Dark Souls II - 1.2 Million Units Sold

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Gamasutra has an article that talks about Namco Bandai quarterly earnings, and it mentions Dark Souls II has sold 1.2 million units worldwide.

Although Namco Bandai's profits took a tumble during the last fiscal year, the company's video game business was, in fact, the only sector that saw a rise in earnings.

It was mainly the publisher's amusement machine business that caused the drop in profits, as it swung to losses. Video game sales were actually slightly up year-over-year, accounting for 84.9 billion yen ($833.9 million) compared to 84.4 billion yen ($829.1 million).

Dark Souls II in particular sold well for the company, with 1.2 million units sold worldwide. Meanwhile God Eater 2 managed 700,000 units sold in Japan, and Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z sold 620,000 units worldwide.
More information.
 
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2/3 of Dark Souls 2 sales were in Japan according to VGchartz. 1.2 million isn't bad, but this is a unique RPG with a high degree of polish. Why is this game going nowhere near Skyrim-like numbers?

I think most developers with big budgets will look at this an example of the price of not selling out. They could have marketed and made the game more accessible and easily have doubled the numbers with just a slightly different design focus. They put so much effort in to a complicated online interaction they were just sabotaging the reward for themselves by going with the prepare to die harder motto.

The game is cool, but I feel it is stuck in a mindset that died in the west in the 90's, where the game is out to beat you. The old-school rpg's like the Bard's Tale, Might and Magic, and Wizardies seemed to take pride in the fact only a tiny fraction of players would ever win the game. These games totally suck for that, though they were the best around in other areas.
 
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What makes you think that a game from a small company was going to have Skyrim numbers. Its a niche game for a niche market, for old school gamers who enjoy a hard game. Its cheaper to make and so the 1.2 million units sold is a bigger margin of profit. So no, it doesn't have to have Skyrim-like numbers to be a big success for the company.
 
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I'd like Skyrim and DS to meet somewhere in the middle. DS is an action game with RPG trappings. It's great, but I wish there'd be more RPing vs. killing 1,000 more monsters, rinse repeat. Awesome combat and design, little else.

Skyrim was a mile wide and an inch deep. Boring combat. But at least I felt like an entity instead of a guy running around killing things.
 
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2/3 of Dark Souls 2 sales were in Japan according to VGchartz. 1.2 million isn't bad, but this is a unique RPG with a high degree of polish. Why is this game going nowhere near Skyrim-like numbers?

It's not hard to figure out. The Souls games are obviously not aimed at the mainstream. The difficulty alone turns away a lot of average gamers.


The game is cool, but I feel it is stuck in a mindset that died in the west in the 90's, where the game is out to beat you. The old-school rpg's like the Bard's Tale, Might and Magic, and Wizardies seemed to take pride in the fact only a tiny fraction of players would ever win the game. These games totally suck for that, though they were the best around in other areas.

Pfft… put on your big-boy pants or go home. ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3rfAjpHOyI
 
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It's not hard to figure out. The Souls games are obviously not aimed at the mainstream. The difficulty alone turns away a lot of average gamers.
I adore nonmainstream games.
Yet I don't want to buy Dark Souls.

On the other hand, someone said Dark Souls in Japan is a success?
Oh, I know what type of games they like there. Thanks, but no thanks, I have a job already.

Nevertheless, over 1 million sold copies is a great number. Respect.
 
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I think the original sold much more than that... but I guess DS2 will keep sell for quite some time longer...
 
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I'd be very surprised if it did not do a lot better than the estimated one million on PC(*) that was floating around the nets a while back.

Particularly as it was hovering in the top selling charts on Steam for a while before its release.

(* Edit: That was for #1 and the estimations were from Ars Technica iirc. Anyways I believe we can expect the favorable reviews and overall good reception of the PC port to translate to a decent amount of PC sales this time around, and hopefully for them a significant amount will be outside the ultra sales that got me into the game in the first place ;) )
 
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It's not hard to figure out. The Souls games are obviously not aimed at the mainstream. The difficulty alone turns away a lot of average gamers.




Pfft… put on your big-boy pants or go home. ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3rfAjpHOyI

It's not hard to figure out that Dark Souls 2 is aimed at the Japanese audience as well. Of the dozen hairstyles, one is bald, one is balding, and the other 10 are various hipster Japanese fashions I have never seen on an American male.

Oh man whatever to your second comment. If an rpg nowadays had a finale that was a timed cryptographic puzzle (MM2), that game would get the proper coal raking it deserves. Hard games used to mean that no one beat them, now they mean everyone uses a guide or doesn't play it. I don't measure myself up to my idle amusements, DS II is just too full of itself and calls it being hardcore. It just means you need a guide to actually have fun.
 
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Oh man whatever to your second comment. If an rpg nowadays had a finale that was a timed cryptographic puzzle (MM2), that game would get the proper coal raking it deserves. Hard games used to mean that no one beat them, now they mean everyone uses a guide or doesn't play it. I don't measure myself up to my idle amusements, DS II is just too full of itself and calls it being hardcore. It just means you need a guide to actually have fun.

Yeah.. that must be it. When a game is too hard for you then everyone else must be using a guide to enjoy it. :)
 
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Burress said:
Hard games used to mean that no one beat them, now they mean everyone uses a guide or doesn't play it.

People have been buying the Hint Book since the late 80s. You have this one backwards, I think. Check this out:
aZI1hfc.png


No guide. NG++ clocked. All achievements. boom.

(screenshots include Ancient Dragon solo kill) =)
 
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People have been buying the Hint Book since the late 80s. You have this one backwards, I think. Check this out:
aZI1hfc.png


No guide. NG++ clocked. All achievements. boom.

(screenshots include Ancient Dragon solo kill) =)

Yeah I bought hint books back then too, that one didn't include the cryptographic solution for the end of MM2. If you happened for some reason to be incapable of figuring out that substitution cipher in 60 seconds, you spent over 100 hours to almost beat the game. Other games had guides which still didn't help with strange timed puzzles, spinners, teleporters, and dark areas, and other such things that have duly died out.

I played Bad Dudes back in the day. It taunted me, "Ninjas have kidnapped the president. Are you a bad enough dude to save the president?" I will never be the superlative bad dude because of this, that game was just too bad for me. Some dudes were bad enough for it and then some, and they would probably post their badness if they could.

My girlfriend missed the friggin Emerald Herald, who is half hidden from certain angles as she initially faces the cliff. She asked me 4 hours in to the game how to level up. That wasn't the game being ninja tough, it was just being bad.
 
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As far as side-scrolling beat 'em ups went, Dragon Ninja as it was called in Japan (and Australia for that matter) wasn't that hard actually. ;) I beat it on the arcade a couple of times in a nearby fish and chip shop back in the early 90s.
As a kid, I loved the back-kick to roundhouse combination! I was more disappointed the C64 conversion wasn't quite up to scratch. Still, like its predecessor Two Crude Dudes, they were eminently playable and plenty of fun to match. Some great memories too! I don't particularly have a problem with the game design either.

As for Dark Souls, a guide is not a requirement for everyone to enjoy the game. I'll just say that from personal experience. I think it's more on subsequent play through's to find missed content or gauge the consequences for a particular NPC story line, that checking a wiki is the more likely scenario for me. That's certainly what I did for the first game at any rate. Why spoil the mystery and appeal of learning for yourself?
 
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Discovery is the best part of souls games. A guide would ruin that.
 
So the game is hard and too obscure again, now ?! :D

I thought it was too easy and too transparent now! Can the people that need everything spoon fed to them go play something else already. I think I am starting to get a bit tired of all the griping so I'll make no excuses this time around :)

Update: The series is definitely a console franchise based on the ports. From Software has even agreed to make a new PS3 exclusive next instead of a multi-platform release.

I would guess it will be a PS4 one and the rumor has been floating around for ages (now with screens). Makes a lot of sense for them and for Sony really…

I am still academically curious what miyazaki was up to but I am more interested to see if they put him back on the helm of the next multiplatform one and what can he produce with a much bigger budget and team.
 
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I would guess it will be a PS4 one and the rumor has been floating around for ages (now with screens). Makes a lot of sense for them and for Sony really…

I am still academically curious what miyazaki was up to but I am more interested to see if they put him back on the helm of the next multiplatform one and what can he produce with a much bigger budget and team.

I meant the PS4 I corrected the mistake in the above post.:blush:

I actually agree it's probably the best thing for the developer as I said they do not make good PC ports. If I recall Demon Souls was exclusive to Sony a few years back.:thinking:
 
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I am perfectly satisfied with the technical state of DS2 although I understand that there are people out there facing problems.

I can't accept the bad port rap anymore I am afraid.

But Sony giving them a shitload of money for an exclusive (the platform seems to be in sore need of games) is a no-brainer. This may not be exactly a high profile system seller but the way the series have been steadily gaining exposure and sales (and in the PC apparently) means that if they pull this one off well it might be the game that puts them on the map, so to speak.

Success on the "Beast souls" or whatever they want to call it can only bode well for the next multiplatform souls game :)
 
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Personally, I haven't played DS 1 or the sequel not because of tales of difficulty, but rather for the fact that I don't like poor console ports and I refuse to buy a gamepad to play any game on PC.
 
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