Yo-kai Watch Sold Less Than Half a Million Units in North America

Jus goes to show, really. A franchise's performance in one country in no way guarantees its peeformance anywhere else. And nothing can top Pokémon! Still, let's hope it picks up a bit in the future.

I was kinda bummed to see this. There were certainly flaws, but I really enjoyed Yo-kai Watch. It has a certain charm that Pokemon has lacked in recent times.

Pokemon released in the UK with a Saturday Morning cartoon on a big channel, then got a series of films. Yokai has a cartoon hidden away on a kids channel. Pokemon is easy to pretend it's for all ages like Harry Potter. Yokai is a full on for kids. Pokemon released in an environment where every other kid had a Game Boy. Yokai is on a console predominantly owned by 30 somethings whilst kids own mobile phones and ipads...

...It'll end up a cult game for the kds who plays it, but it won't be Pokemon successful.

I'm actually put off by Pokemon and wanted to buy yokai but funds at the time didn't work out. I want to give the sequel a shot. I've also seen the show on Netflix with my son. Pretty decent.

@UNSOLUTEDSALT but the fact Yokai is doing the September release is smart, they knew it was bad before we did. and now that Pokémon Sun and Moon has gone into full gear, well, I've said entrenchment is their only route of survival, makes all that progress in Japan all for naught as Pokémon reasserts itself as a franchise run by brains equal to that of Nintendo. and that Pokémon is a turbulent force that killed the Sega Game Gear.

I find it interesting that the show has been doing ok, but not the games. It might mean that those children watching it aren't 3DS users.

@MrGawain it has received more success than Digimon so its definitely doing something. hell Persona has its fans but Pokémon has something odd added to it that really keeps the IP at the top of its A game. Pokken showed PCI has plenty of room for Pokémon to evolve and mature.

@Marce2240 I bet that will hurt them in the long run.

400,000 isn't bad by any means, surely it's sold a lot more than certain other recent Nintendo games cough Xenoblade Star Fox cough

Nintendo just really needs to remember how to advertise games in the real world - buses, billboards and the like.

@HSuzumiyaVI Obviously. If the show becomes big enough, however, it might carry its momentum to the sales of the games. Let's not forget that's what happened to good ol' Pokémon.

I don't think it will be a million(s) seller in NA. Time to pare back the merchandising

Lovely looking game, charming stereoscopic zoom-ins, lame gross-out humor and a brain-dead battle system.

@Mogster Sad that Xenoblade sold poorly. Hopefully a revitalized install base could mean an NX re-release...

You make it sound like 400K is low and that wwe should have expected much more.

@Mainsaile The show has a ton of potty humor too. It's quite off-putting.

@CreamyDream Your loss.

@Ralizah Not really. I've watched like 73 episodes and only like 4 of them have "potty humor".

@Mainsaile Like I said in my previous comment, there's so much content so like two or three potty humor bits isn't going to ruin the experience.

Also, the battle system was like my favorite part of the game. It's so much more engaging and fun than Pokemon. The second game apparently has a competitive scene that actually uses strategies with some of the weaker yo-kai and doesn't let you use a full team of S-ranks.

@MrGawain The thing is, Yo-kai Watch exists on mobile. It's called Wibble Wobble and it's really fun.

I tried the demo, but it couldn't hold my interest for more than half an hour. The animated introduction sequence was gorgeous, and I can say the same about the in-game graphics, but the level of interaction with the game world felt limited. There's nothing to do at the player character's house, and then I couldn't find anything fun to do in town either. It sure looks great, but it's also boring.

There're way too many spots where you can catch bugs or those Youkai thingies, and if the latter is the name of the game, then count me out, because collecting a hundred of nothings (as Blue Dragon wisely put it) isn't a worthwhile task, in my opinion.

Naturally, I like to feel that I'm in full control of what's going on during the gameplay, that my every choice produces a certain result that I intended. Not only is the player's attention divided between the two screens, both of which contain action, but there seems to be a lot of stats to manage or micromanage in Youkai Watch. It's la-li-lu-le-lo to me unless I can tell the difference between now and before. With more than a hundred of those creatures to care for, each with their own statistics, I don't think I can keep all those numbers in mind and say that yes, I chose the best monster combination possible for that situation, and it's thanks to those actions that I was victorious. All the battles went chaotic and random. I did win, but I don't think I used anything even remotely resembling a strategy.

Did I expect it to explode like Pokemon? Of course not. However, as a huge fan of Level-5 and Pokemon and somebody who's been looking forward to this game ever since the first japanese trailer was released, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't the least bit disappointed. I really liked the first game it'll probably make the tail end of my Top 10 games of 2016 list (since it was only released in europe a months ago or so). There's hoping they do keep pushing for the series since I really don't wanna get a japanese 3DS in order to enjoy these games further.

Some people seem to forget (or never knew in the first place) that the first game didn't get too much attention in Japan, and only the second game(s) made the series really popular. The first game is more of a single player experience and you can't even transfer the Yo-Kai in other games. But Yo-Kai Watch 2 added online battles and trading, much more Yo-Kai and much more interaction. And Yo-Kai Watch 3 has the size of the ROM twice as big as 2's, so there should be a lot of content in that game (which also releases next month in Japan).

Seems disappointing but hopefully it will sell more over time but nintendo could have done more in my opinion as they just showed two trailers on the anime channel here in europa while they should have just upload a couple of episodes to hype the game before it was released

That's a bit disappointing. I've yet to buy it since I already have quite a few other games that I've bought but not played, but I'll probably pick it up at some point.

More like blows like a failure

I really like Yo-Kai Watch. I hope it does well.

OK, "The West" is just NA in this article. Still changing the definition, I see.

I wonder how are the sales in Europe....

400k is pretty damn good all things considered. It's only poor when compared to the Japanese sales. I haven't played the first game but I think the series as a whole looks pretty charming and I would like to give it a shot eventually, so I hope it will continue to do at least decent.

@hoshinosammy I think you're not understanding that for some people like from my standpoint as a Pokemon fan I just do not like the designs of a majority of the Yokai. I mean I'm not going to put a old lady, a butt and a bunch of cat rehash designs (I have no problem with them, but it's really overdone and shows laziness) on my team. Now that isn't to say Pokemon doesn't have any bad designs, but it is to a lesser degree and my most hated Gen was 5 because I couldn't make a team surrounding what looked good to me even though there were a few exceptions.

Here's a list of the yokai here. http://yokaipedia.net/list-of-yokai/

The only ones I could even like from it were #15-18 and #108-110. They were the only ones that looked normal to me where as everything else looked freakish or disgusting. :/

I may finally be getting more into Pokemon a bit, but to be honest, this does not look intereting to me. It honestly just looks...weird. I know someone will get mad at me but that's my opinion. You can have your own. The commercials for this game and the show look very odd to me, and then dog man thing with the messed up eye is possibly the ugliest creature I have every seen in my life.

Never was really interested in it. I've seen videos and the like about it but it never really grasped me at all.

400k for a new IP in the west is pretty solid. I hope they don't give up.

@MitchVogel I really like the world as well, Level-5 really knows how to craft nice looking and detailed places. It's easily one of the best looking 3DS games.

I liked it better then the last Pokemon game.

Lets face it: With a release delay like that, you're bound to loose momentum in other territories.
If the delay was shorter and it was released during the "this is hot sh*t in japan right now" phase, it probably would have had bigger impact.

Id even go so far and say that some people got over saturated by all these news about games that seemed to never come out in the west and simply lost interest.

Plus a new Pokemon is on the horizon. If you compare YoKais "plays itself" battle system with Pokemons more strategic ones, its actually not suprising which one endet up being more sought after in the west.

400k sounds good to me for what looks like a Pokemon clone. As I've said before, when they stop making Pokemon games, then this can take off. While they are still making Pokemon games, they should be happy w/ 400k.

What did SFZ do? According to that website nobody likes - but nobody ever comes up w/ a better source - SFZ did 140k in the US. 290k globally.

400k new IP clone > 140k world famous star

This kind of reminds me of when the Tomb Raider reboot sold 3.4m and Squenix said it was a failure.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-26-tomb-raider-has-sold-3-4-million-copies-failed-to-hit-expectations

Not to be confused w/ the X1 exclusive sequel, which did about 500k.

#1 make a American name for the game, yo- Kia watch? I am like what is that?

When was 400k considered a failure for a Level-5 game anyways?

The games are probably the least profitable part of the entire franchise anyways. It grossed over 1 billion in 2014 in Japan, yet the games sold roughly 7.5 million units that year.

I'm no marketing expert, but you don't gross 1 billion dollars with just 7.5 million sales between just a couple 3DS games, a LOT of focus is on the toys and anime, which I've heard those lines are doing well in the US.

@hoshinosammy You bring up an interesting point. What are the Western download numbers for Wibble Wobble anyways? Android as said it only reached the 100k mark, but does anyone have numbers for ios?

@FierceRagnar
You know what you say , do you?
if this happens even fewer IPs will leave Japan. Because when even Yo-Kai Watch can't be a success in the West, what can?
You really want that? Because YOU don't like Yo-Kai Watch nobody should be able to enjoy it? That is selfish, and not how a healthy industry should work. There is room for every taste. Not only yours.

I tried the demo and really wanted to like it especially after watching and enjoying some of the anime but the battles just felt hectic and random. Pokémon 4 lyf

Not surprised. I didn't see this franchise taking off beyond a niche, which it seems to have found. To me, it screams Discount Pokemon, and I'm just not interested. I've seen an obscene amount of merch for the game, though, which now only further puzzles me. Looks like they miscalculated the appeal in North America pretty badly.

I'd like to think it was timing - I wanted to get it, and I still do, but the month it came out I was low on disposable income thanks to the holidays, and there were other games (and non-games) that had to take the priority. I was getting the sense that others were in the same position, since every time I saw Yokai Watch at a Kiosk, some kids were playing it, and most seemed to be having a good time...but they usually walked out with some other game, if any at all.

Actually, this somehow reminds me that I never got that 3DS Soccer RPG that looked really cool (that was Level-5's, too, IIRC). I also don't think I've gotten any new 3DS games this year, despite a lot of good ones coming out since last Autumn...

400,000 in North America alone is not bad.

It's not topping charts here, but that's by no means a failure and only has room to grow.

I can think of half the Wii U library that didn't sell 400k worldwide

@AlanJones84 The thing is, Level-5 are always trying to make every western game they release into a monopoly, which is a big mistake, as it's unrealistic for them.

Wow.
This is very interesting about Yokai Watch. While Western really hyped with Star Wars but vice versa for Japanese. Instead, Japanese really hyped with Yokai Watch. I'm surprised Yokai Watch could be so mesmerizing Western people. Maybe looks similar with Pokemon.

Proof that Anerican gamers are absolutely saturated with RPGs and need some VARIETY. Why is this the only genre they will give us anymore?!

I bought Yokai Watch, but the gameplay wasn't very engaging so I ended up getting bored. There just wasn't anything on the level of Pokemon to get me thinking about battles. Plus, it's just a lot more weird to play it was a 30 year old man. Yokai is very much about a childs life. Even though Yokai exists, you live a normal boys life. At least with Pokemon, you could functionally pretend your character was any age and it wouldn't change the game at all except for the first 10 minutes.

@Daemonite That's the problem, i think, it's a bit too weird, and the kids it seems to be targeted at are all playing on phones and/or tablets instead...

400k for a new IP is very good. No way they can compete with Pokemon. A game that sells 5 million copies in the U.S alone.

No doubt in large part due to people accusing it of being a Pokemon ripoff while not giving it any semblance of a chance.

That's mightily good sales to be honest. For a game that got originally released nearly 3 years ago getting sales like this is amazing.
If they released it in 2013 when people still gave a crap, it could sell millions.

I hope this doesn't discourage Nintendo from trying out new IP's. Half a million is nothing to sneeze at, and there's the clear success of Splatoon...

Pokemon has a more wide appeal.

Yokai watch (starting with the name...what the hell is a yokai? why not change the name? not everybody talks, know or care about japanese language!) is a game for otakus.

Simple as that.

I would consider that good sales. I think Yokai 2 will do better

I know the cartoon is showing in the US because my son (6) was telling me all about it the other day. I think the roots are there already

Hino needs to lower his expectations. 400,000 copies sold for a new, Japanese oriented IP n North America alone is pretty decent. Not amazing, but decent.

North America is not Japan, and Yokai Watch is not Pokémon.

I actually expected worse sorry to say, very cutesy, Japanese things like this just don't sell over here in North America, and that won't change no matter how optimistic Level 5 is. Really doesn't help that it just looks like a cheap Pokemon knock off, and we have already seen too many of those to care.

Like I've said before: this should've been an international release for the west....Don't they know we all interact online? There are no borders on the internet.

I love this game so much, I really hope more people give it a chance cause it its a wonderful game with a high production value. And no, its nothing like Pokemon.

@Ketchupcat Yeah it is definitely not like Pokemon and it has the same quality as the 3DS Pokemon games (and some features are better even)
I was surprised how charming and unique the game feels. For me Pokemon and Yokai Watch don't even scratch the same itch.

I hope it does well in the west, I really enjoyed the first game and am a big fan of level 5. I plan on pre-ordering yokai watch 2.

I knew it. I freaking KNEW it. I literally cringe when someone says this can be as big as Pokemon. It can't. Times are different. Most people are more into shooters today than people were into rpgs back then when Pokemon came around. Face it guys, and I hate to say it, but it's probably never going to get big.

@AbsoluteZer0Nova Komasan is freakish and disgusting? Pokemon fans these days...

@Minotaurgamer That's kinda ignorant and offensive.

@AbsoluteZer0Nova Also, other than Goldenyan (A rare version of Robonyan) and the unreleased gemnyans, there's no Jibanyan recolors in the game. Baddinyan, Thornyan, Robonyan and Jibanyan all have different models, animations, dialogue and movesets.

@FierceRagnar Pesky memes should be the meme.

@Kiyata

I thought the stereotype was that we are saturated with FPS games.

We have variety. I personally couldn't get used to YW's battle system. It felt weird to try and keep up with my yokai's actions while they were already fighting.

@hoshinosammy Way to go with misreading, I just elaborating on having no problem with the cats, but that they were lazy rehashes. Komasan is just a color swap of Jibanyan with some minor differences here and there. If you can't accept not everyone is going to enjoy the designs of the yokai then that's your problem. Is this really how YOU Yokai Watch fans behave just because others have a difference of opinion in what looks appealing?

@AbsoluteZer0Nova Komasan is color swap of Jibanyan? What?

Just because they have the same tribe and attribute does not mean they're the same character. That's like saying that Snivy is a recolor of Treecko.

@hoshinosammy Far from it, you just made a terrible comparison there. Treeko is based off a gecko and Snivy is based off a grass snake. How about using Pikachu as a better example? At least with Pikachu there has been Pachirisu, Emolga and Dedenne, at the very least I'll concede to Plusle and Minun being a lazy rehash except they were designed to work around team battles and the intent of magnetism opposites attract. At the very least they should have made the whole cat line be different species of cats with more altered designs, but alas they were too lazy to do and all you have are excuses.

the way you befriend/catch yoke is just terrible. giving them their favorite food is a nice idea, but the luck is just plain horrible.

On Netflix the Pokemon XY anime has an average user rating of 4/5 stars and the first season of Yo-kai watch has just under 2/5

How is 400k so bad? Just because it sells insanely well in Japan does not mean it will sell the same numbers in other parts of the world. Look at how long it took Monster Hunter to finally break the glass ceiling and become something of a main stream title in the west. Some might even argue it still has a ways to go despite Capcom, Sony, and Nintendo's efforts over the years.

Look at Dragon Quest. That series sells insanely well in Japan, and yet, it remains in the shadow of Final Fantasy and other RPG series in the West.

If you want to reverse things up a bit, here's some food for thought. Call of Duty is a franchise that sells millions of copies with each new entry and remains in the top 10 charts well into the next year. But in Japan, it sells less then a million copies per game.

I don't get why people are so down about this. Not everything can be a blockbuster in every region of the world.

@AbsoluteZer0Nova I mean you could've called the recolors lazy I'll give you that - but the 'nyans and Komasan are all very different and not really in any way lazy. And the comparison made complete sense; Komasan isn't a cat and he doesn't look a thing like Jibanyan.

@Torterror Yeah, that's one of the few bad things about the game. You can increase it with Popularity Yo-kai, but it's still up to RNG. It's REALLY rewarding when you finally get the Yo-kai you've been trying to get for so long, though.

@Popplio It's far more fun than Pokemon at least.

Tried the demo, wasn't really impressed. imo, the issues are it doesn't have the same charm as pokemon, and the battle gameplay is too tedious/repetitive, playing a mini-game (essentially) to do a special move is a bad design choice imo. Reminiscent of really long attack cut scenes that aren't skippable, worse because user has to interact with it so they can't passively just wait or multi-task. I particularly though find I am not a fan of grinding type work in games.

I dislike how you titled this article to be honest.

In Europe the game is doing quite well, reaching the top five in many countries. European have better taste than American.

That's a shame. My brother and I love the game and show. Here goes to hoping the second game does better.

@hoshinosammy That's an opinion. I would take Pokemon over Yo Kai Watch any day. Don't get me wrong, I lovedYo Kai Watch, except for the combat. I was extremely temped to return the game due to the combat. In Pokemon, it at least involves more strategy than switching which 3 Yo Kai should be battling. If you find it fun, congrats, but I'm staying with Pokemon.

In Europe we haven't seen any of the toys or medals hit stores yet. And now the TV series has abruptly ended on Cartoon Network. The TV show is unexpectedly funny.

@Popplio I LOVE the combat. It's so much more fresh and original. And apparently Yo-kai Watch 2 adds new, less intrusive touchscreen minigames and makes the RNG much more fair. Don't give up on Yo-kai Watch yet! Try playing YW2 at least!

@riChchestM I feel bad for Europe. Collecting the medals is insanely fun.

@DeltaPeng Play the actual game, get a feel for it. I frequent /ywg/ on 4chan and the YW community generally agrees that the demo is not a fair representation of the game.

@SteamedOddish I'm maining Jibakoma YW2! My favorite cat combined with my favorite dog!

Only 400,000 units were sold of a totally obscure franchise.

But waait the install base in Japan who had been exposed to the concept and are saturated with handhelds sold more units?

Goodness me.

@OptometristLime I dunno about obscure. I have a few friends in real life who are interested in it and most of my friends that aren't still know what it is. It's no indie game.

But yeah, of course this is gonna sell more in Japan.

@hoshinosammy I'm definitely not giving up Yo Kai Watch! I'll get the 2nd one if I can.

It's early to worry, from the little I saw they are doing all they can for turn it into an hit in America, the american twitter page really surprised me with all they are doing and it could eventually payoff.
On the other hand in Italy they only dropped the game with barely 5-6 episodes airing on TV and called the day, if they did so in the whole Europe then it's here that YW will boom badly ^_^;

400K isn't bad for a new IP. I recall reading that the Yo-Kai Watch franchise didn't really take off in Japan until the second games were released.

Since a lot of kids these days have mobile devices, I'd like to see how many downloads Yo-Kai Watch Wibble Wobble has landed.

I may sound like a CD stuck on repeat at this point, but the demo for the first game didn't do it any favors. It was YouTube playthroughs that convinced me to get the game.

I can get why some people wouldn't go for it, playing the demo at first I was a little put off by the fighting system but I kept with it and well I'm one of 400K I guess.

And they were thinking it was going to be the next pokemon... lol

@Minotaurgamer
Yōkai are a class of supernatural monsters, spirits and demons in Japanese folklore. If you ever played Saiyuki Journey to the West on PS1, Son Goku, Cho Hakkai and Sha Gojo can transformed into Were. That's Yokai. And don't underestimate about Japanese language. Nothing wrong if you can understand Japanese language. And what about Tomodachi Life ? Or MiiTomo ? Tomodachi means Friends in Japanese. And it sounds weird if the title changed into Spirit Watch or Friends Life or MiiFriends. And Japanese language is not a language for otakus. Why American likes to hear Samurai or Ninja words while those of them actually Japanese words ? How about Sushi , Origami, Sashimi, Tempura, etc ? Those are Japanese words too but sounds very familiar to Western people.

Yeah, lightning in a bottle wasn't going to strike twice this late in North America. It's waaaaaaaaay too late for that. East Asia is just about the only place still receptive to new games of this style in mass numbers, at this point. Also, it doesn't help that the first title was the one brought over first, which was a much weaker and less popular entry overall than it's sequel, thus inevitably leading to more negative first impressions. They probably should have skipped the first entry for the time being, and localized the stronger second entry first.

I'm pretty sure that Pokemon and the various Atlus titles, along with a few others like Dragon Quest Monsters, are going to continue to be the only really successful "monster/demon/creature collector/battler" franchises in the West, for the time being. As others have said, though, this is partially due to Nintendo just completely failing to advertise/market products properly, if even at all. Their marketing has been so anemic during this 8th console gen, that alone would be no wonder how they're doing so poorly compared to previous gens.

@hoshinosammy

Yeah I'm looking forward to using him in game too. I wonder when he'll be added to WibWob overseas as in Japan it was through a password that the English version doesn't even have the option for yet.

Do you use Steam by the way? I'd love to talk with another fan of Yokai Watch.

@Danrenfroe2016 @Minotaurgamer Yeah, they probably should have named it "Spirit Watch" or something like that, since a Yokai/Youkai is a type of spirit. Although that doesn't tell you exactly what type of spirits they are (either monster or demihuman spirits), so that's partly why it wasn't translated...

@PlywoodStick I've seen some sites having products listed as "Specter Watch"

@SteamedOddish That doesn't translate the definition of a Yokai/Youkai very well, though. A specter often has a negative connotation in English. Like a "specter of the past coming back to haunt us." In Japanese, that would be more akin to an Akuryo (evil spirit) or a Jarei (wicked spirit), rather than the more neutral Yokai/Youkai. (Not like those sites would pay any attention to that, haha...)

@Anti-Matter Only a few native English speakers actually know that, though. They could have just explained in game that the spirits are yokai/youkai, or monster spirits. The only people who would have been turned away by "Spirit Watch" would be the superstitious types.

memes

No surprise that game sucks.

@Marce2240 however, I do have some concerns, Yokai watch is also on ipad so... likely the app is getting more sales than the 3DS sales.

@Minotaurgamer What is a Pokemon? If you didn't know it was a portmanteau of Pocket Monster the name sounds like gibberish. So I see no reason for Yokai Watch to be off putting, since as far as a gamer is concerned Yokai are just what you capture/fight with in the game just like Pokemon.

For me the question is why buy YW1 when YW2 is also on its way.

@Daemonite
Vgchartz is not a reliable source for sales data, especially for a game like this that won't top or come close to topping the sales charts anywhere outside of Japan.

Yokai Watch is specifically catered to a Japanese audience. It's monsters are so heavily inspired by Japanese folk lore that it suffers from not having universal appeal which is one of Pokemons strengths.

This is also a detriment to it's marketing and merchandise line. Isn't one of the Yokai an old lady? Can't see that selling well as a t-shirt or soft toy.

@MarioPhD The Merch is actually selling really well in America. It's simply that younger kids are leaving behind handheld game consoles in favor of phones and tablets.

@Ronnie7 There's at least one Pokemon that's an old man, so I don't see what the difference is.

@PlywoodStick There was some push to market it as Ghost Watch early in localization but they got the typical complaints about Japanese games making children into demon-worshipping, anti-Christian Satanists.

@MitchVogel It's nice because it takes risks, while I feel Pokemon designs have become very sanitized in recent years.

@e105zeta LOL, typical American puritans. Always somehow having such a warped sense of reality that they completely fail to understand any culture beyond their own.

@e105zeta
Some people are really fear of something. They can' accept something unusual and then they blame to that and react negatively. Well, Japanese believe about Yokai or eerie creatures, even on Western did but it doesn't mean Satanic worshipper. Even Japan and USA has very different cultures and manners. Maybe the clash of the cultures make some people fear about being different.

For example, don't sit with cross- leg in Japanese because Japanese people will react negatively, thought you were so arrogant. But for Western people, sit down with cross leg is okay, fine, people will think you're easy to communicate. Japanese like to sit down with leg closed and hands on thigh position, because they think that's a good position and show your manner, but for Western people it shows you want to end the conversation quickly.

Yokai maybe very familiar for Japanese people. They have a lot of legends or myths about supernatural beings, just do same thing with Western people. But for some Western people that have never experienced yet about Yokai, they will think that creepy creatures even scarier and satanic rather than their supernatural creatures. With less informations and some rumors from peoples, they added something and then blamed for such a thing like that.

@Ronnie7
Lol. Why Samurai and Ninja can be accepted by Western easily while Yokai they will look that for something weird, creepy, just ew.... to be known ? I don't understand for Western people sometimes.

@hoshinosammy
I don't understand some European gamer taste. They used to play only Western games that completely different with Japanese and never care about Japanese. They usually think , oh Japanese games ? Is that have something that can be found on Western games ? Or maybe they will complain, ew i don't like their performance or concept, kinda like a weirdo. Because they use to play something that in their comfort zone, never want to try something new. And some Western people think the creativity of Japanese people is a weird thing to do. They feel disgust for some Japanese creativity because it looks so different, so unusual, so out of the box and their brain can't adapted so well to accept those differences.

Actually it seems like the game did lot better than i thought it would. 400k copies is really good sales for 3DS games and just because it sold lot better in Japan doesn't mean that it was a failure.

@crystaletter You get extra content in YW2 for having the save data on your 3DS. But it's completely up to you if you want it or not.

@shadowharold Uhhh....

@e105zeta Where are you getting the information that the merchandise is selling well in North America? A Google search on my end found literally nothing on this topic, other than an article about sales falling in Japan:

"The prices of Yōkai Watch merchandise are dropping. Sales of Yōkai Watch medals are at ¼ of what they were in the summer of 2014, at the height of the Yōkai Watch boom. Sales of other merchandise range from 1/5 to 1/8 of their levels last year."

So...... where did you get this information.....?

@MarioPhD Anecdotes from local toy store employees in the American south - it's all selling pretty well, except for the Whisper dolls. Americans really hate Whisper. The toy Yo-Kai Watch itself is selling very well. Of course, this is just in my tri-state area, but considering I'm in the Bible belt I consider most reports I hear a success.

@AbsoluteZer0Nova Do you seriously pick teams based only on appearance?