Ben-DutkaWell, at least we know the franchise is still popular in Japan.
Tales of Xillia has only been available in the Land of the Rising Sun since September 8 and yet, Namco Bandai has managed to sell over 500,000 copies in that first week.
According to Tales Union , the latest RPG effort from Namco sold 525,605 units, which makes it the best-selling game of last week. JRPG fans have been hoping to hear word of a North American and European release but as of yet, there is no evidence that Tales of Xillia will break Japan's boundaries. The good news is that past iterations have found their way to the US and PAL territories, so maybe it's only a matter of time…
It would probably help if the game turned out to be a huge success in Japan. Even if that was expected, Namco might be more inclined to bring it to other audiences, you know?
Related Game(s): Tales of Xillia
The Japanese really love their RPGs, don't they? It's times like this that makes me want to be really fluent in Japanese just so I could play and enjoy the games that would never see the light of day in the west.
I kno… I'm about to get Rosetta Stone just to learn Japanese so i can play their JRPGs that don't make it stateside
Me also… I haven't spent much time looking in depth at the Rosetta Stone product for Japanese, is it spoken Japanese only, or does it cover some written?
Thanks for reminding me of Rosetta Stone. I actually have it but haven't had the time to use it yet. My friend in the US used the same program to learn Spanish and he said it's very useful. And since writing goes hand-in-hand with reading, I do hope too that it's covered in the said software.
Xillia's sales are impressive. If it releases here it will be a day one.
Nice sales. It's good to see a PS3 JRPG with strong sales for once. Perhaps the market is re-awakening?
With Tales of Graces F coming West, decent sales and interest in it should encourage Namco to being Xillia as well.
Good lord, lots of JRPG news this week.
Atelier Totori releases next week, WKC2 released yesterday, Fate/Extra comes later in the year, Tales of Graces F comes later, and Xillia sells well in it's first week. And of course, now we have news of the FFX HD remaster for PS3/Vita.
What a week! Is it finally time for the RPG to shine?
You forgot Disagea 4 and Rune Factory
Thank you! I knew I was forgetting more than one game. I just couldn't pull the names out of my head.
I'm actually watching a live stream of Tales of Xillia, it looks very good. I just can't understand any of it though. Lol
@ Highlander original comment
It's about time. Sheesh, what is it? 6-7years into the PS3's life span?
Played every game in the series so definitely crossing my fingers for a US release.
Probably the only RPGs that will ever really have big sales in North America will be the Elder Scrolls and Borderlands of the industry. FPS-RPG-Action Adventure types. The RPG genre is a mess but I think everyone agrees that that's the way it needs to be now
You think it's a mess and everyone agrees it should be?
What are you smoking, and how do I avoid it?
I don't agree it should be. Who knows what's waiting in store yet for us JRPG fans.
The way it should be is that RPG devs stop trying to please action junkies and go back to people who made them.
Good to see Namco Bandai avoid banruptcy due to bad rpg sales.
Its not the japanese rpg from NB that lacked popularity but the platform.
Maybe with these very good PS3 sales NB will understand that PS3 good and 360 bad when it comes to rpg sales.
The only mess is the bad choices NB made when going with 360 releases that sold very bad and came close to killing it as a games developer.
Last edited by Russell Burrows on 9/14/2011 12:40:40 PM
500,000 games = $30 million in sales (or whatever the appropriate figure in yen is), about 30-40% of that goes to the publisher/developer. So another week of sales like this, and they'll have sufficient revenue to make them wonder why they thought that the slush fund checks from Microsoft were so attractive in the first place. I just hope that they come to the appropriate realization.
@Highlander
In Japan the RPG is always shining unless its covered by the cloth of darkness made by Microsoft called the 360.
Now that in Japan the cloth of obscurity is dead!
Then it follows that Developers are discovering that PS3 users in Japan like RPG games.
Perhaps some will try and find that there are also PS3 RPG consumers in other Regions??
One can but hope.
this is great news. i love reading positive news about jrpgs and the japanese gamng industry.
I'd like to have faith in this game coming to NA. Hell, even an EU release would garter a special order from Amazon for me :p
YAY! It worked. >.>
I certainly hope that you're right Ben, and NB take this as a sign. If not, it's time to get to their HQ with picket signs. But then, I think that Graces F is a good sign that Xillia will eventually get here anyway.
Last edited by Lawless SXE on 9/14/2011 1:43:19 PM
Gimme.
Good news:)
WKCII just arrived in the mail!
Good News
am currently playing Tales of the Abyss am halfway through
Awesome! When Tales of Graces F gets here lets show Namco Bandai that there ARE PS3 JRPG consumers here in the west. They seem to be one of the Jrpg devs that become confused with the game industry/market when it comes to Jrpg's in the west. We have to make every effort to let them know that we are still here.