Virtua Fighter 5 – Online Play = Fewer Sales?
Sales figures for Virtua Fighter 5 aren't exactly burning up the charts in Japan.
Published: February 11, 2007
According to a recent article in AkibaOS, early sales for Virtua Fighter 5 aren't exactly living up to expectations. This is a very unexpected bit of news for both Sega and Sony, since Virtua Fighter has remained one of the most popular arcade titles in Japan. What makes this story all the more disturbing was that the game was expected to really push PlayStation 3 hardware upon release in Japan.
It's no secret that PlayStation 3 hardware sales have generally been sluggish in Japan since the consoles' launch back in November. Part of the reason has had to do with the fact that many of the bigger and more notable Japanese titles for the console (Metal Gear Solid 4, Final Fantasy XIII) aren't expected to arrive until the end of this year. Incidentally, Virtua Fighter 5 was also supposed to be part of this list of games, since the success of the arcade game should have easily transferred over to the home version.
Or was it? As ironic as it would seem, perhaps it may have been the arcade game that was responsible for offsetting those sales. There have always been notable differences in playing a game at home versus playing it in the arcades - there is an added social element, and something about the environment that really adds a heavy dose of excitement into the game - this is particularly the case with fighting games, where often good matches will gain large audiences. While the arcade scene has slowed to a crawl in North America, it continues to thrive in Japan, with fighting games leading the charge. Perhaps VF gamers would simply rather play the game at their local arcades, in the comfortable environment that they know and trust.
Or perhaps it was the lack of online gameplay that contributed to the less-than-stellar sales. The arcade version features a full online component that allows gamers to play their opponents from other arcades across Japan. In the past, I have also heard of large scale VF competitions where players can actually see their opponents (from other arcades) over a monitor above the game unit. It is rather unfortunate that Sega chose to exclude the online component from the PS3 edition of the game.
This week was also a poor one for hardware sales in Japan, with sales of just about every console coming down from last week (ironically only the original "beefy" Nintendo DS managed to move up in sales). Sony moved 18,727 PlayStation 3 units and 17,540 PlayStation 2 units. What's most surprising here is that sales for Sony's portable PSP device actually came out higher than either system, at 31,216 units. As usual, the DS Lite lead in total sales for the week. Thanks to Media Create for these stats.
It's no secret that PlayStation 3 hardware sales have generally been sluggish in Japan since the consoles' launch back in November. Part of the reason has had to do with the fact that many of the bigger and more notable Japanese titles for the console (Metal Gear Solid 4, Final Fantasy XIII) aren't expected to arrive until the end of this year. Incidentally, Virtua Fighter 5 was also supposed to be part of this list of games, since the success of the arcade game should have easily transferred over to the home version.
Or was it? As ironic as it would seem, perhaps it may have been the arcade game that was responsible for offsetting those sales. There have always been notable differences in playing a game at home versus playing it in the arcades - there is an added social element, and something about the environment that really adds a heavy dose of excitement into the game - this is particularly the case with fighting games, where often good matches will gain large audiences. While the arcade scene has slowed to a crawl in North America, it continues to thrive in Japan, with fighting games leading the charge. Perhaps VF gamers would simply rather play the game at their local arcades, in the comfortable environment that they know and trust.
Or perhaps it was the lack of online gameplay that contributed to the less-than-stellar sales. The arcade version features a full online component that allows gamers to play their opponents from other arcades across Japan. In the past, I have also heard of large scale VF competitions where players can actually see their opponents (from other arcades) over a monitor above the game unit. It is rather unfortunate that Sega chose to exclude the online component from the PS3 edition of the game.
This week was also a poor one for hardware sales in Japan, with sales of just about every console coming down from last week (ironically only the original "beefy" Nintendo DS managed to move up in sales). Sony moved 18,727 PlayStation 3 units and 17,540 PlayStation 2 units. What's most surprising here is that sales for Sony's portable PSP device actually came out higher than either system, at 31,216 units. As usual, the DS Lite lead in total sales for the week. Thanks to Media Create for these stats.
