Shin Megami Tensei V Tops 1 Million Sales Worldwide

The art is so breath taken, man I only played the game for the protagonist's looks, and enjoyed every sip of it.

Fantastic sales for a great game, it’ll double or close the 2nd best entry when all is said and that just with NSW’s sales. I’m sure the game will also perform well when the PC version release (assuming Steam and not ES exclusiveness). Might even triple SMTIV’s LTD with a well done pc port.

Btw thank you for rewarding your Switch fanbase with Soul Hackers 2, Atlus! -_-

Protagonist too handsome to be a boy

So the sales were as bad as I heard if they are only now hitting 1m. Oh well, hopefully they make back their money.

@BloodyMurder SMT IV sold around 600k, I don't see how this is a negative at all?

Great news and well deserved. One of my favorite games on the Switch.

I believe they would have sold more if they released it earlier in the switch lifespan.

@BloodyMurder How is being the best selling game in the series considered 'bad' sales?

I'm happy but it should have passed over 1 million a lot sooner

Not gonna lie…The protagonist put me off from buying the game.

Honestly one of the best games of the generation for me, and it STILL feels like it had a lackluster third act. I hope there's more DLC incoming, or maybe an Apocalypse/Royal version set in the same universe

Ah man, loved this game. Fair play, well done.

Glad to see another third-party title hit seven figures on Switch, and well-deserved too. I had a good time with SMT V - the exploration was first class, and the battle system is as good as ever. I prefer SMT IV Apocalypse overall, as the story had more charm, but I hope the new HD assets mean Atlus can start churning out the spin-offs now.

Loved the game, but the story was clearly unfinished. Here's hoping they can release an SMTV Apocalypse to improve on it.

@SJW How? He's a silent protagonist.

My favorite game of 2021. Well deserved!

@ShadowofTwilight22 it'll come to those systems when persona 5 royal and persona 6 comes to Nintendo platforms

@ShadowofTwilight22 P5 has been "leaked" for Switch, if it happens it happens but i wouldn't get my hopes up.

@BloodyMurder Is this sarcasm? If not then you seriously lack perspective.

I'm hoping this leads to a new wave of SMT games! For a few years there, it felt like we were just being showered with them on 3DS and then they stopped as soon as that platform fell out of fashion. Soul Hackers 2 gives me hope that they finally have a solid HD workflow in place and can start putting out more spin offs and side games to try interesting ideas.

@AndyC_MK111 Well that was a rant, do you even know how much it cost to develop and market the game?

Because from what i know, this game took years to develop and they spent a lot on market, I'm not 100% sure on figures but I'd venture to guess that they probably spent around 70-80 million to make and market the game from start to finish, this includes paying staff for all those years too. You know what though, for arguments sake, we'll say it cost 60m to develop...

Do you think they recouped their loses with 1m sales? 1m sales is roughly 60m (which would break even), a bit less when you take off tax and what they will of paid for publishing and physical distribution. They probably made around 50m

They lost money on this game. 1m sales is literally dog sh*t for a game that was in development this long on a console with 100m install base.

Their not sitting there happily looking at sales, they are probably looking at ways to put this game on other hardware to recover loses.

Picked it up a week ago and must say I'm loving it. Now I'm juggling SMTV and P5 together. Love SMTV for just grinding and combat tbh.

Btw guys, this isn't the 90s anymore, 1m sales doesn't quite cut the mustard anymore, if your game has no microtransactions, 1m sales is under 60m and AAA games cost double that on average to fully develop. Even the lower ends one will cost 60-80m to develop.

1m sales is a loss, break the numbers down and 1m sales just doesn't add up, it isn't enough at all.

Good. It’s a great game; I enjoyed the crap out of it. It was the first SMT game I ever played.

Whoa, we've got the top tier business analysts of the industry gracing our presence today.

This is my SMT game and I like it quite a bit! Embarrassingly, though, this reminds me that I need to go back and finish it. Pokémon Legends Arceus came out in the middle of my playthrough and it went straight to the backlog... I think it's time to go back and finish the job.

To the expert analysts in this comment section, 1 million might not seem like a lot but for a series like this which has been pretty niche for many years, this is good. This is the first Shin Megami Tensei game to break 1 million and usually these games sell a respectable amount. I doubt Atlus is disappointed with these sales, if anything they are surprised and impressed on how well this has performed in this time period. Compare it to SMT IV which sold 600K in 2 years. From what this series is and the expectations the developers have, it's exceeding those and doing just fine.

Only now!? Sheesh that's sad considering the quality and development time.

@Lady_rosalina @WallyWest @ShadowofTwilight22 Persona 4 Golden has been hinted for PS4 and Switch, along with Persona 3 (PSP version getting SMT3 treatment). I think SEGA is going to make Altus games multi platform after a certain period of time. While I don’t know the details with Persona, I believe Nintendo gets a timed exclusive on SMTV since they pushed it since launch. A PC version is inevitable, but the PS4… guess we’ll wait and see.

Honestly, I think these kinds of titles should be available for everyone to enjoy on their platform of choice.

@Zimon how? It sold over 1 million after six months. SMTIV sold 600K in 2 years on the 3DS.

SMT V looks cool! I hope to pick it up soon. I'm 13 hours into SMT IV and enjoying it more than I thought I would! I think the protagonist looks really slick, I thought it was a girl until coming to the comments section. I much prefer it if a protag is gender neutral, though I think I was just seeing they use gendered pronouns in game. Love the long hair!

Atlus knows they've been pretty niche, they're absolute masters of getting as much style as possible for as cheaply as possible, no way very good sales broke the bank.

@ShadowofTwilight22 see this interview with a SEGA executive. They are encouraging them to release their games on multiple platforms.

https://www.pcgamer.com/sega-wants-atlus-games-to-release-on-multiple-platforms-going-forward/

@ShadowofTwilight22 no, but if your main funding source of your studio is “encouraging” you to do it, then you’re likely working on it. SEGA claims they’ll let work independently, but their shareholders want to maximize all their studios IPs. It is SEGA Sammy we’re talking about here. This is good thing for the older titles that are stuck on the older hardware.

However, I’m sure Persona 6 will be for the PS5 only for quite a while and they’ll be blasting out older titles. I didn’t think Ultimax would ever get a re-released, but it’s out on PC, PS4 and Switch.

@Gamer_Zeus We don’t know how much it cost to make the game. But if your estimate was right they wouldn’t still be in business. Remember they reuse assets between games and if you look across all platforms they are putting out a game a year. I’m sure Soul Hackers 2 will use mostly the same Demons. That’s coming out this summer

@DashKappei I think both Soul Hackers will release on Switch, tbh

Absolutely addicted to this game. Utter perfection

@AndyC_MK111 Atlus themselves also stated that they were satisfied with the sales of SMT V back when it hit 800k so I really don't know why these other guys are acting like it was a flop.

@AndyC_MK111 Very bad actually but let's see how well you like the game if it ends up getting ported to a non-nintendo console.

FYI, Sega fluffs its investor stuff. See "Sonic Forces sold Strongly".

I wanted to buy this game but then I read that it's pretty light on story so I held off. Might put it back on my wish list though.

Lmao the downplayers here somehow spinning that SMT V has bad sales]largest for series] when Atlus is literally celebrating breaking a million off just one platform.

I guess XB2 was a flop too despite being best Xenoblade game sells because it didn’t get MK8D sale numbers too

Also noticed this news reignited the port beggars everywhere. The same ones that hate Switch people port begging for P5 and SH2, but port beg SMT V on their platform lol.

Very much deserved. By the end of the Switch's lifecycle, SMTV deserves to end up in overall top 10 games lists. I'd even put it in my top 5.

Haven’t gotten around to playing this yet. Wanted to play XC1 DE first. Glad to hear SMT5’s success. I really liked SMT3, but didn’t quite finish it because of some cheap one hit kills that would happen and lose me about one hour of progress. Plan to go back to it some day, but not in any rush to deal with that again.

@Gamer_Zeus

"Well that was a rant, do you even know how much it cost to develop and market the game?"

Do you? Because if you think that Atlus really spent $60-80 million on a Switch exclusive for an extremely niche JRPG series that had never sold more than 600k prior to this game, then I don't know what to tell you.

"They lost money on this game. 1m sales is literally dog sh*t for a game that was in development this long on a console with 100m install base."

Then I guess the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES' 600k sales were literally dog sh*t on the mighty PS2 back in 2008. If Atlus could only reach that watermark on the most popular console of all time, why would it expect newer games to suddenly start selling four or five times as much?

Every publisher isn't Square-Enix or Activision, expecting every one of their games to sell six million copies. Look at the very same Atlus after releasing Demon's Souls on PS3, an HD console where development costs began skyrocketing as you keep indicating:

"During its first week on sale, Demon's Souls debuted at second place in the charts with over 39,000 units sold, coming in behind the previous week's top-seller Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2. The game sold through 95% of its shipment during its debut, selling out in several stores. According to Miyazaki, initial sales for Demon's Souls were slow in Japan, which combined with negative reactions from trade shows made the team fearful that the game would be a failure. However, positive word of mouth eventually allowed the game to sell over 100,000 copies, which the team considered a success. It sold 134,585 copies in Japan by December 2009.

Atlus had estimated the game's sales at 75,000 units, only preparing initial shipments of 15,000 units before positive word of mouth and critical acclaim caused sales to take off. In North America, the game was the eleventh best-selling title during its month of release, posting sales of 150,000 units. By March 2010, the game had sold 250,000 copies in North America. According to Atlus, the game sold triple their original estimates by April 2010. During their fiscal year report, Atlus' parent company Index Corporation reported profits of over $3 million. This was almost entirely attributed to the commercial success of Demon's Souls. In September 2010, Atlus announced that Demon's Souls would be released in North America under the Sony Greatest Hits label with a price cut following strong sales, higher than previously expected by the publisher. Its status indicated regional sales of over 500,000 units."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon%27s_Souls

According to VGChartz, the original Demon's Souls has sold about 1.83 million lifetime, with most of those sales coming after being marked down as part of Sony's Greatest Hits line. Yet, Atlus considered it a smashing success. SMTV has crossed 1 million in six months on the Switch and being sold at or close to full retail price.

"Their not sitting there happily looking at sales, they are probably looking at ways to put this game on other hardware to recover loses."

Then why would they happily announce the game crossing the 1 million sold threshold and release celebratory and commemorative artwork? That's LITERALLY what this article is about...

IDK why, but I still could not get into this game. I'm a big SMT fan, but this entry for some reason does not click with me. 4 clicked very fast. This one just...IDK, it's not hooking me really at all.

Glad it's selling well though, hopefully the next one will work for me.

@AndyC_MK111 Thank you! If Atlus really wants a quick and easy payday, it would have brought P5R to Switch. You know everyone will double dip just to play it on the go, and let's not get started on special editions. I think the only reason it keeps dancing around the Switch and teasing it with side games is because Sony moneyhatted Atlus to keep it exclusive.

If Atlus spent $60-80 million on an SMT game (not even Persona, a much bigger series at this point), it would have been planning to port said game to the PS4, PS5, XSX, Switch, PC, iPhone, Android, Raspberry Pi, Ti83 calculator, your car and your toaster all from the get-go. The only way it wouldn't be trying to get the game out as far as possible to begin with is if Sony or MS were to moneyhat it with that kind of budget, but why the heck would they moneyhat an exclusive SMT game and not the next Persona? And why for that price?

And if no other publisher was moneyhatting Atlus for bank breaking SMT game, then you can guarantee that said SMT game would be the last ever game that Atlus every publishes, because again, what Atlus game series can you think of that moves CoD numbers?

Atlus hasn't survived as long as it has in this industry by being stupid. Why some people on this site think that Atlus was banking on an extremely niche JRPG series that will forever be overshadowed by Pokemon, Persona and two dozen other JRPGs to be the next Elden Ring is just baffling.

@DashKappei PlayStation & Xbox thank them for SMT V, too...

I played like 40 hours. Its a great game.

@Varkster
SMT 4 sold 600k in TWO YEARS to be precise.

SMT 5 has sold 1 million copies in under six months.

Nearly doubled the sales of its predecessor in a quarter of the time. I don't think people realize how impressive this is.

I'm still playing this after around 6 months. Not finished yet, hard mode. Level 45 or so.

@twztid13 how is that relevant? SMT V is an exclusive game. Soul Hackers 2 is not. @BloodyMurder lmao what? They’ve already more than recouped their money already, this is by a huuuge margin the best selling entry in the series.

@Threebcisum there’s just something off putting about playing as a male character who looks way too feminine. Just my two cents.

@Gamer_Zeus lmao it’s pretty obvious you should inform yourself better on how game dev works and costs. If you think SMTV is a true AAA production with high-end budgeting I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve worked in the industry for close to 20 years, nodoby here knows the budget for SMTV but if you truly think it costed over 40M I don’t know what to tell you. There is no way it costed anything close to 80M, zero chance. 1M in 6 months on a single platform for this release is, without a doubt, a smashing success. The fact that the game might get ported to other platforms (for sure it’s coming to PC) later doesn’t mean anything, the same would have happened if it sold 5M. Doesn’t seem you have much of a grasp on the industry, sales and development/publishing.