Topic: Bayonetta 2 BOMBED in Japan.

So I think people are confused.

"Publisher SEGA revealed during its fiscal third quarter results that its sexy action title Bayonetta has sold 1.1 million units in Europe, Japan, and U.S. territories for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3." from IGN, from a month after its release date. VGChartz is unfortunately the only place that seems to have tracked it past the first couple of months. According to them it reached 2 million, and they don't even include digital sales. And because of digital gaming, I find it hard to believe after over 4 years that a critically acclaimed game that got plenty of exposure didn't sell a lot more past the first month or two regardless. From my understanding, most major games have a long life digitally unless people didn't like them. I just said 1+ million because much of the new IPs I've paid attention to sold sooooo much less so 1 million feels huge to me by comparison.

If you are now going to assume that there have been steady digital sales of this game since it's release, then I think it's only fair to compare those sales numbers to the total number of current PS3/360 owners, which is now close to 180-200 million.

So essentially what you are saying is that Bayonetta is not a niche title because it has potentially sold 2-3 million copies to 200 million console owners.

It's such a popular series that Kamiya has stated many times in interviews that it sold less than then he had hoped.
It's so popular that Sega refused to fund a sequel.
It's so popular that Bayonetta 2 has been a massive bomb in Japan.

No matter how you try and frame this, the game is absolutely 100% a niche title.

The user base for PS360 isn't even 180 million now, let alone in 2009 when the game was released. As of May 2010, PS360 combined sold 75 million units. That doesn't even account for all the replacement 360s from RRoD, people who sold their consoles, PS3 owners who upgraded from the gigantic toaster to the slim model, etc. I think it's safe to say that the user base was less than 60 million, and that's probably on the conservative side.

And 2 million games to 60 million users is actually a pretty decent attach rate for Japanese games. Better than the last 3 Final Fantasy games. Better than the last Resident Evil. Better than any Yakuza. Better than pretty much any Koei Tecmo game ever. Hell, it did about as well as PS360 Sonic games.

Well my point was more that people use niche too frequently to describe games purely based on a lack of popularity based on its gameplay or aesthetic choices and usually for super low selling, lesser known by Atlus standards games rather than as a game made for a specific audience because of gameplay or aesthetic. And that doesn't work for me, because the difference between a lesser known Atlus or XSeed game and Bayonetta in terms of sales is probably comparable to the difference between Bayonetta and say, Tomb Raider.

My point was that he was estimating how many copies Bayonetta has sold up till now, including digital, so if he wants to do that, he must also factor in the much larger console base out there now. Obviously not all of those nearly 200 million consoles sold are plugged in and in use, but it was just added for effect.

It doesn't really change anything though. The game isn't as popular as some people here believe, and this fact will likely be solidified once it releases in North America. I'm buying it, but I'm under no illusion that it will be big seller.

None of the people in the game look particularly like they usually do in games aimed towards the Japanese audience, and the surroundings in the game are based on existing European architecture?

The desert surroundings in COD Modern Warfare are what lead that game to be very popular in the Middle East, selling nearly 40 millions copies there alone!

I also heard that Mass Effect 2 was quite popular on Mars due to the game's space setting, but those sales numbers are harder to locate.

I wasn't referring to it being sales-related, though I see how you got that idea. I meant specifically relating to it being for a specific audience, and I do think that audience is larger outside of Japan solely because there's still interest in its type of gameplay.

And yeah, setting is not as important as themes and excecution. It's using its themes in ways that I've noticed don't sit well with a non-Japanese audience, and most of the western audience found the story confusing as hell, so I kinda doubt it was meant for them unless they just...screwed up big time? The game feels too polished for me to believe they had no idea what they were doing.

I think the western audience is more interested, if only because the game unquestionably has an audience. Ace Attorney has a fanbase in English speaking countries, and barring maybe the first game, none of them have actually sold as well in America as this did. But it still has a significant following that will support anything you slap the series' title onto.

So unfortunately Bayonetta 2 has slipped out of the UK top 40 after just 1 week. A 75-80% drop in sales is typical for any game in its second week, and Wii U games are going to be particularly prone to this with a small, committed audience that will mostly be day 1 purchasers, but I wasn't expecting to see it out of the top 40 so soon. The games at the bottom of the chart are only selling a few hundred copies. So relieved Platinum aren't reliant on this being a success in order to keep getting work as that's 2 out of the big 3 markets where it's disappointed commercially.

It seems like NOE dropped the ball for marketing it there.

Granted, I am going to burn the internet to the ground if it does fail here, so you should all hope to God that doesn't happen.

Haven't seen a single commercial on TV for the myself yet but plenty for Smash 3DS a guaranteed sell.

Japan has been moving to mobile games for a while now. it looks like traditional gaming is just slowly dying in Japan unlike other places where it is going strong.

There have been a decent amount of Bayo 2 ads running on Adult Swim.

I don't think it helps that nobody really seems to stock the game. It'll be interesting to see what the digital sales are......

Why do people seem to think TV commercials are the only form of advertising when in the last few years it's usefulness has dropped dramatically

Unfortunately October is never a good month to launch a game in Europe because the new football games come out around that time - the week Bayo2 was released, the top-5 was almost all different versions of FIFA, which is sad but kind of says a lot about the current state of affair of gaming in EU.
All game shops are doing very convenient promotions to get the new footie games, like bring 2 used games and get FIFA15 for €10, so no wonder it's selling in spades.
My local game shop owner was surprised by the number of pre-orders he got for Bayonetta2 so here's some hoping that the game performed decently outside the UK.

Because a majority of potential customers are not visiting game orientated sites each day.

After reading a few pages of this thread I have to come to the conclusion that the thread starter just wants attention.