First, Famicom Wars does not sell in Japan. The previous Advance Wars sold only ~30k lifetime there. Neither of the GBA installments made it above ~100k IIRC. So basically, this number is relying on strong US sales and the nebulous "what if it does well in Europe" factor.
I think if you look at the kind of games on the DS that are doing well in Europe, Advance Wars does not fit whether or not it's shed the "kiddie look". European charts are very homogeneous and for the most part filled with traditionally popular franchises to a degree even higher than North American charts. In terms of DS games, Cooking Mama, Brain Training, and Brain Training 2 are the only games that have had Top 10 staying power. I have no doubt that AWDS2 could pull 100k in Europe, but I highly doubt the 300-500k necessary to justify this worldwide lifetime price could come from Europe.
In the American side, there are also several factors counting against it. It's a January release; one of the two or three worst months of the year. The AW games have not historically had legs, either. Obviously, I can't post NPD data to confirm this, but sufficed to say: a) AWDS sold the vast majority of its units within the first few months, and b) It didn't sell phenomenally. I also think that the "gritty look" might backfire a little. It'll lose the sales to kids who think it's a kids game (not that it ever was), but I'm not really sure it'll gain many new series converts. I do think some people who played the GBA installments and skipped AWDS will come back for this one, but I don't think it'll be enough to pick up the slack.
In addition, I'm not sure the online feature will be huge. As we know from the weekly NeoGAF Nintendo WiFi connection statistics, very few games have frequent use of Wifi. Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Pokemon DP, Strikers, and Guitar Hero 3 are pretty much the only games that have reliably continued to have a large amount of WiFi usage. I see WiFi play amongst friends as being popular, but I doubt a sales-blossoming community will form around the feature.
I do think that 63-66 DKP is a more realistic estimate. Please consider all of this before investing in what I feel is a massively overinflated stock. Since the game will not hit 1 million, we will never see it mentioned in Nintendo's earnings release (which generally includes a list of million-shipping titles) and so it's highly highly unlikely that the correction I predict for this stock will occur soon. I think there will be a massive reactionary drop as Japanese numbers reveal the game bombing and casual investors react accordingly, although it's telling that there isn't even a confirmed Japanese date yet.
There will be a bounce if the game does alright in the NPD figures, but given that it's an end-of-month release, the idea that it will even chart is pretty unlikely and this makes the verifiability of the stock dependent on the mercy of NPD giving it out as part of its non-charting data release to sites.
I see it another way. The first Advance Wars DS was released more than two years ago, the DS's install base was much smaller. Vgchartz also does not include numbers from Europe or Australia, so you have to take that into account. Also, how do you know if they were more or less reliable for data back then? From all that I think that Advance Wars DS sold more than the figure Vgchartz has on their site.
For this game I don't think 800k+ is unreasonable. This game looks to shed the kiddie look of the past games and go for a more realistic look, something that will help it appeal to more people (especially those who pick up strategy games). I think this game will be marketed more heavily in Europe (than the last game), increasing numbers there (this game was first revealed at an event in Paris). The new features, especially WiFi support and the ability to upload created levels to a server, will greatly help this game when it comes to sales, if the features work out as promised this could be one of the better WiFi games, and adding online into any game helps it (the first Advance Wars DS did not have online support).
From all this I think that 800k+ sales over its lifetime don't seem unreasonable, the series already has a devoted following (I already know I'm going to pick this one up); this game has added many much needed features (WiFi support amongst others); this game has returned the series to its roots, gone are the over the top CO powers; it is being released after the holiday season, so it won't get lost in the crowd; and finally, the DS's install base has grown tremendously since the first Advance Wars DS game came out. This game should be 80DKP +.
VGChartz has the first DS iteration at 330k. Yeah, I know, VGChartz. This is actually more troubling since that site is historically bullish on its estimates.
The game is a niche genre as shown by the sales of the first iteration. A 100% increase over a most probably bullish figure is extremely doubtful.
Trading is now up, I will try to find solid data on the first Advance Wars DS game (in response to lstormy10's queries).
I have been a fan of Advance Wars for a long time now and this change of tone is welcome. I thought that the powers were getting out of hand (Dual-Strike ability was broken in some ways) and this return to realism is welcome. Listening to one of the interviews, you can see that Intelligent Systems thought so also. Hopefully they have some more features up their sleeve that they have not yet told us, but the minute I heard that you would be able to go online, upload maps and rate other people's maps I was sold. Hopefully you can finally have more than 3 maps saved at one point. Overall this is looking good, can't wait to hear more information.
This stock could end up as a nice buy opportunity depending on what the sales of Advance Wars: Dual Strike were (because of the added boost of Wi-fi to the sales of an Advance Wars title that is bound to happen), have you been able to find any sales numbers for Advance Wars: Dual Strike?
4
First, Famicom Wars does not sell in Japan. The previous Advance Wars sold only ~30k lifetime there. Neither of the GBA installments made it above ~100k IIRC. So basically, this number is relying on strong US sales and the nebulous "what if it does well in Europe" factor.
I think if you look at the kind of games on the DS that are doing well in Europe, Advance Wars does not fit whether or not it's shed the "kiddie look". European charts are very homogeneous and for the most part filled with traditionally popular franchises to a degree even higher than North American charts. In terms of DS games, Cooking Mama, Brain Training, and Brain Training 2 are the only games that have had Top 10 staying power. I have no doubt that AWDS2 could pull 100k in Europe, but I highly doubt the 300-500k necessary to justify this worldwide lifetime price could come from Europe.
In the American side, there are also several factors counting against it. It's a January release; one of the two or three worst months of the year. The AW games have not historically had legs, either. Obviously, I can't post NPD data to confirm this, but sufficed to say: a) AWDS sold the vast majority of its units within the first few months, and b) It didn't sell phenomenally. I also think that the "gritty look" might backfire a little. It'll lose the sales to kids who think it's a kids game (not that it ever was), but I'm not really sure it'll gain many new series converts. I do think some people who played the GBA installments and skipped AWDS will come back for this one, but I don't think it'll be enough to pick up the slack.
In addition, I'm not sure the online feature will be huge. As we know from the weekly NeoGAF Nintendo WiFi connection statistics, very few games have frequent use of Wifi. Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Pokemon DP, Strikers, and Guitar Hero 3 are pretty much the only games that have reliably continued to have a large amount of WiFi usage. I see WiFi play amongst friends as being popular, but I doubt a sales-blossoming community will form around the feature.
I do think that 63-66 DKP is a more realistic estimate. Please consider all of this before investing in what I feel is a massively overinflated stock. Since the game will not hit 1 million, we will never see it mentioned in Nintendo's earnings release (which generally includes a list of million-shipping titles) and so it's highly highly unlikely that the correction I predict for this stock will occur soon. I think there will be a massive reactionary drop as Japanese numbers reveal the game bombing and casual investors react accordingly, although it's telling that there isn't even a confirmed Japanese date yet.
There will be a bounce if the game does alright in the NPD figures, but given that it's an end-of-month release, the idea that it will even chart is pretty unlikely and this makes the verifiability of the stock dependent on the mercy of NPD giving it out as part of its non-charting data release to sites.