XIII Breaks Franchise Sales Record?

[Freya]

Guess it did.

Even despite some controversy, Final Fantasy XIII is selling well. Square Enix sent word today that the RPG has sold more than a million units in North America, in the five days following its March 9 launch. This makes it set the record for the best first-week sales in Final Fantasy history, which is no small feat considering the pedigree. The name still carries a lot of weight, even as the game is facing some negative feedback based on its departure from the traditional tropes of Japanese RPGs.

The news comes on the heels of last week's announcement that the company had shipped 3 million units to North America and Europe alone, helping the series as a whole cross 96 million units. The game is still readily available in stores and Square is shipping to retailers, so we should see a strong showing in the March NPD data. We may even find a tight race between it and PS3-exclusive God of War 3 for the month's top seller.

What do you think? Think it's worthy of this top sales thing?

[ANGRYWOLF]

I do expect it to outsell FFXII though.The name does carry weight.

[Raistlin]

Considering FFXIII wasn't a PS3 exclusive, this isn't very surprising (although half the world had a PS1 and PS2, not so much PS3).

[Freya]

Also I feel that the gaming industry has expanded since the previous games. You have that whole "casual gamer" thing and if they see a pretty game like XIII they will probably get it cause it's the neatest newest one.

[Suikojowy]

Makes sense considering video games as a whole are becoming more and more mainstream, as is the "Final Fantasy" brand, plus they've advertised this a lot more than any of their other games. It seems to be a lot of people's first Final Fantasy as well

[Nifleheim7]

I don't know if it's worthy or not since i haven't played it yet but it's definitely not surprising when you consider this was the first main FF that went multiplatform (excluding FFXI) and also the first that had a mutual release date for NA and EU.

Considering those two aspects i would say that it actually underperformed if you compare it with previous FF's that were exclusives and had different release dates for NA/EU.

[Shlup]

It's pretty. People like pretty things. I like pretty things!!

This is the first FF to come out on a system I own in a long time, so it's the first I've ever bought.

[Loony BoB]

I think the main thing is that it's being pushed. I've never seen so much advertising for an FF game, and I think it's great that they've done it. FFXI was always in the back seat to WoW and WoW advertised like absolutely nothing else - they still do, in fact. I think that advertising is pretty key to doing well in this day and age.

I think it's deserving enough. Not the best of the series, maybe, but right up there in my opinion. I hope it continues to sell well.

[Psychotic]

That's excellent news. And it's also likely to mean that any future FFs will be cross-platform.

[Rad Bromance]

It's a great game, I'm glad to hear so many people are getting to play it.

[Lightening]

Nifleheim7 makes a good point. we can't really compare these sales to previous sales.