Fire Emblem: Awakening Breaks Franchise Sales Records

[MrMan999]

Well I'm glad to see that Fire Emblem might just become another Heavy Hitter here in the US. Now if only they could release Earthbound on the VC.

 

[tabristhegreat]

as an australian i must say im incredibly jealous of anyone whos already played awakening...i still have to wait till april -_- still glad this game sold so well maybe it'll encourage nintendo to port more games in the future

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

It's not out until next month in the UK :[

Ah well, I couldn't afford it now anyway. I'll have lots of moneys by the time it's out!

Glad to see it's doing well. And I'm glad to see a few hundred thousand copies being called a success. Requiring multiple millions of sales for your profits just isn't sustainable (unless you're CoD).

 

[Terramax]

Well, expect this to be yet another franchise Nintendo plans to run to the ground.

The question on every bodies mind is:

If Legion wanted to get rid of their Xbox, would it be worth trading it in for a 3DS with the game when it releases in April?

In a word, no. Having owned a 3DS, whilst it has a couple of half decent titles, it's not enough to warrant trading another console for, which has a massive library of great games for.

Also, depending on your taste in games, I would actually more likely recommend a PS Vita.

 

[PunkRex]

Im in the UK so its a no go till next month but im so getting this. My only beef is its lack of 'veteran warrior' characters. I know JRPG's have this thing for youngsters in armour but Fire Emblem always seemed to have at least several actual soilder looking characters but I only counted about 3 in this one, with the rest being the standard bunch of maid-uniform wearing young adults scowling at the camera. Still, im a sucker for romances and the marriage tree has me squeeing like a brides maid...

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

So you mean the first game in the series to get an actual marketing push outside of Japan is also the fastest selling? Who'da thunk? You can't expect anybody to buy something if they don't know it exists, that's kind of why advertising exists in the first place. I bought a copy of The Sacred Stones back in the day thanks to word of mouth, and Shadow Dragon later on because I found it cheap, but I'm an outlier, as evidenced by the fact that I'm posting this on a gaming message board. I've been seeing actual TV ads for the new one, while the closest thing I'd seen to advertising for the series up to that point had been Marth and Ike being in the Super Smash Bros. games, which I guess increased awareness that the series existed, but not by much. And it certainly didn't do much to let people know that there were entries available outside of Japan.

Anyway, good on Nintendo for this. SRPGs are a genre that don't get enough love, and Fire Emblem is one of the major staples. Now if only the licensing issues on the majority of the Super Robot Wars games could be dealt with...

 

[Souplex]

This would be the first Fire Emblem game with some actual advertising in the US.
I guess this means if you actually bother to let people know something exists, they'll buy it.
Who knew?

 

[Norix596]

See what you can accomplish when you actually spend money marketing a game that usually only has a niche audience?

 

[scotth266]

Isn't that picture a spoiler? I wouldn't know, not having played the game.

 

[CleverCover]

thank goodness it got such a great welcome. It's a really fun and interesting game. I love that game to pieces and it's always great to have a game I can discuss with my siblings. I would have loved to buy the bundle to show even more support, but I didn't have enough money.

I hope they make more games like this and that it proves we're a viable market in the west!

 

[TJC]

Glad to see Fire Emblem do so well. I personally found Awakening to have the best gameplay and army/unit customization of all the games I've played although I did find it a bit annoying that some of the gear like the long-range spell tomes and the weapons that reverse the weapon triangle weren't put into the game.

Hopefully we can see re-releases of older titles like Fire Emblem 6.

Wait... NO REAVERS?! BOOOOO! (actually, I've never really used 'em because I found them to be quite shitty). Still, them sharpshooting magicks are actually missed. :/
Also, no, FE6 feels boring. The mission structure is painfully repetitive and the characters weren't just as fun and interesting as in other installments. Unless it's a remake that drastically changes shit, I'd say no thanks.

The question on every bodies mind is:

If Legion wanted to get rid of their Xbox, would it be worth trading it in for a 3DS with the game when it releases in April?

In a word, no. Having owned a 3DS, whilst it has a couple of half decent titles, it's not enough to warrant trading another console for, which has a massive library of great games for.


Also, depending on your taste in games, I would actually more likely recommend a PS Vita.

Yo Terramax, I'm happy for you, Imma let you finish, but the 3DS has one of the best game lineups of 2013. Of 2013!

Seriously, if you like the Vita, good for you, but I don't think anyone can really argue that the 3DS has now got the stronger library of games. Hell, sites like Kotaku are now arguing that it's got the best gaming software library and lineup of any console out there.

This isn't 2011 any more. The 3DS has got more than a couple of half-decent titles, it's got a huge range of legitimately awesome games, and more lined up on the horizon. Anyone who's thinking of getting a dedicated handheld can see that the 3DS has more than justified itself now. The Vita? It's still too far too expensive, has rip-off memory card prices, and simply has a much smaller library of games.[/quote]

I whole-heartedly agree with you. I now have to update my internal SD card to 16gigs because of all the awesome shit even in the eShop. The 3DS turned into quite the fun little machine. Yeah, the 3D is completely useless (unless on the XL where it's still nifty) but with the upcoming Flipnote Studio, Colors! 3D, Dillon 2, that new Pixel game (creator of cave story), DKC return 3D (never got around to play the Wii version), Fire Emblem (stupid delayed european release :C), Luigi's Mansion 2 and lotsa other shit (virtue's last reward is stuck in my slot right now, for example) the 3DS look amazing for the next few months. And I didn't even mention the 400 hours I'm inevitably going to sink into pokemon.

yes, the 3DS is finally and truly awesome.

 

[cyvaris]

Everyone who keeps saying that Nintendo has never advertised a Fire Emblem in the US seem to have forgotten this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnm3koahhNo


THIS teaser is what got me into the series. I remembered playing as Marth/Roy in Melee and then saw this trailer, begged family for it, and got it for my birthday. Years later....they got me Awakening AND a 3DS. Certainly the best thing to find in your mail box while you are away at Uni.

Also, I love how this trailer kills Dorcas off!

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Secondly, it shows how much healthier the handheld industry is when 180,000 units is seen as a smash success (though I believe those are just US figures, not Japanese as well). If EA's claim that 5 million sales are needed to be viable is the future of the console industry, I'm jumping off now and sticking just to handhelds. Not only are the games more creative, the sales expectations haven't been fucked up the arse by COD yet.

It's not CoD, it's development costs. Games with cutting-edge graphics like CoD, Assassin's Creed, or Deep Space have monumentally large development costs (as Yahtzee has joked, it takes an entire room full of people working just to render one person walking across a room, a joke which isn't far from the truth), so they need large sales to cover said costs.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Everyone who keeps saying that Nintendo has never advertised a Fire Emblem in the US seem to have forgotten this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnm3koahhNo


THIS teaser is what got me into the series. I remembered playing as Marth/Roy in Melee and then saw this trailer, begged family for it, and got it for my birthday. Years later....they got me Awakening AND a 3DS. Certainly the best thing to find in your mail box while you are away at Uni.

Also, I love how this trailer kills Dorcas off!

The exception that proves the rule. Generally speaking, Fire Emblem is always released under the radar. Heck, I'm a big fan of Fire Emblem and always try to keep an eye out for it, but I didn't hear about Awakening until damn-near its release date; if not after. Heck, I don't even remember what clued me in to it, just suddenly there's a Fire Emblem on 3DS that I need to run out and buy.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Isn't that picture a spoiler? I wouldn't know, not having played the game.

No, it's a scene from very early in the game (I think around the 3rd mission), and doesn't spoil anything that the game's own box art doesn't spoil. All the screenshot says is "There's a mysterious masked guy with blue hair that implies he is somehow tied to the royal family".

Edit: *Looks again* Oh right, you meant the fact that he calls himself Marth. Still not really a spoiler, since that's just an assumed name that he takes on the spot. Note how he says "You can call me Marth", not "I am Marth".

 

[tippy2k2]

Isn't that picture a spoiler? I wouldn't know, not having played the game.

It "technically" is I suppose but you are introduced to Marth in the first few missions so not really.

OT: I actually bought a 3DS for Fire Emblem Awakening so it's pretty easy to see this. Hell, putting it on the digital download thing probably really helped. I bought the 3DS two weeks after Fire Emblem came out and could not find a physical copy of it anywhere.

EDIT:

Spoiler: Well played WhiteTigerShiro, well played...

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Secondly, it shows how much healthier the handheld industry is when 180,000 units is seen as a smash success (though I believe those are just US figures, not Japanese as well). If EA's claim that 5 million sales are needed to be viable is the future of the console industry, I'm jumping off now and sticking just to handhelds. Not only are the games more creative, the sales expectations haven't been fucked up the arse by COD yet.

It's not CoD, it's development costs. Games with cutting-edge graphics like CoD, Assassin's Creed, or Deep Space have monumentally large development costs (as Yahtzee has joked, it takes an entire room full of people working just to render one person walking across a room, a joke which isn't far from the truth), so they need large sales to cover said costs.

Development costs is one part of it. I'd argue that marketing costs are just as much an issue currently.

Battlefield 3 had something like a $100 million marketing budget. AC3 I don't even want to think about how much they spent on marketing. I believe it's been said before that EA now spend more on marketing than they do on development. No idea if its true, but it does show just how bloated marketing costs have gotten in the industry.

It's kind of a cause and effect deal. The reason games have such bloated advertising costs is because development costs are so damn high that they can't afford to NOT tell people about the game. They need millions of people to rush out and buy the game. Compare that to a game like Fire Emblem that's probably a drop in the bucket to develop, and it's apples and oranges. 180,000 is a big deal when it doesn't cost a lot to develop the game, meanwhile when it costs into the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a game, then yeah, suddenly even selling as low as one million units is a critical failure.

Personally, I can do without fancy graphics. The Metroid Prime series is, to me, one of the high points of visual design in this medium, and all the games were made on Gamecube or Gamecube equivalent hardware. I've yet to see a Crysis, Battlefield or Gears game that I think looks better than the Prime series.

Which is all well and good, but for every you, there's about a few-hundred other people clamoring for the latest graphics.