Top Ten Games That Sold Less Than Expected in Japan This 2009

What about Crystal Bearers? It seems the Japanese are avoiding that like the plague, even though they should be all over the first major Wii FF game right?

@outlawauron It has sold all of its first shipment. You don't think that Capcom is so stupid as to have supplied all of Japan with just 50,000 copies? And with the upcoming holiday period? No way. Capcom most probably sent out another (100-150k) shipment already.

Monster Hunter 3 is already at 0.95m, it has already sold all of the first shipment and has got another one (albeit small). The original article stated "Which were the games that made their developers the saddest?" which is clearly not a case for Capcom and MH3. And I actually think the worst thing about MH3 and retailer is that they panicked after seeing the second week sales, slashing the game's price in half! The game would have probably enjoyed the same legs and would've outsold its first shipment even at original price.

@ millkyjoe And it still hasn't sold through it's first shipment yet. That's overstocked.

It sad that Persona is in there but I am sure it made some healthy profit from Atlus.

Tekken 6 and Street Fighter 4 should included. MH3 sales only 1/3 of PSP ver. Thats why it is flop.

THE LIST IS FOR RETAILERS NOT FOR PUBLISHERS if most of you undrstood that you wouldn't be complaining

Completely agree with milkyjoe and others. This list fails...

Estimated profit of MH3 in Japan thus far - 25 mil. Cost to make, roughly 12 mil. Profit, 13 mil. I'd be happy with making 13mil any day of the week. :-D And that's before the western release too.

How was it heavily overstocked? Capcom have shipped 1.1million copies, it's sold 0.95million. If they'd shipped that many and only sold 200k you could justify calling it heavily overstocked, but not when so few copies are left unsold. Hell, it's inclusion on the list could easily look pretty stupid by the actual end of the year, as it'll be even closer to selling out by then. One final point, we're talking about a game that is in the top 10 biggest sellers of games sold on home consoles in Japan this generation, and when (not if) it sells out that shipment then it will have sold more than Mario Galaxy for Christ sake. It's just dumb.

'What the hell is Monster Hunter doing on there, it's one of the top selling third party games on any of the 3 consoles in Japan, in fact it comfortably beats every game released on 360 and PS3.'. Because it was heavily over stocked. This is a list of games that RETAILERS thought would sell better than they did. It was way over stocked, and they had to discount it to get rid of the surplus. Hell, my local Bic still had the white controller bundles in the bargain bin the other day. It does not matter to them if it sold 1M if they still have x thousand copies in stock that they can't shift.

I dont know much about Persona (Only that nr 4 in the series may be awesome) The only game i feel for is Blood Of Bahumut. I will buy it. Also i miss BD (the true sequel, not +) on Nintendo DS.

You know, MH3 probably failed because, really, who buys a wii for games like this? I LOVE the monster hunter series, I don't think the wii market is quite up to playing games like that though.

Weird stuff.Where is Tekken 6,Street Fighter 4,Bayonetta?

Euh if MH3 is overshipped (like I read in some comments) then it belongs in this list.

MH3's box art makes me want to buy the game.

@ hierro40 No plans for releasing outside of Japan so far

Does anyone knos if Blood of Bahamut will arrive to America? By the way the numbers of Monster Hunter 3 are impresive.

Sales in Japan added for every game

i mean i guess mario and sonic isn't gonna sell huge numbers, but it should get between 200-300k, probably about where it deserves to sell. MH3 should not be on the list, it's too early to talk about taiko, and Gran Turismo should just not be made on PSP. Blood of Bahamut did bomb pretty bad though.

It must suck to sell a million copies! Whether that is considered "disappointing sales" I guess is a matter of opinion.

I go along the others: MH3 sold really well. The problem: You can't use evergreen-nintendo-games as a standard of "good seller" on Wii, guys! And I'm not talking like "only nintendo games sell on Wii", I'm talking like "what? Do you want a home console-game to sell like a portable-game in japan? Are you nuts?"

@Tridrakious GT PSP didnt reach 500k in Japan, in fact the game is currently at 240k. Not so good considereing it's on a userbase of more than 13 million.

@ Soriku You are right, i edited it

How is Gran Turismo PSP doing in PSN sales? The UMD verison has sold over 500k. Which for a PSP game is pretty good and it's still selling decently.

Monster Hunter 3 eh????? isnt that like nearly at a mil? boooo

Umm...I'm pretty sure this is made retailers the saddest and not developers because Persona and MH have no reason to be on there otherwise.

This from Japanese retailers. Stop the damage control. @ gurgle This retailer expectations, so low selling titles will not automatically appear.

I'm surprised Demons Soul isin't on that list unless it was an 08 release.

when i saw about MH3 this list is complete fail where's FFC Crystal Bearers?

And u should at last give Some estimates.. Right ?

LOL at mh3... Best selling mh on home console ever...

Blood of Bahamut is not developed by Square-Enix.

What the hell is Monster Hunter doing on there, it's one of the top selling third party games on any of the 3 consoles in Japan, in fact it comfortably beats every game released on 360 and PS3.

Article subtitle : "Which were the games that made their developers the saddest?" And what is MH3 doing on that list? C'mon people!!!

Is this just one store who compiled the data? Or one store chain? If so, could always just be the demographic the store is located in. When WoW:BC came out, the store by my college campus had about 500 people in line, while the store at the mall (about 5 mins away) sold 37.

I've seen Persona and MH3 in bargain bins here, so would say there is quite a lot of truth in this.

From what the forum thread said about this, this seems to be a misrepresentation. These are games that were overshipped, so the retailer got the short end of the stick. It's not that the games didn't sell, they just didn't sell to retailer expectations (and in the case of Monster Hunter, the standard edition was overshipped but the bundles were undershipped).

MH3 is the best selling 3rd party game of the gen and it sold bad? OK! And what about Deca Sporta 2?

mario and sonic usually have gr8 legs.. it shd sell well. even for the mediocre game that it is..

@ nen-suer, these are store top ten, not developer top ten

FFCB sold within expectations of retailers. MH3 though was overshipped..

i didn't even know blood of bahamut was released already.

But Persona remake on the PSP quadrupled Atlus expectation Persona (PSP) - 220,000 (originally planned 50,000) http://www.atlus.co.jp/ir/meeting/pdf/24kessan.pdf

Where's Final Fantasy Crystals Chronicles: Crystal Bearers?

Sometimes expectations are beyond logic -_-

can't wait for the sales datas to be released ..... (today ?) let's go playing Half Life 2 ...

Anything to back this up? Or is it all made up?

+1 for mike_intellivision some games just sold very bad but some others sold well but not as high as expectations ...

This would be better if there was some data -- and some sense of expectations -- included. Mike from Morgantown