Soul Calibur V Sales Discussion

Oh, wow. I am just flabbergasted to see how many folks take these numbers seriously and unquestioningly.

Come on, guys - these numbers are practically made up out of thin air. We need a better source before we can come to the rather dire conclusions a lot of folks in this thread have.
 
To be honest and some may not like this comment but SSFIV is a much better game. MvC3 and UMvC3 are also better. Ultimate did bad because of lack of known fighters and a release too soon after 3.

The market isn't even that big for fighters.

Mind you I absolutely love this game, but the market and sales reflect the reality.
 
I'd like to know which sources vgchartz got their numbers from. Either way, we should get reliable numbers from Namco at the end of March from their investor reports.

It wouldn't surprise me if the game got low sales though. And that's not because of specific stuff like mimic characters, on disc dlc and stuff like that (I think the only people who were even aware of those things before buying the game were a relatively tiny amount of people). I think there's primarily 3 reasons why SC would have gotten low sales:

-It's more of the same. The game has changes to the mechanics and the netcode is very much improved, but the mainstream gamer can't tell. Especially from looking at trailers and reviews. I think many people skipped it because they lost interest in the series and this one didn't look different enough, or that they didn't have any interest in the series to begin with and this looks like yet another SC for them.

-Their favourite character(s) is gone.

-Reviews weren't high.

Edit: This was mentioned by someone else, but competition is probably another thing which affected the sales. There's a TON of fighting games being released these days, and SC would have had to do something extraordinary to stand out from the crowd.
 
XionValkyrie said:
I don't think SC is popular enough in Japan to warrant an Arcade Edition. The sales numbers are significantly higher in the West, and arcades have pretty much died out here.
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I don't think SC is popular now in Japan as it was back then. System-wise is one factor (since Japan are Arcade and Nintendo freaks). I personally do think Arcade could keep it back up to its feet as far as keeping players (or Japan at least) interested in wanting more of playing the game as it did back then (SB-SCII, and SCIII in the long run), as it did for other games recently (SFIV, VF5, T6, Blazblue), and as it is doing for other games coming out this year (TTT2, VF5: FS)

There are exceptions though as far as the competition: Mortal Kombat (Ratings and "Graphic" violence, appealing to the West, and not to mention the game was HUGE in marketing), Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 (I personally think the hype of this series returning after almost a decade from the last one was a big factor to this one), Dead or Alive 4 (Sex sold this game, even though the game itself was amazing visually), and upcoming Street Fighter X Tekken (the title says it all).

Will there ever be a Nintendo release for SC? I honestly don't know. I'm not so sure if SC's recent graphics could be capable for Nintendo consoles, or at least for the Wii anyways. I could see some potential in Wii-U though once the next game comes by, but that's just me.

I'm only comparing this to Soul Calibur II.

Sectus said:
-Their favourite character(s) is gone.
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I do think this isn't a good reason to not like the game, even though Talim being absent was questionable. Fans, especially newer fans, should have known a long time ago that Namco was more willing to do time-skips and replacing characters. Older Tekken fans were more aware of this when they did it on T3. I was more aware of this when they did it for this game, and I was pleased with it, even though I didn't like Alpha Patroklos at first.

Replacements are fine, but the problem was how PS handled it with this game. We already know where some characters are (Xianghua, Sophitia, Taki, Kilik, and Setsuka, even though they added her relevance AFTER the release of the game), but what about others? You'd think they would reveal where Cassandra is during the timeline since they are so focused on the Alexandxx family, but i guess it truely all revolves around Sophitia.
 
And I can't believe this game cost them more to make than something like SC3, which actually increased (by a lot) the content from the previous game. Pretty much all the characters, except for Viola and Zwei are clones of the previous game's characters, with even the same win, move, intro, etc. animations. Creation has like at least 90% recycled content, Even Dampierre looks like he was ported directly from BD. Although, considering they hired an outside company to make the abomination that was story mode, (they got majorly ripped off), they probably did spend (waste) a lot on this.
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Don't get me wrong SC3 was the game where I started to take the series more seriously so it certainly brings up warm and fuzzy memories for me. But even so most of the new content in SC3 was half-assed. Those extra styles featured shameful amounts of Tekken move stealing (at least they were honest about it with Devil Jin) and most were simply god-awful. The story mode consisted of a silly cutscene quick time event of Zas throwing gears at you. I mean the announcer barely ever even finished his sentences due to audio errors. Then there is the obvious fact that the game is helluva unbalanced compared to 5. I would say 3 was definitely more rushed.

jtdam09

[QUOTE Fans, especially newer fans, should have known a long time ago that Namco was more willing to do time-skips and replacing characters. Older Tekken fans were more aware of this when they did it on T3.][/QUOTE]

Actually I think they learned that no one really dies in Fighting Games from Tekken. Namco retconned almost all deaths and brought back tons of joke characters. Now I hear Harada is considering bringing back Jun permanently too. The moral is whine and Kazuya ye shall recieve.

Darkfender
not at all...or at least even if they tried they failed miserably.
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Raph is really that bad? Oh and I would support Dodos for DLC.
 
1)This game needed single player mode like SC3 "Chronicles of the sword" that made the game a lot more personal, especially if you played the new styles/jobs from CAS
2)Also endings are a must, if they ever did make it dlc (thats like 35 min of endings)
LASTLY: this game needs returning style/fighters
sidenote: Anyone who says the CaS isn't as good as Sc4 MUST BE DELUSIONAL \
2nd sidenote: Edgemaster should be the only mimic, and AlphaP should just be Setsuka or reletive.
LASTsidenote: OmegaP is one to many S&S (she just like Sophita and everyone knows it)
BTW: Seong-Mina and Cassandra moves are BARELY featured on Pyrrha and Xiba
 
Meh, to be honest I am starting to think gamers these days are just spoiled. They expect so much from games and complain about literally everything. Even if the game was perfect, they would complain about it.

I blame the gamers themselves for spreading bad news.
 
HiguraShiki said:
Meh, to be honest I am starting to think gamers these days are just spoiled. They expect so much from games and complain about literally everything. Even if the game was perfect, they would complain about it.

I blame the gamers themselves for spreading bad news.
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Yeah, tell me about it. It's either that or they want newer games in a series to be JUST LIKE the classics that made them famous. Street Fighter is a good examples of this, I assume you've all heard the incessant whining about how SF4 is too slow, that the new characters introduced are not Street Fighter characters ( !? ) among other things. Thing is, if it was a carbon copy of SF2, then people would be moaning that is ' more of the same ' ' Why can't you innovate!? '

To be honest, that attitude that ticks me off. Stop expecting perfection, people. Stop expecting the game to work to your own twisted vision of what it should be. PS made the game, NOT YOU.

Does that mean I don't dislike the way some of the things are done? Of course not. I do have some complaints about modern games, particularly with SF4 BUT I know it's just not worth whining about it.

As for the reported poor sales of SC5. To be honest, it doesn't surprise me at all really. Like others have said, fighting games are a very niche aspect of gaming. Unless it's ingrained in popular culture like Street Fighter & Mortal Kombat, most of them will struggle to bring in sales unless they have a major draw, like the SC's series use of guests and even that failed to bring in people this time around, in spite of the fact Ezio is from a well known series of games and actually doesn't stick out like a sore thumb among the rest of the cast.

It all comes down to marketing, SC5 had crap marketing to be frank. Why do you think games like Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty & Just Dance bring in so many more sales? Marketing, simple as that. Same thing applies to all the cheesy and often outright awful blockbuster movies while some legitimately decent films get shoved to the side.

Then there is the fact the world is an economic depression. People want to save their money and be more cautious of what they buy. I know I am being more skeptical about what games I get after being burned 2 twice last with Marvel 3 and later Mortal Kombat. Hell, I played SC5 at friends house first before I brought it to ensure I wasn't going to get burned by purchasing it and this was after seeing someone play it on a stream and hearing good things about it's netcode.

It's a combination of all these things among others that led to the poor sales, if you ask me.
 
Tanegashima said:
Actually I think they learned that no one really dies in Fighting Games from Tekken. Namco retconned almost all deaths and brought back tons of joke characters. Now I hear Harada is considering bringing back Jun permanently too. The moral is whine and Kazuya ye shall recieve.
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-King I (killed)
-Armor King I (killed by Marduk)
-Ogre (killed by Jin, I think)
-Jinpachi (He doesn't appear in T6, so I'm just going to assume that he died)
-Potentially some other characters based on endings, but we would have to wait till T7 to prove it (Wang, Baek)
-"Missing", but I bet she just retired from fighting (Michelle)
-Possibly killed, unless another form comes in (Kunimitsu)
-Being a couch potato (Roger Sr.)
-Still in school (Miharu)
-Umm, I just don't know (Alex, Angel, Forest Law, Gon, Doctor Boskonovich)

So as far as I can tell, King I, Armor King I, Ogre/True Ogre, Jinpachi, and possibly Kunimitsu, have died canonically.

Jun is actually confirmed to be "missing" instead of dead. Jun does need to return in some fashion on future installments with the direction Namco has Jin going.
 
I've played here and there since SC. Infact I bought a dreamcast because I saw SC in EB Games and could not believe how incredible the graphics were.

SC2 was the most fun for me. SC3 felt awful. Mostly because they butchered Nightmare since they decided to keep Nightmare but put Siegfried back in. SC4 didn't excite me.

I bought SCV used 2 days ago. I plan to return it in a week and then buy it new for cheaper unless something changes my mind. The game feels more like what I remember despite all the system changes. It might just be minor things and the pacing but I quite like SCV. I like that they went for a timeskip. It's in some sense more exciting to see 80% new characters instead of just seeing Sophitia and Kilik over and over and over.

I hope the series doesn't end here. I hope they release some kind of large update that adds maybe some characters, tweaks some stuff, etc. Then maybe we won't see SC for a while but I definitely don't think V is the end.

I agree that gamers are in some sense spoiled now. A weak story mode? Who cares? It's a fighting game. I didn't buy any of them to play story. I bought them to play people and practice in the meantime. Everything else is just bonus. Online is of course not like playing in person, however I think SCV does a damn good job here and really deserves praise.
 
Misty_Chaos said:
Yeah, tell me about it. It's either that or they want newer games in a series to be JUST LIKE the classics that made them famous. Street Fighter is a good examples of this, I assume you've all heard the incessant whining about how SF4 is too slow, that the new characters introduced are not Street Fighter characters ( !? ) among other things. Thing is, if it was a carbon copy of SF2, then people would be moaning that is ' more of the same ' ' Why can't you innovate!? '

To be honest, that attitude that ticks me off. Stop expecting perfection, people. Stop expecting the game to work to your own twisted vision of what it should be. PS made the game, NOT YOU.
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I just feel compelled to point out that these two mindsets are not necessarily the same people.

Some folks like change and innovation, other folks prefer the status quo (hmm, sounds familiar...), and rarely ever shall the twain meet.

In other words, you literally cannot please everyone because people are different. This should come as no surprise to anybody.
 
Kane said:
I don't really understand why sales were so poor. I'm not buying the "3 mimics = death to the game" theory.

the game is awesome ... the story is a bit ... lacking. the game has some bugs [what games don't?], but a patch is in the works. the graphics are amazing, the netcode is amazing ... the game is definitely fun. so what gives? no hype ? bad marketing ? [there seemed to be a LOT of advertisement for the game ... a lot more than others like tekken tag 2]
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Check the facebook page for Soul Calibur V. Its page after page of "This game sucks!" How many people that don't know this site exists see that and avoid the game.
 
I have to contest the idea that eliminating some characters greatly affected sales. They kept in the iconic characters, and that's what matters for sales. Some people may not like that they can't play Yun-Seong, but if they were really interested in the game they would have bought it.
 
hotX said:
I have to contest the idea that eliminating some characters greatly affected sales. They kept in the iconic characters, and that's what matters for sales. Some people may not like that they can't play Yun-Seong, but if they were really interested in the game they would have bought it.
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This is just my opinion, but I think it did affect sales. Like I mentioned above, just keep facebook in mind- the whole time, every second or third post was "I hope X is in" and as soon as the full roster leaked, the hate surged like a tidal wave. These days a lot of people go on word of mouth and that means "what are they saying on facebook" for a fair chunk of customers. And in the week leading up to launch, that place was pure poison.

And for those saying that these days gamers are spoiled.. you're absolutely correct. They are; they want everything. The problem is, they are also the majority share of spent money on those games.

I feel that PS tried to please everybody. You can see the earmarks everywhere; good gameplay, deep training mode and good netcode for the hardcore tourney people, and a great Customizer, somewhat simplified control and a detailed story for the casuals.

But they couldn't do it all in time I don't think. They couldn't add everyone to the story mode, couldn't include all the characters they wanted to, and likely had to rush program the last row, resulting in mimics and the Alpha/Omega with styles that don't really fit their roles. That, and the little things here and there.. the floating pieces in CAS, the parts of CAS that have specularity issues, the complete lack of any in-game story at all for so many characters all speak to this game being rushed.

It may be too late to help the sales, if those numbers are even true. But if they really aren't trolling us, if all the things that they said through development.. that they will listen to the fans, that they want to make this the best ever and after launch saying they are working on things "going forward" are true, then they may yet address the issues holding it back. Until then, we just have to enjoy what we have and hope it gets even better.
 
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