Besides Resistance: Fall of Man and the recently released Virtua Fighter 5 , no PS3 game has managed to even crack a top 10 sales list anywhere, any time. But the first gigantic seller for the system might be right around the corner…and if history is any indication, it will only make a minor splash in the U.S.
Next week, Gundam Musou launches in Japan – along with the Musou PS3 bundle – and according to Bandai Namco and Koei, they expect to see a huge return on their investment. The developer/publisher tandem held an insiders-only event in Tokyo this morning to chat about the Gundam / Dynasty Warriors marriage, and Koei co-founder Keiko Erikawa made one very bold statement.
"We've made a fantastic game," he said. "Gundam Musou is the most ordered PlayStation 3 game, but it's just one tenth of the sales we're thinking of. For us, Bandai's Gundam is one million, and the Musou series is one million. We'd like to sell a total of two million copies."
Since then, a Bandai Namco representative has lowered that optimistic prediction to a more realistic one million, but even so, it's still an ambitious goal. We're wondering just how "fantastic" this game is, and if it's really that good, perhaps the U.S. might actually contribute to the goal. If not, it's gonna be all Japan.
Sony Chairman Ken Kutaragi was also at the event, and he had this to say regarding Gundam Musou :
"Second generation software has already come out. While a variety of things were said early on, including that development is difficult, we've already crossed into the second generation in half a year."
And as an offshoot to the Gundam discussion, Kutaragi worked in a quick plug for the upcoming European PS3 launch, saying they had already shipped a million systems. At this point, considering the launch is still a month away, we'll assume he just means a million systems are ready, and haven't actually "shipped" to retailers. But it's still good news for Euro gamers. As for this "second-generation" PS3 title, we're just itching to see if Musou can toss off the shackles of such terrible previous Gundam installments.
Related Game(s): Gundam Musou