Ryu Ga Gotoku: Ishin was SEGA’s big title released this week
SEGA’s samurai epic featuring characters from their Yakuza series in place of historical figures in Japan, Ryu Ga Gotoku: Ishin, launched last week and is set to be one of their key titles over the final quarter. Releasing on both the Playstation 3 and Playstation 4, the game enjoyed being one of the launch titles for Sony’s latest console in Japan but did it do enough to take the number one spot and how does Puyo Puyo Tetris continue to fare in the chart? Hit the break to find out!
MediaCreate Charts for February 10th – 16th February 2014
Current Rank / Last Week Rank / Format / Title / Release Date / Price / Weekly Sales / Total Sales / Dropoff
02./00. [PS3] Yakuza: Ishin! <ADV> (Sega) {2014.02.22} (¥8.600) – 138.158 / NEW
03./00. [PS4] Yakuza: Ishin! <ADV> (Sega) {2014.02.22} (¥8.600) – 82.540 / NEW
17./08. [3DS] Puyo Puyo Tetris <PZL> (Sega) {2014.02.06} (¥5.229) – 8.859 / 67.204 (-35%)
With a combined sales of 220,698 (On a personal note, I came close with my prediction for Ishin, absolutely embarrassed by the Playstation 4 prediction though) Ryu Ga Gotoku: Ishin becomes the lowest debut in the series since 2008. With SEGA targeting combined sales of 500,000 units (350,000 for the Playstation 3, 150,000 for the Playstation 4) it would seem to be a big ask for the spinoff to reach the targets set by SEGA. I have always maintained that the best comparison to Ishin would not be one of the mainline entries or even the gun-totting zombie apocalypse spinoff OF THE END but Ryu Ga Gotoku: Kenzan!
Debut sales for the Yakuza series in Japan;
Yakuza 1: 129,863
Yakuza 2: 281,836
Yakuza: Kenzan!: 177,897
Yakuza 3: 356,867
Yakuza 4: Heir to the Dragon Throne: 395,123
Yakuza: OF THE END: 307,592
Yakuza 5: 363,717
Looking at the close proximity of launch sales between the two it would be better to see how Kenzan! performed. Adding a further 92,541 units bringing its total sales to 270,438 which gave it a further 34% sales. If we decide to believe Ishin will sell at a similar rate as Kenzan! it should sell a further 70,622 units bringing the title’s sales to 291,319 units, well short of the 500,000 million target SEGA has set on the title. It should be noted however that SEGA expects that figure to be lifetime sales so I would believe it should include the re-release THE BEST edition, for which sold a further 88,574 for Kenzan bring it’s total sales to 359,012.
PuyoPuyo Tetris sales seem to be stabilising at the 5,000 mark
However even with that, the title could be 100,000 units well sort of meeting its target. My only hope is that the larger userbase of the Playstation 3 and the success of the Playstation 4 may help to push the title over to meeting it’s 500,000 target but at the moment, it seems unlikely. On the other hand Puyo Puyo Tetris continues to sell at a rate similar to previous titles, bringing it’s total to 67.204 and the drop off percentage getting lower and lower should mean the series might stabilize at a healthy rate. That wraps it up for another SEGA in the Charts topic, join me next week in seeing if Ishin can continue to show growth over Kenzan (Which recorded sales of 42,451 for the second week) and if Puyo Puyo Tetris will stabilize at the 5,000 baseline as previous entries, til’ then!
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Do you think Nagoshi is satisfied?
Well the game managed to sell about 60% – 80% of total shipment so that’s good but personally, no I think he would be a bit disappointed with the numbers. I certainly am! But I was hoping a few more Playstation 4 users purchasing the game than they have!
“500,000 million target.” SEGA’s lost the plot now, hehehe. A minor correction.
I do hope the 3DS carries Puyo Puyo. Puyo Puyo will need a couple of years.
As for Ishin, I wish that PS4 number was at least a couple ten thousand higher.
You and me both in regards to Puyo! It’s worrying the 3DS numbers are getting poorer every passing week but hopefully the established userbase will continue to purchase it for a long time yet!
Regarding Ishin, even though I predict the 60k mark, I was hoping more people would buy it with their shiny new PS4 but alas it wasn’t the case. Certainly seems though some Yakuza fans have made the move to the Playstation 4 so it at least helps establish some of the fanbase there so SEGA won’t have to worry about such a negative effect when Yakuza finally becomes Playstation 4 exclusive.
Well with Nagoshi having said in the past that his team chose to get Ishin out in time for the PS4 launch in place of bringing Yakuza 5 to Western territories, it does give me at least a little satisfaction to see that it hasn’t paid off much for them.
With the Yakuza games not featuring Kazuma performing pretty poorly in comparison to the ones with him, it’s evident to me that Japan’s interest in the Yakuza series seems to be more based on *him* and his supporting characters than it is for the games themselves; makes me wonder how long Sega thinks they can keep this going. How many more yearly adventures/stories can Kazuma possibly have?
Nagoshi did the right decision. Nobody was expecting this poor PS4 SW sales. If they had put effort in bringing RGG5 here, would had sell poorly like always.
And Kiryu, according the official RGG pool, is not even the most popular character of the series. The problem here is not Kiryu not being the protagonist, but the Samurai Era. RGG is a game that biggest part of the fanbase are formed by young people, they probably think is way more interesting walking by places they know in real life, going to stores they know, etc, than walking by old Japan. Not only, this is a spin-off. You can’t expect to have the same sales of RGG5.
Well, the spinoff Yakuza Of the End did far better than this one.
I don’t think it’s fair to say that Japanese gamers don’t buy games that don’t take place in the present day.
Anyway we’re both speculating of course, but I personally believe it’s more to do with Japanese interest in the story/characters of the RGG series than it has to do with the setting. Regardless, their hesitancy to play games in the series other than a certain type doesn’t to me signal a series that’s headed for much growth.
help bring yakuza ishin to US and / or europe!
http://www.change.org/petitions/sega-corporation-yakuza-ishin-release-for-the-playstation-4-in-the-us-and-europe