japanese equivalent to EA in the most extreme of cases.

Isn't Jim a warriors fan?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

13 minutes ago, Jedi said:

For being "Repetitive, pretty much yearly games that are all the exact same" Mind you thats not true but its something that has stuck around for quite some time, especially for people who follow a certain Jim Sterling.

Omega Force (The branch of Koei in charge of Warriors). has been stated to be the Japanese equivalent to EA in the most extreme of cases.

I've followed Jim Sterling for years, and he loves Warriors games. To a point where critics of Sterling used to constantly bring up his devotion to the franchise as the primary "gotcha" for invalidating his opinions on anything. These days, people turn to his 7/10 Breath of the Wild review, and that time he said something mean about Pewdiepie.

[Jedi]

4 minutes ago, Neghis said:

Isn't Jim a warriors fan?

 

3 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

I've followed Jim Sterling for years, and he loves Warriors games. To a point where critics of Sterling used to constantly bring up his devotion to the franchise as the primary "gotcha" for invalidating his opinions on anything. These days, people turn to his 7/10 Breath of the Wild review, and that time he said something mean about Pewdiepie.

I worded myself a bit wrong there haha. I need to edit the post. Give me a minute.

[Neghis]

Ok so that's what you meant Jedi :P

I understand warriors games being too repetitive for most people but I love them. They're perfect to relax and maybe listen to some podcasts. Also the fact that this is portable and from my favorite game series makes this kind of my dream game (aside from the roster ofc). Might actually sink more time in this one than in OP Pirate Warriors 3 (and I've spent a disgusting amount of time on that).

[Tsak]

6 hours ago, Jedi said:

The west still has a massive stigma against Musou games however.

Mostly the reviewers do, i agree. But the fanbase is still fairly large and tend to grab the game everytime a new sequel comes out.
I'd say the fanbase probably peaked like DW4-DW5.

[Tolvir]

20 hours ago, Baron the Shining Blade said:

A big part of game development is experimentation, right? This is just wild mass guessing here (I do that a lot, haven't you noticed?), but I think that after a crazy planning phase and crap PR, KT and Nintendo/IS know that there's several fans of older FE's as well as new ones. They may know by this point that this game's roster is not as pleasing as they had originally planned, which will dock some of their sales, a little impact on the average sales they are already expecting. If international sales are enough to have made the endeavor worthwhile, they will experiment with a sequel that features representation from older FE's; which includes more popular characters like Ike, Roy, Hector, etc. (permitting there's less influence on Nintendo/IS' part this time around); so they can see if it sells better than the first one did. The result I think could influence Nintendo/IS to not leave fans of older FE's behind, helped by FEW's developers also being fans of the older games. It could incentivize them to do more remakes (if they aren't already working on one).

The uncertainty of it all, though, is what's worrisome. Never knowing whether it will all pull through, or just fall apart. I wish these positive scenarios I give were more than just wishful thinking. Personally, I don't think the situation's as bad as it looks. I mean, I would hope that the minority who pass on the game due to the roster are indeed a minority. Like, a few hundred at most. At least that won't put a huge dent on sales. I think I'd be understandably pissed if they somehow ruined our chances for a sequel. I think this is why we're so concerned about the roster and sales. No one wants to see this game fail. Except the idiots that do. Screw them. For a game that we've wanted for years, it's been a hell of a rough road. But like the lords within, we shan't give up.

I disagree personally, I dont think the roster not being diverse across the series had as large of an effect. As I have said before, if everyone across the various FE fan sites, including Serenes and Reddit, had bought Fire Emblem Fates when it released, we made a total of 2% of its sales. And the thing is, I know not everyone did, so its likely more around 1.5%.

We really dont have as large of an effect on the sales of this game as we like to think. Thats not to say they dont care or arent listening, but even if we all boycotted the next Fire Emblem game, we would barely even dent the sales unless everyone outside the community did so as well. The only real power we have as a community is influence. We can influence others not apart of our community, but even then I think we are too small to have as large of an effect as we would like to think.

Otherwise I agree though.Whether this was a success or failure depends on what Koei's expectations were. That is how this works, the company sets an estimate. If it exceeds or meets the estimate, success. If it is under, failure. We still have US/Europe to go too, and considering this is about the average opening week sales of a Warriors game, I think we arent doing too bad.

Edited October 6, 2017 by Tolvir

[Noir]

I think it's so funny that people actually think it's due to the roster. The vocal minority make up such a ridiculously small amount of sales.

Like, being optimistic, let's assume that there's 5,000 people who won't buy the game because the roster doesn't have Ike, Roy or Hector in it. It still doesn't actually make the difference between this and HW's sales. And speaking frankly, 5k is an ambitious number.

Can I remind everyone who's game was so popular it almost spelt the end of the franchise..? I just cannot take the claim that the lord of that game is the reason the sales here are low.

The sales are low because they're low. Even though they're average for a warriors game. I highly doubt this game is viewed as a flop by Nintendo already ^^

[Kagetura]

1 hour ago, Noir said:

I think it's so funny that people actually think it's due to the roster. The vocal minority make up such a ridiculously small amount of sales.

Like, being optimistic, let's assume that there's 5,000 people who won't buy the game because the roster doesn't have Ike, Roy or Hector in it. It still doesn't actually make the difference between this and HW's sales. And speaking frankly, 5k is an ambitious number.

Can I remind everyone who's game was so popular it almost spelt the end of the franchise..? I just cannot take the claim that the lord of that game is the reason the sales here are low.

The sales are low because they're low. Even though they're average for a warriors game. I highly doubt this game is viewed as a flop by Nintendo already ^^

Funnily enough that mentality proves itself false time and time again when you underestimate the vocal "minority" just like there can be so many of you pleased with what was presented people can easily be slighted the order way, having a different opinion doesn't make you a rare breed, it just makes you objective.

[The DanMan]

On 10/5/2017 at 4:25 PM, Jedi said:

The west still has a massive stigma against Musou games however.

The games mostly get 7s from reviewers now (with the odd 8's), and the broader fandom has definitely been on the uptick. 

The stigma is kinda there still, but I'd say it's certainly lessened over the past few years.

[Florete]

7 hours ago, Noir said:

Can I remind everyone who's game was so popular it almost spelt the end of the franchise..? I just cannot take the claim that the lord of that game is the reason the sales here are low.

Marth.

[Folt]

On 6.10.2017 at 11:52 PM, Kagetura said:

Funnily enough that mentality proves itself false time and time again when you underestimate the vocal "minority" just like there can be so many of you pleased with what was presented people can easily be slighted the order way, having a different opinion doesn't make you a rare breed, it just makes you objective.

Or just blinded to your own subjective bias.

Anyways, Fire Emblem Warriors is predictably leading in sales this week (or was it for last week?) on the Japanese eShop.

https://news.nifty.com/article/entame/anime/12143-110173/

[Jave]

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1446149

Second week sales: 

- 3DS: 4.952 / 23.309

- Switch: 8.024 / 49.514

Yeah, that’s... not particularly good. 

[Jedi]

12 minutes ago, Jave said:

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1446149

Second week sales: 

- 3DS: 4.952 / 23.309

- Switch: 8.024 / 49.514

Yeah, that’s... not particularly good. 

Warriors sales are frontloaded, we aren't gonna see much beyond the 60k in Japan.

[YotsuMaboroshi]

For anyone comparing it with Hyrule Warriors, HW dropped to 15k in its second week (6th overall in sales).

This also appears to have been a slow week for the Japanese game market, as the highest selling game is only at 25k sales.

[guedesbrawl]

IIRC it's something about this being a week with no major releases and too close for a holiday (meaning, people would be better off waiting for sales and such)

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I'm curious how well it will do worldwide because this month is PACKED. Of course the only big Triple A game out on the same system as FEW is Mario but still, the strain on our wallets is real. 

[wissenschaft]

On 10/5/2017 at 11:14 AM, Alkaid said:

For all the people that keep criticizing the roster and blaming it for the sales of the game, I'd be curious to see just how much of a flop it might have been had they catered to non-3DS FE fans instead of what we got.

Outside of the echo chambers that most of the online FE communities are, a lot of the current fans don't care about any characters not from Awakening, Fates, or have appeared in Smash. (barring maybe Lyn) Aside a couple like Ike and Roy missing (and who knows, they could be individual DLCs still), I think the roster wasn't too bad if aiming for the overall casual fanbase which is still largely 3DS game-based.

I'd more so blame the bad PR leading up to release and the game just not looking as appealing to a lot of people. Not to mention that the jump in genre from FE gameplay to a musou. Now, I'm not gonna say if I agree that the sales are awful or not. They do look really low, but I don't follow how musou games do to tell how bad or decent this is. Going by the last few pages, it seems the jury's still out on that as well.

I'll say that when I first saw footage of the game I thought it looked like a cheap FE cash in, and with less quality than HW. But watching more of it I grew more interested and will probably pick it up for some simple fun. But I can see how a lot of people could have had a similar first impression and didn't go past that.(and again, this is aside from the roster complaints, I just mean how the game looked period)

Actually, if FE warriors was full of GBA/Tellus characters I think the game would have sold even less. FE fanbase just isn't that big. The older games sold less than the more recent 3ds game so it makes sense to try an capitalize on the popularity of the recent games.

Edited October 12, 2017 by wissenschaft

[Alkaid]

7 hours ago, wissenschaft said:

Actually, if FE warriors was full of GBA/Tellus characters I think the game would have sold even less. FE fanbase just isn't that big. The older games sold less than the more recent 3ds game so it makes sense to try an capitalize on the popularity of the recent games.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was saying. While people have been vocal about the roster here on Serenes and in other online FE communities, I just don't think it's the issue for why the sales aren't a lot bigger. I think the other reasons I listed are much bigger contributors.

[Folt]

Got this from GameFAQs: Koei Tecmo is expecting increased profits this year due to excellent sales of Nioh DLC and Fire Emblem Warriors. That should bring things into perspective.

I should note the GFAQs user posted a pdf dokument written in Japanese which is what's used as the proof, but I can't read Japanese so I'd appreciate it if someone who does could read it and confirm:

https://www.koeitecmo.co.jp/ir/docs/ird6_20171010.pdf

[wissenschaft]

16 hours ago, Jave said:

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1446149

Second week sales: 

- 3DS: 4.952 / 23.309

- Switch: 8.024 / 49.514

Yeah, that’s... not particularly good. 

Actually, those sells are pretty good. I expected a much bigger drop in the 2nd week. I'd say the sells so far are decent. Not great but not bad. So, its good news. Again, FE is a niche franchise that really isn't that big. The series tends to have low sells outside of the 3DS games and even then the gadien remake had kind of low sells comparable to the DS remakes. So I imagine the expectations for this game were low to big with.

If the cost of making FE warriors was suitably low then yeah, I can see this game making a good profit for Koei.

Edited October 12, 2017 by wissenschaft

[Cysx]

2 hours ago, wissenschaft said:

Actually, those sells are pretty good. I expected a much bigger drop in the 2nd week. I'd say the sells so far are decent. Not great but not bad. So, its good news. Again, FE is a niche franchise that really isn't that big.

Can we really say that still though, with how massively successful Heroes has been?

[thecrimsonflash]

1 hour ago, Cysx said:

Can we really say that still though, with how massively successful Heroes has been?

not really, It's a bit unfair to compare sales of a phone game to a console release.

with console games, you make one payment with  the possibility of dlc and that's about it.

with free to play games there is the possibility of individual people spending thousands by themselves, on top of about 60 percent of players spending at least 20 dollars only once and with an IP like fire emblem, people will likely download just for the name.

if anyone is comparing warriors to heroes in sales you have your expectations way too high.

edit: not to mention that heroes will still be supported for the next two years at least so people will have a reason to keep putting money into it.

Edited October 12, 2017 by thecrimsonflash
more to add

[Cysx]

14 minutes ago, thecrimsonflash said:

not really, It's a bit unfair to compare sales of a phone game to a console release.

with console games, you make one payment with  the possibility of dlc and that's about it.

with free to play games there is the possibility of individual people spending thousands by themselves, on top of about 60 percent of players spending at least 20 dollars only once and with an IP like fire emblem, people will likely download just for the name.

if anyone is comparing warriors to heroes in sales you have your expectations way too high.

But Heroes is a massive success for a Fire Emblem mobile app, so the different statuses are already accounted for. Would you have guessed it'd beat Super Mario run in profit, even with its more effective business model? I feel none of us would have. And for some reason, it more often than not gets ignored in arguments about Fire Emblem's weight as a series in favor of Awakening and Fates, even though at this point, many more people discovered the series through Heroes than any other past release, and more do every passing day. For a while it seems like it's been one of Nintendo's biggest money making machines, and that's a pretty big deal. Sure, whales are a thing, but take a look at any voting gauntlet, and you'll see that a lot of people play this game.

This wasn't about Warrior's sales per se, though it is true that one can only wonder why pretty much none of this success(I wasn't expecting most, but, not even a little?) translates to game sales. But no, I just don't understand why people act like Heroes is not a thing.