Nintendo announced last night that Bravely Default, the excellent role-playing game released last month for 3DS, sold over 200,000 copies in three weeks in the United States. Sales numbers can sometimes be misleading or difficult to properly contextualise, and while that would be peanuts for an AAA console game, it’s a great number for a handheld JRPG.
Nintendo seems to be happy with it too. Here’s what they had to say:
In early 2013, Fire Emblem Awakening launched for Nintendo 3DS and became one of the surprise hits of the year. Bravely Default, which launched for Nintendo 3DS on Feb. 7, improved on the launch of Fire Emblem Awakening by more than 10 per cent, selling more than 200,000 combined units in just over three weeks.
Good news for Nintendo, yes, but more importantly, this is great news for non-Japanese JRPG fans, because earlier this year the producers of Bravely Default told me that the localisation chances of the sequel, Bravely Second, are dependent on sales here .
Schreier: You mentioned the sequel before, Mr. Asano — would you like to bring that to the West also? Have you already made that decision?
Asano: We certainly would like to release the sequel in the US as well, but we’re definitely going to be taking a look at the sales for this one.
Now we just have to hope that Bravely Second is more like chapters 1-4 than 5-8.
Comments
7 responses to “Bravely Default’s Success Is Good News For JRPG Fans”
Give us Dragon Quest VII already!
I didn’t buy it, 4chan told me half the game is cut and paste.
I also don’t like the idea of a cash shop.
It’s such a good game! 😀
i wouldn’t trust everything people say on 4chan you know.
Cash shop is completely skippable and adds nothing to the game. The repeated bits can be blown through fairly quickly.
I just can’t see the title “Bravely default” without thinking of someone in japan trying to say “Bravery Default”. Might be slightly racist.
I spent 6 hours mulling through chapters 5- 7 yesterday. I wasted a whole day :/