The last year or so has been very good for JRPGs and niche Japanese games. We had Final Fantasy 15 go on to become one of the highest selling games in the franchise (and apparently secure its future within Square Enix), we had Persona 5, a turn based anime JRPG, sell 2 million, we had Nier Automata, a Platinum Games and Yoko Taro joint, hit 2.5 million, we had Fire Emblem Echoes being one of the only successful 3DS software releases in a year when 3DS software sales largely fell off the cliff, we had Xenoblade 2 break out and hit over a million worldwide on a relatively constrained install base, and we had Monster Hunter World become Capcom's most successful release ever. Even more niche games, such as Yakuza 0, gained traction and cachet in the west over the last year.
And then we have Ni no Kuni 2- a sequel to a game that by all accounts was pretty well loved in the west. A game marketed as a high budget old school style JRPG on a system that it is contended has fans for that style of game on lock. A game that got incredibly positive reviews (which I never understood, but my personal opinion on the game is irrelevant to this discussion). It was also a reasonably high profile release- why, then, has it failed to gain traction literally anywhere in the world? The game's showing in Japan was dismal; its chart position in UK was pretty bad. It topped charts in France in its debut week, then promptly fell off the charts entirely the next week. According to Sony's monthly PSN download charts for the month of March, the game failed to chart in the Top 20 for Europe and North America.
Why exactly did Ni no Kuni 2 fail to take off, especially coming with some decent marketing by Bandai Namco, who are known to be able to sell relatively niche games well in the west anyway?
And then we have Ni no Kuni 2- a sequel to a game that by all accounts was pretty well loved in the west. A game marketed as a high budget old school style JRPG on a system that it is contended has fans for that style of game on lock. A game that got incredibly positive reviews (which I never understood, but my personal opinion on the game is irrelevant to this discussion). It was also a reasonably high profile release- why, then, has it failed to gain traction literally anywhere in the world? The game's showing in Japan was dismal; its chart position in UK was pretty bad. It topped charts in France in its debut week, then promptly fell off the charts entirely the next week. According to Sony's monthly PSN download charts for the month of March, the game failed to chart in the Top 20 for Europe and North America.
Why exactly did Ni no Kuni 2 fail to take off, especially coming with some decent marketing by Bandai Namco, who are known to be able to sell relatively niche games well in the west anyway?
