More games released around the same time has more legs than this unfortunately (most noticable Momotarou Dentetsu DS: Tokyo & Japan that was released on the same date. That game was 22nd this week)
I won't be surprised if I don't see this game in the Media Create top 50 next week.
Japanese total so far is 486,713 according to Famitsu via gamefront.de. I have serious doubts whether NA and PAL regions can pull ~1.5 million copies to reach the predicted price of this stock.
Another point about this game is that it is a sequel (of sort). I think most of it would be sold to those who already have FFXII on PS2. Sure, few people will pick up this game even though they have never played FFXII before, but they are in the minority.
If we look at FFX and FFX-2, it's a similar situation, except for one major difference, X and X-2 are both on the PS2. Gamers didn't need to buy a new console to play X-2. Whereas for RW, gamers either already have a DS, or they will have to buy/rent/steal a DS to play.
So I'd say 95% of the worldwide sales will be sold to people who:
1) have played FFXII, and 2) have or have access to a DS, and 3) have the desire to buy this game.
This game has dropped out of the top 20 in Japan, it's now at 23rd, one spot behind Professor Layton (Media Create)! A train game (Momotarou Dentetsu DS: Tokyo & Japan, not listed on simExchange) that was released on the same day as FFXII:RW is back in the top 10! That is totally not what I expected. Apparently, there are more train lovers than FF fans in Japan.
Unfortunately, I can only see this game falling on the wayside in Japan much sooner than I have expected.
@lassiterb
I agree with you to a certain extend. Yes, US has an immense FF following (and so does Japan, if not more so), but historically, especially on the handheld, FF hasn't done as well as its TV cousins. Looking at the VGC, FFTA on the GBA sold 800K, while FFIII on the DS sold over 500K (and still going) (no data on other GBA games).
Granted, FFXII:RW is not strictly an RPG game (it's more of a RTS game), and US love RTS games. But 1.5M in the US alone? Not impossible, but no likely. As I've mentioned before, America is most likely to sell more copies than in Japan, but I wouldn't bank on it to sell over a million.
In my opinion, this game will easily move 2 million units in all territories combined, as sales will steadily continue in Japan even though it has been bumped from the top 10 already. The US alone has an immense Final Fantasy following, with fans who will rabidly purchase anything with the FF moniker on it. If the game receives decent reviews, I am banking on at least a million to 1.5 mil sold in the first year within the US alone.
As Starless has said, it went down another 6 spots last week.
That's a big drop for an FF game. I expected this game to stay in the top 10 for a while longer than just four weeks.
The way I see it now, sales from Japan will slow down, probably adding another 50-60K or so. America is going to sell more copies than Japan due to it being FF and RTS, both of which are popular in America. So it could sell about 6-700K. Europe is going to sell more or less the same as Japan, maybe a bit less. FF tended to sell less in Europe.
Unless it gets a disastrous review, it will move a decent amount. Even if it does get a bad review, gamers will still buy it for the FF factor. So I'm estimating around 1.6, 1.7 million copies. But 2 million is maybe too much.
In comparison with the other FF game on the DS, FFIII sold over half of its predicted sales in Japan alone. Unfortunately, it's not the same for FFXII:RW at the current pace.
This game definitely doesn't look like it has the legs of games like New Super Mario and Brain Age. I guess Revenant Wings failed to attract the casual DS japanese consumer and was just selling to the same old Final Fantasy fans. Final Fantasy games tend to have massive first week sales, then tail off quickly.
Also, I don't think the simplified RTS gameplay will be very appealing to US and PAL customers. In my opinion, the simplicity of the game was made to attract the casual Japanese customer alone, and it looks like it failed to do that. The difficulty of the game is apparently being tweaked, but I don't that'll be enough.
A Eurogamer first impression that does not seem especially warm toward the game, but at the same time they are not cool toward it. They like the battle system (they talk about it in detail) and think the game is visually beautiful, but they find the game much to easy, they think that since RTS games are not popular in Japan, an attempt was made to make it an easier game for new users.
4
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=167078
More games released around the same time has more legs than this unfortunately (most noticable Momotarou Dentetsu DS: Tokyo & Japan that was released on the same date. That game was 22nd this week)
I won't be surprised if I don't see this game in the Media Create top 50 next week.