Over 100,000 in the first week

[Kiddo]

Has it been the trend for Fire Emblem to have "steady" sales like this? From the earlier discussion I'm getting the impression that this is surprassing sales expectations.

[Ike-Mike]

Indeed, Fire Emblem has always been an extremely front-loaded series.

This is the first time a FE game is showing potential to be an 'evergreen' title.

[Blademaster!]

Indeed, Fire Emblem has always been an extremely front-loaded series.

This is the first time a FE game is showing potential to be an 'evergreen' title.

What do you mean by evergreen title? I have never heard such a term before.

[Parrhesia]

What do you mean by evergreen title? I have never heard such a term before.

I assume he means sales remain more or less constant, instead of drastically falling after the first couple weeks or so.

[El Rey León]

I assume he means sales remain more or less constant, instead of drastically falling after the first couple weeks or so.

So.....is good, yes?

[Flashpoint_1230]

I was hoping for a Holiday release for New Mystery. Shadow Dragon took about six months to be localized in English, so that same time span would put FE3DS at a Holiday release. I think that Nintendo Power had something about a release date, but I forget when it was. Anyway, sales haven't dropped off so fast for FE3DS as they did for SD, but FE3 was a fan favorite in Japan. Oh, and according to VGChartz, New Mystery hasn't dropped out of the Japan top 10 in its first four weeks. It's at #7 right now.

Edited August 14, 2010 by Flashpoint_1230

[Pineapple]

To all you guys who talk about how much the install base matters, you do realize that it's the games that sell a console and not the other way around?

No, I don't "realize that", as it's not in any way that simple at all.

Indeed, Fire Emblem has always been an extremely front-loaded series.

This is the first time a FE game is showing potential to be an 'evergreen' title.

No it isn't. I hate to be pessimistic, but FE12 has practically no chance of becoming anything alike an evergreen title. It's pretty much decreasing at the same pace as FE6 and FE7 did in Japan. (FE8 was more front loaded, FE9 and FE10 sold less in Japan), FE11 behaved rather strangely with 5,000 in its 3rd week, then 21,000 in week 4).

It's looking to sustain its sales slightly better than Shadow Dragon, and that's great, but it's nowhere near being an evergreen title. Quite simply, it's going to sell around 40% of its sales in the first week. That's far from being a well legged title.

I'd say FE12 is prone to become the 4th best selling FE in Japan, beating FE7-FE11. (It's currently at 220,000. FE8 is the best selling of FE7-11 and sold 300,000. FE6 sits at 390,000, and I'd say it's unlikely to reach that.

[shadowjam]

sales chart for this week

^ I wonder if the absence of fe12 in the above top 10 charts in Japan, combined with the recent holiday release schedule for upcoming Nintendo games in the US(shown here), as well as the silence from Nintendo of Europe's holiday release schedule(with an semi-official confirmation on that claim here), made this message to us from Nintendo possible: "Fire Emblem 12 is not holiday-season-worthy, so you're not going to get it on Christmas, but maybe after Christmas"... :(

^ I wonder if we have to wait until the games get slapped with the additional labeling of "Also compatible with 3DS" on the back side of the game package, just like they did with FE:TSS when the NDS first came out, before we ever get word of an official game title translation, adjusted price, and release date for FE12... Makes me wonder if they might go with the "Japan-only" stance, which they showed from FEs 1-6 back in the Famicom/Super Famicom days, for FE12... I hope that's not the case, given we already got FE:SD, so why aren't we getting word about an English version of FE12? Is it due to the sales?

^ Off-topic, but might be a factor in terms of English version status: I wonder if one of Akaneia Saga's trademarks is the reason why they are waiting to give us the information, and that if they don't find a way to make an agreement with WOWOW(which formally held St. GIGA, which is one of the co-makers for Akaneia Saga, before St. GIGA went out of business) on filing for a US trademark, we might either not get this game outside of Japan due to trademark issues, or the Akaneia Saga chapters will be taken out of all non-Japanese versions of FE12. This is a similar scenario to what happened to DK64, due to the Jetpac inclusion, as Jetpac is trademarked by Rare, Rare was bought by Microsoft after completion of DK64, and now DK64 cannot be remade due to that little detail called Jetpac. I hope a similar scenario does not happen to FE12 outside of Japan due to the little details, and, if it is released, I hope the BS chapters will not have to be taken out of the English version... :(

^ I apologize for the off-topic comments, but due to the poor FE12 sales this week compared to the previous 4 weeks, it made me wonder if Nintendo is contemplating second thoughts about whether to bring FE12 here, and whether the Japanese sales are a factor at all in such FE12 decision-making... I thought it was doing well, until today's report. I know that it's not selling as good as its older SNES brother in its time, but sinking below the top 10 to the bottom two of the top 15 after being present in the top 10 for 1 month, with that one month being a down month for the gaming industry overall?

I hope they release it here in some form, and I don't want to wait too long for information on when they will do so. I'm not impatient, but I believe that if there's not an issue with any part of this game, then they should release the title for its next release country soon, but I guess it's up to them to decide when to do so...

Edited August 20, 2010 by shadowjam

[Parrhesia]

There is no reason they would not bring FE12 here. Any fears about this are unfounded. Why cut us off arbitrarily, barring legal issues?

If they brought over FE11, to at least modest success, and this is doing better, at least temporarily, it's coming.

Edited August 20, 2010 by Agent Dale Cooper

[Rewjeo]

They brought FEs 9&10 over, and those had awful sales in Japan. When this one is doing so much better than most (all?) of the other games that have come to America, not bringing it here makes no sense.

[Pineapple]

I wouldn't be too worried, Shadowjam. By VGChartz data, it ranked 15th this week with 12,700 copies sold. The rest of that data also fits in perfectly with the Media Create numbers.

Which means that FE12's sales so far are (again, VGChartz numbers)

Week 1: 142,000

Week 2: 37,500

Week 3: 21,000

Week 4: 16,400

Week 5: 12,700

5 week total: 230,000

Let's do a comparison to the other Fire Emblems that released in the west.

Here are the first 5 week totals.

Blazing Sword: 233,000

Sacred Stones: 243,000

Path of Radiance: 144,000

Radiant Dawn: 122,000

Shadow Dragon: 208,000

Light and Shadow: 230,000

In other words, the total is pretty much in line with the other handheld versions. (The console versions did worse in Japan, but far better than the handheld ones outside of it. I doubt FE12 will reach Radiant Dawn's 300,000 + outside of Japan).

As for the legs (that's how well the game holds up over time, essentially), the week 5 of the other titles:

Blazing Sword: 14,500

Sacred Stones: 12,800

Path of Radiance: 3,600

Radiant Dawn: 7,300

Shadow Dragon: 16,000 (but this one acted very strangely, just 2 weeks later it was down to 6,600. Essentially, it's holding up on par with Light and Shadow)

Light and Shadow: 12,700

All in all, FE12 is pretty much keeping up just as well as the other handheld ones that released in the rest of the world did. There's no reason to worry. An Americas release is dead on certain.

A Europe release isn't completely certain. None of the Fire Emblem games have done very well in Europe (only Radiant Dawn might have reached 50,000 +), and the financial crisis has made the software sales drop by over 1/3rd. Europeans also have less of a history of buying games for an "outdated" machine, as the DS soon will be.

Realistically, over half of any future Fire Emblem's sales will be from outside of Japan. There's no way they're not going to translate it to English.

[shadowjam]

I wouldn't be too worried, Shadowjam. By VGChartz data, it ranked 15th this week with 12,700 copies sold. The rest of that data also fits in perfectly with the Media Create numbers.

Which means that FE12's sales so far are (again, VGChartz numbers)

Week 1: 142,000

Week 2: 37,500

Week 3: 21,000

Week 4: 16,400

Week 5: 12,700

5 week total: 230,000

Let's do a comparison to the other Fire Emblems that released in the west.

Here are the first 5 week totals.

Blazing Sword: 233,000

Sacred Stones: 243,000

Path of Radiance: 144,000

Radiant Dawn: 122,000

Shadow Dragon: 208,000

Light and Shadow: 230,000

In other words, the total is pretty much in line with the other handheld versions. (The console versions did worse in Japan, but far better than the handheld ones outside of it. I doubt FE12 will reach Radiant Dawn's 300,000 + outside of Japan).

As for the legs (that's how well the game holds up over time, essentially), the week 5 of the other titles:

Blazing Sword: 14,500

Sacred Stones: 12,800

Path of Radiance: 3,600

Radiant Dawn: 7,300

Shadow Dragon: 16,000 (but this one acted very strangely, just 2 weeks later it was down to 6,600. Essentially, it's holding up on par with Light and Shadow)

Light and Shadow: 12,700

All in all, FE12 is pretty much keeping up just as well as the other handheld ones that released in the rest of the world did. There's no reason to worry. An Americas release is dead on certain.

A Europe release isn't completely certain. None of the Fire Emblem games have done very well in Europe (only Radiant Dawn might have reached 50,000 +), and the financial crisis has made the software sales drop by over 1/3rd. Europeans also have less of a history of buying games for an "outdated" machine, as the DS soon will be.

Realistically, over half of any future Fire Emblem's sales will be from outside of Japan. There's no way they're not going to translate it to English.

Thank you for the relief.

I was puzzled when I saw the #14 spot on MC being FE12, and I thought that since it was a down month for gaming, I thought FE12 sunk below 5,000-7,500 for the week reported yesterday. It got me wondering if FE12's English/American release might be in the trash for some reason. Well, I'm not worried about that anymore, as that thought is now proven premature. However, my fears on some parts might still be reasonable, do you think so? I mean, there may be a trademark issue regarding some minor parts of FE12 such as the BS chapters, as mentioned on my previous post, but FE12 in the States is still on for release(regardless of whether or not Japan buys it now and contributes to the charts), which will most likely occur next year...

Edited August 20, 2010 by shadowjam

[Kiddo]

Thank you for the relief.

I was puzzled when I saw the #14 spot on MC being FE12, and I thought that since it was a down month for gaming, I thought FE12 sunk below 5,000-7,500 for the week reported yesterday. It got me wondering if FE12's English/American release might be in the trash for some reason. Well, I'm not worried about that anymore, as that thought is now proven premature. However, my fears on some parts might still be reasonable, do you think so? I mean, there may be a trademark issue regarding some minor parts of FE12 such as the BS chapters, as mentioned on my previous post, but FE12 in the States is still on for release(regardless of whether or not Japan buys it now and contributes to the charts), which will most likely occur next year...

I have faith that IntSys resolved any and all copyright concerns involving the release of the BSFE Chapters on DS with the international release in mind. In fact, it's possible they didn't even really collide with the legal issues, since they'd most likely be related to Music and Seiyuu which aren't even used in the DS version.

[Pineapple]

Ooof, that's not good!

Data for the week ending the 22nd August puts New Mystery of the Emblem at 18th place with 7000 sold. From the 12,700 last week, that's a far, far too large drop for my liking.

Here's the week 6 sales of the localised Fire Emblem games.

FE7: 14,500

FE8: 6,200

FE9: 2,800

FE10: 4,300

FE11: 9,200

FE12: 6,950

The running total after 6 weeks is thus

Blazing Sword: 247,500

Sacred Stones: 249,200

Path of Radiance: 146,800

Radiant Dawn: 128,300

Shadow Dragon: 210,200

New Mystery of the Emblem: 237,000

From week 6 and on, Shadow Dragon sold 63,000. Now, Shadow Dragon seems to have legged slightly better than New Mystery of the Emblem. We're definitely looking at FE12 ending in the 285,000-310,000 sold in Japan, but now the lower-end seems more likely. It's going to end right on par with FE7, FE8 and FE11 in Japan. Probably slightly below FE8, and possibly below FE7.

Still, with drops like this, it could end even lower than 285,000.

[shadowjam]

Ooof, that's not good!

Data for the week ending the 22nd August puts New Mystery of the Emblem at 18th place with 7000 sold. From the 12,700 last week, that's a far, far too large drop for my liking.

Here's the week 6 sales of the localised Fire Emblem games.

FE7: 14,500

FE8: 6,200

FE9: 2,800

FE10: 4,300

FE11: 9,200

FE12: 6,950

The running total after 6 weeks is thus

Blazing Sword: 247,500

Sacred Stones: 249,200

Path of Radiance: 146,800

Radiant Dawn: 128,300

Shadow Dragon: 210,200

New Mystery of the Emblem: 237,000

From week 6 and on, Shadow Dragon sold 63,000. Now, Shadow Dragon seems to have legged slightly better than New Mystery of the Emblem. We're definitely looking at FE12 ending in the 285,000-310,000 sold in Japan, but now the lower-end seems more likely. It's going to end right on par with FE7, FE8 and FE11 in Japan. Probably slightly below FE8, and possibly below FE7.

Still, with drops like this, it could end even lower than 285,000.

^ And for the week ending 8/29, according to MC, FE12 is at...

...spot no. #24 with less than 6,142 copies sold for the week, with the exact figures for those below the top 20 yet to come! How disappointing... :(

^ Well, there's always next week, don't you think so, Pineapple?

Edited September 3, 2010 by shadowjam

[Rewjeo]

Note that that's not even 1,000 fewer copies than the previous week, though.

[shadowjam]

Note that that's not even 1,000 fewer copies than the previous week, though.

well, it appears that vgcharts agrees with you, as the difference of sales between last week and this one amounts to almost 500 copies in the negative, with the word "negative" meaning it sold less than it did last week... If it sold just 14 copies less than it really did, I'd be really disappointed...

Edited September 3, 2010 by shadowjam

[Pineapple]

By VGChartz data, FE12 sold 5,637 copies for the week ending the 29th. That's not too bad. A drop of 500 copies means an 8% drop. Bad news is... The drop is that small because last week's poor sales were in fact even poorer. It didn't sell 6950 copies last week, but rather 6150. It's also had around 2000 subtracted from the previous weeks.

Not only that, but the numbers for the past Fire Emblems have been updated too. Well, something has happened there at any rate, because the numbers have changed a bit. The major chance is Shadow Dragon, which has gone from being credited nearly 30,000 copies after week 20 (for some reason, VGChartz stops counting the FE games after 20 weeks) to just 8,000. It's almost definitely closer to correct now.

So after 7 weeks, the standings are (I'm not going to bother updating Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn anymore, as they're ages behind in Japan and not really relevant anymore)

Blazing Sword: 247,800

Sacred Stones: 254,600

Shadow Dragon: 240,500

New Mystery of the Emblem: 239,700

The amount sold in the 7th week:

FE7: 9,602

FE8: 4,711

FE11: 6,667

FE12: 5,637

From week 7 and out, the games sold this much

FE7: 45,000

FE8: 54,000 (note that FE8 was launched in Octobre. It received a christmas boost later on that FE12 won't get)

FE11: 33,000

FE7 saw a dropoff of roughly a third from week 7 to week 8, and from there it drops from 6,000 to 2,000 in 6 weeks. That's an average of a nearly 20% dropoff.

FE8 did, as mentioned, have a christmas coming up around week 12, so it boosted up to 8,500 copies again then, but then died off nearly instantly, selling around 5,000 copies from week 16 and out. The christmas didn't boost its sales a lot, they just came sooner.

FE11 dropped from 6600 to 2000 in just 5 weeks. That's an average dropoff per week of over 20%.

Any week for FE12 that's under 10% lower than its previous week seems quite decent. A 10% dropoff per week would lead to around 50,000 more copies sold. That's quite nice, all things considered.

So this week's dropoff is fine. My guess now is that FE12 will end below FE7 and FE8 in Japan, but above FE5, FE9, FE10 and FE11 there.

[shadowjam]

...And it's official:

I doubt I'd be willing to look at MC again for FE:NM's weekly sales, as on Week 8 of its run, according to the only data given right now(top 20), FE:NM's sales are semi-officially drying up. I mean, less than 5,518 copies(amount of copies sold for a competitor game by the name of "Portable Hakuouki Essays", which is at the no. 20 spot)??!

Oh, Nintendo, what are waiting for to announce a US release date for this game? The 3DS? This is getting worrisome!!!

At this rate, provided they're not panicking about a Thanksgiving 3DS release in the US or something similar that might force them to port or hurry up, given that the 3DS is a true successor to the DSi XL(nothing's official though, but we might still get FE:NM on DSi, although the signs don't look promising in my opinion, which include a sign of a contrast to 5-6 years ago, when the DS1 was released, as it wasn't officially declared to be a successor to the GBA, so games still came to the GBA despite the DS1's release(including FE:TSS), but as time wore on, the DS handheld sales went up, and people realized the potential and went away from the GBA, paving the way for the DS to become the successor of the aforementioned GBA),but regardless, I'd say that the only obvious solution that would finally cancel out this game's slide on these charts is finding a way to releasing the game to the States, preferably before Ninty's Japanese division starts to lose money on the game(don't worry, not overall, just individual product-wise) by its lack of sales. But will it have to come down to that just to rejuvenate sales?:

Proof of chart:

Sales chart

^ :(

EDIT: Even worse, vgchartz says 3,866 sold for FE:NM for the week ending on 9/4(drop of one percentage point more than 30% from last week). I wonder if Ninty waited a little bit too long to at least announce a date, if only to stop its bad slide. The best we can hope for now is either a date for American and/or Europe release, or official confirmation that FE:NM is Japanese-only.. :(

Edited September 11, 2010 by shadowjam

[Kiddo]

Last I heard, the 3DS was not being set to be released this year. It won't be out by Thanksgiving when we don't even have confirmation of it's price tag.

[Wifi-Noob]

have they released the englished version/released the release date i really want to buy it ;_; i want to be the most awesome FE Char

[Esaka]

Trust me, there'd be an insane amount of topics if there was one. We'll have to wait, I'm sure it will be released in the US, if not, then we wait for the epic fans to do a translation.