Lightning, oooh why? Why you look so sad? Tears are in your eyes. Come on come to me now. Don't be ashamed to cry. However, unfortunately m'dear, it seems like Japanese gamers aren't willing to stand by you anymore.
The pink haired heroine as has long been toted by Square Enix as one of their favourite characters. It seems, though, that the love affair may have ended. Lightning Returns: FINAL FANTASY XIII launched to an incredibly low amount of sales in Japan this week. Just 277,082 physical copies were sold. To put that into perspective, that's just under 50% lower than FINAL FANTASY XIII-2's 524,217 week one sales. FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 itself was also a significant drop form the 1,501,964 copies that the original FINAL FANTASY XIII sold.
These are probably not the type of figures that Square Enix are hoping for. It's worth nothing that this is exceptionally gloomy as all of these figures are just for sales of the physical copy of the PlayStation 3 version and don't include XBOX 360 sales (which has a very low market share in Japan), or, digital downloads. The XBOX 360 version didn't even sell well enough to rank in the Japanese charts.
Considering the lack of hype on these shores for this title, I can't say I'm surprised. I wonder if Square Enix will engage in far more aggressive marketing strategies ahead of the North American and European launchers. However with the next-gen consoles here, I suspect sales on this side of the globe will be fairly low too.
So, this was far from a fitting swansong for Lightning. Love her or hate her, she's been a staple of the franchise for the best part of nearly 10 years now. It'll be interesting to see what lessons Square Enix take from this.
[Source: ?LIGHTNING RETURNS?27?7000?????????? 3D??????10?????????????????????????????? - 4Gamer.net ]
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