Sales figures?

[Nobiyuki77]

Are there any sales figures for LUNAR: Genesis yet? Is it selling well in Japan or is it doing the LUNAR GBA thing of selling virtually nothing?

[GhaleonOne]

I'm wondering the same thing. Though I expect the sales to be semi-poor honestly. I think it'll do far better here than it will there.

[Spirit Icana]

I believe Castlevania: DOS, Lost in Blue, and Lunar Genesis were all released on August 25th in Japan. A recent Media Create sales chart listed Castlevania #10 on the top ten chart, selling roughly 15,000 copies for it's first week or less.

Lunar Genesis and Lost in Blue were not present in the top ten.

[Vinnk]

According to the chart at my local video game store (Wanpaku in Nakatsu), Lunar is #18 this week in sales. (I belive they use Famitsu to make this cahrt as the other top ten correxpond to it.) Sorry I don't have an actual number for you.

[DevNall]

I believe Castlevania: DOS, Lost in Blue, and Lunar Genesis were all released on August 25th in Japan. A recent Media Create sales chart listed Castlevania #10 on the top ten chart, selling roughly 15,000 copies for it's first week or less.

I've heard Castlevania isn't all that popular in Japan. (Anyone know if that's true?)

Also, anyone else find it funny that both Castlevania and Lunar came out the same day in Japan, but Lunar will arrive here first? I'd guess Lunar has a lot more text...

[Rune Lai]

I doubt that's true since they've made so many installments of it. You don't make umpty-ump games of a franchise nobody buys. That's just a waste of time and effort. It might not be a blockbuster, but it's obviously a steady performer.

I don't really find the difference in release days to be anything surprising though. Each localization team is working on its own schedule and there's nothing that says a game must arrive in North America in a month, six months, or even two years after its release in Japan. Maybe Konami's translation staff was finishing up another game (Lost in Blue for example) so they couldn't start on Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow right away, whereas Ubisoft had the gap in their schedule at the right time. ::shrug::

[DevNall]

I doubt that's true since they've made so many installments of it. You don't make umpty-ump games of a franchise nobody buys. That's just a waste of time and effort. It might not be a blockbuster, but it's obviously a steady performer.

That's what I meant. Certainly if they weren't making money on it, they wouldn't continue. (Also in this case, I was only talking about the Japanese market; I don't know if it's the case with Castlevania, but certainly some Japanese-made games sell better in the US or Europe than they do there.)

[drumlord]

They make money on the Castlevania games because most of them are for portables so they can keep the staff small. The two recent console ones (one isn't out yet) are really mainly designed for the US audience to play. Castlevania does well enough in Japan, but nobody could ever say it's a hit there. DoS sold 15,000 its first week. That's just not that great. For contrast, Jump Super Stars for DS sold over 200,000 its first week. Brain Training, Nintendogs, and Super Mario 64 DS also performed that high. And several other games were between Castlevania and that range. Considering DoS is an awesome game, the only reason it didn't sell well is that the Japanese just don't care about Castlevania any more.

Edit: The lowest game on the newest top 10 is at 11,000, so Castlevania has sold under 26,000 in two weeks.

[Angelalex242]

Hmmm. It will get out of Japan, right?

[DevNall]

Hmmm. It will get out of Japan, right?

Castlevania DS?

It's already got a release date here. October 4th, I believe.