Koei Tecmo Confirms Fatal Frame And Blue Reflection Sales

I cannot help but think had Fatal Frame been a physical release it would have posted far higher numbers.

I pre-ordered Maiden of Black Water on Wii U (limited edition) and on Xbox and also imported Zero 4 (Wii). 340,000 copies is good and I hope that they port or remake the older games, all of them are better (except the 3DS spin-off).

Intriguingly Nintendo owns the IP, but gave Koei Tecmo flexibility to port it to pretty much every system.

Wrong. Koei Tecmo is the owner.

https://trademarks.justia.com/780/96/fatal-78096019.html

These numbers seem really low. I’m intrigued whether they made profit on these games, and which platform saw the biggest sales.

@popey1980 Yeah I know the only way to get that was import it. And even then you had to make sure it was fully updated to get English.

@ThomasBW84 Cool 👍.

@FragRed Maiden of Black Water's figure isn't "really low" for the series. These are the sales of earlier releases in Japan:

http://nintendoeverything.com/image-japanese-fatal-frame-sales-comparison/

http://www.cubed3.com/news/12486/1/tecmo-discusses-nintendos-cancellation-of-fatal-frame-4-wii.html

I haven't found a worldwide sales chart but 340,000 copies of a remaster released a couple of months ago is a good figure.

@ThomasBW84 @Banjo-
I'm pretty sure Nintendo had some involvement in development for 4 and 5 (vaguely recall an EAD team being listed as co-producer or something in the credits?)

they should have released fatal frame physically in the west.

@Matty1988 Nintendo managed general production of 4 but didn't want to pay for the final testing and glitches fixing and cancelled the Western release. Nintendo was the publisher of 4 and the Wii U version of 5. Toshiharu Izuno and Tohru Osawa from Nintendo also joined the production team of 5. Grasshopper Manufacture helped with development of 4.

All those numbers seem very low…..digital only releases? Ports? Or just timing?

I haven't played either of these yet, but both are on my radar, as well as Atelier Sophie 2 coming out in February.

For a remaster of a game of a niche franchise, those are good numbers for Fatal Frame. Awesome.

@popey1980 I own it physical in Steelbook which came in a box with Art Book, Post Cards etc.

Proof of existence from this site.
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/08/talking_point_fatal_frames_trial_version_and_limited_edition_highlight_nintendos_shifting_approach_to_retail

I thought the Blue Reflection numbers were low, but wow. DW9 is only slightly ahead of them? and that's Koei's main IP?

Square would look at this numbers and start shouting that they were all failures

I'm not sure if it's me, but those seem a little low. Especially by modern standards. Certainly Fatal Frame, a good game, deserved much higher numbers. I even double dipped. Shame. I have Blue Reflection on my wishlist awaiting discount.

I'm bound to be part of these sales numbers, but... eventually. Potentially sooner with BRSL thanks to the first game's translation patch on Vita, but Fatal Frame goes all the way back to PS2 and Wii, environments only as portable as my laptop (and the 3DS spinoff isn't even on eShop despite some trolls making it a goddamn separate page with the trailer, user ratings and a wishlist button - yes, TIL 3DS eShop lets you wishlist a game it won't let you buy!). Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the later entry Switch ports as it is, but such franchises (particularly the ones that debuted and were largely TV-chained in Gen 6/7) often make more consistent money on me if they arrive here more sequentially.[/FWP]

Waiting for discount on both games. I really want to play them but not for these prices. Still I would expect higher numbers for Blue Reflection, I've seen a lot of praise for that game...

@Mando44646 it helps that Koei games tend to be lower on the budget. So while sales are low I'd believe if they still made a profit, or at worst, didn't lose much

Koei Tecmo seems like such a huge company. I don't understand how they remain profitable. Their biggest successes are collabs with other companies.

@SmileMan64 It's actually just a port of the Wii U game. It would had been a remastered if they also released Fatal Frame IV.

@Banjo- it seems they must have made a deal with Nintendo to revert the ownership of the IP, since Nintendo owned part of the IP.

@popey1980 At least one more, confirmed by me. That is on top of my Wii U physical collector's edition.

Thanks to everyone who pointed out it has an Eastern release of which I was aware, was speaking in reference to a Western physical release (and yes, as one of the few who owns a WiiU, I’m also aware of the disc version that released). Appreciate the replies though

So is this good or bad for Tecmo?

There are four Fatal Frame games that were made with the help of Nintendo.
Fatal Frame 4
Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly (Wii version)
Fatal Frame 5: Maiden of Black Water (Wii U)
Spirit Camera (3DS AR spin-off)

In regards to the FF5 re-release, are the Nintendo names still in the Credits or were they moved to the Special Thanks section, much like in LEGO City Undercover (Switch, haven't checked if that's the case in the other versions)?

@Specter_of-the_OLED I see. My post doesn't specify that it's just the fifth game. Thanks for pointing it out, I've corrected it.

@popey1980 - Well that and many imports are impeded with a required download to have any English options at all.

I bought Blue Reflection: Second Light. One day I even plan to play it.

I would have gotten the physical version of Fatal Frame on Switch full price, but it's Asia only AND overpriced. So, I'm just forced to wait for an eShop sale

Somehow I bought both games and they didn't end up in my backlog, I enjoyed both of them much more than I thought I would. Fatal Frame in specific is a great game for any horror fan. Not really scary but the gameplay is surprisingly fresh and the gyro makes it loads more fun. Certainly worth a try. Physical copies of Fatal Frame are still around if you look.

I imported the Asian release of Fatal Frame/Project Zero.

Completely baffling that they issued a Western physical release for the Wii U, but not the far more successful Swich.

Does the 340k include wii u sales or just the new multiplatform release? Because if it's the former it's not that great, but if it's the latter then it's pretty good. Also, a bit of a shame that they didn't really make it a definitive edition with all costumes of the wii u version on switch.

@Parkour_LMan It's 340,000 copies of the remaster (or port, whatever) sold because it's the exact number that appears in their financial report. It's a good figure, indeed. I was fearing a worse result (100,000 at best) and I say "fear" because I want to see the other games ported as well and sales are very important for relatively small companies like Koei Tecmo, not to mention niche IPs like Project Zero/Fatal Frame, in a coma between 2014 and 2021.

Also, Dynasty Warriors Empires sales correspond to just eight days on sale in Japan.

Are those numbers good or......?

I'm sorry to see that the sales are so low for both of these great games. I wish Fatal Frame 5 had a physical release here in the states though. I purchased physical copies of both games. Of course I had to import Fatal Frame which cost me $70, but still worth it to have a physical copy for the collection. Since I missed out on Fatal Frame for Wii U.

Pretty sure this makes Fatal Frame 5 the best selling in the series, even without the Wii U version.

Blue reflection second light was such a letdown, I still don't understand how this game got 9/10 in this site XD The combat is
incredibly repetitive, the game lack of variety of enemies, the dungeons are just walking from point A to point B while collecting materials, the pacing of the story is very slow, the difficulty is too easy and the ending and true ending are kinda disappointing. The game was 7/10 for me.

Fatal Frame 5 was a decent game. Not the best in the series but overall a good game. The sales numbers are higher than I thought they would be. Hopefully they’ll either port over the older ones or make a new Fatal Frame.

@EvilSilentFrame Yep. I haven't found worldwide sales (if somebody knows please tell me) for the older entries but looking at this, the Wii U version sold 32,000 copies in Japan and the multiplatform version has sold 340,000 copies worldwide this far! The best-selling entry in Japan is Zero 4 with 74,000 copies.

http://nintendoeverything.com/image-japanese-fatal-frame-sales-comparison/

Dang, I thought you were talking about an eShop sale happening for these!

@Banjo- I’d like to know the world wide sales as well for the series. I bought Maiden of the Black Water for the Wii U and this second time around for the Xbox. Though I see why the creator made it for the Wii U controls as it felt more like a camera than a traditional controller, I still preferred it on a controller as it gave me more of a nostalgic feel. I’m glad to see the numbers you have as it gives me hope for more from the series.

@Banjo- well 4 was only released in Japan and I know there's an interview where its stated to be the best selling in the series. So I think we can fairly safely say the remaster sales blew the rest out of the water.

Though now I'm finding some info that says the series as a whole has sold 1.3 million units as of 2014.
https://www.cinematoday.jp/news/N0062343

@Banjo- not exactly. Nintendo did not want to pay Grasshopper to fix game breaking bugs existent in the JP version. I'm assuming Nintendo would see bug fixes like that as part of the original contract/agreement rather than being something needing additional money. Maybe a clause about the game being in a playable state.

@dojmin $40 is overpriced? Or did the price change?

@Silly_G only a limited edition in the EU. NA didn't get a physical release at all.

@tkolek Yes, that's what I said, that Nintendo didn't want to pay for that.

@tkolek Yes, that was what I thought but I still would love to know the worldwide sales for each title. 1.3 million units as of 2014 makes my curiosity even bigger. If Zero 4 was the best-selling game and it was only released in Japan (74,000 copies), then the remaster of Maiden of Black Water (340,000 copies) is the best-selling entry in the series by a wide margin. In any case, the commercial success of the remaster is great news because it means that more remasters should appear for modern consoles @EvilSilentFrame. I was expecting 100,000 copies at best and it has sold 340,000 this far! I did the same as you, I bought the original (limited edition) for Wii U and the remaster for Xbox (Series X-optimised).