Franchise Sales History and Predictions - Fable III - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 29 October 2010 / 15,916 Views
This new set of articles will focus on specific video game franchises and its sales history and a prediction on how the new game in the franchise will sell first week, after 10 weeks and lifetime.
The franchise being discussed and analyzed today is Fable, with Fable III being released this week. The game will be released on 26 October in America, 28 October in Japan and 29 October in Europe. There have been two previous games in the franchise, Fable for the Xbox released September 2004 and Fable II for the Xbox 360 released 21 October 2008.
The original game in the series, Fable, according to Microsoft Game Studies sold over 375,000 in its opening week in America. After this no weekly sales are available; however according to VGChartz the game managed to sell 2.59 million lifetime.
Fable II managed to sell 1,050,000 in its first week, nearly a threefold increase over the original. It would go on to sell 2,348,000 in its first ten weeks, double its debut week. It would go on to sell 3,814,000 since its release 2 years ago on the 21 October 2008 in America, the 24 October 2008 in EMEAA and the 18 December 2008 in Japan.
Fable III pre-orders in America nearly hit 800,000 after over 200,000 additional pre-orders in its final week. According to VGChartz preliminary data it sold 650,000 units day, with week one sales in America to be around 950,000. With 71% of week one sales of Fable II coming from America, this would put Fable III week one sales in the 1.3 - 1.4 million range, an increase of 20% to 25%. Extrapolating this data after 10 weeks on sale Fable III is expected to sell in the 2.9 million - 3.1 million range. Lifetime sales are expected to be in the 4 million - 4.5 million range.
Adding in the PC version of Fable III, combined sales should be around 5 million, which is what Peter Molyneux the boss at Lionhead Studios and head developer for the Fable series is aiming for.
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The article makes no mention of the fact that the original Fable was released on the PC, but does mention that Fable III is going to be released on the PC and adds those sales figures in. Is it known how well the original Fable sold on Windows? Fable was also released for MacOS. Both Windows and the Mac got the "Fable: The Lost Chapters" edition that was also re-released on the Xbox.
Also, the article refers to "America" in places where it might be referring to the U.S. specifically, but also when it appears to be referencing North America generally. It would be clearer to say "the U.S." when specifically referencing the U.S., "North America" when referring to Canada and the U.S., and "the Americas" when referring to North and South America collectively. Just saying "America" can often be quite unclear, even in context. Canada alone is typically about a 10% increase in sales to a title.
I will pick it up soon enough. Can't get all what I want when I want it, otherwise I will have nothing to look forward to come those cold December days.
Nice new VGC feature! Hmm.....Smash Bros was multiplayer.....I'll think about the best single player game for me last gen & get back 2 u :)
Fable 1 was the best game last gen for me :D
