• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

How did elden ring sell over a million in japan?

blackjon24

Member
Can someone who follow japanese sales closely help me understand this?

Elden rings first week in japan was 280,000 on two consoles reported march 3 2022.


By March 16, 2022 it had sold 1 million in japan alone


If you know anything about Japanese sales, most are front loaded and they still mostly play physical games. How did elden ring go from 280, 000 to a million much in such a short time when its debut was lower than say ff16? I don't even expect ff16 to reach a million and that had a much bigger opening in japan.

Is digital much bigger in japan than I realize? Is elden ring big on steam in japan?
 
Miyazaki has reached inland Kojima levels of popularity. His games sell like hotcakes, even if the Japanese are handheld/mobile-centric. I'm not even surprised it sold that well.
 

Madflavor

Member
Word of mouth was just that damn good, and that wasn't just in Japan. People within my circle who don't play video games, or do but not FromSoftware games, were all curious about Elden Ring. It just had insane buzz surrounding. I was at a bachelor party a couple months back where I met a friend of the Groom who talked about how in love he was with Tears of the Kingdom. I asked him if he's played Elden Ring, and he vented about how much he despised Elden Ring and any game that's "hard just for the sake of being hard", he ranted as he sipped on his Strawberry Daiquiri.
 

ZoukGalaxy

Member
People came to stores, gave money and get back to home with the game, I know, it sounds incredible !

Sorry, couldn't resist, I leave in peace, now.

Season 4 Troll GIF by Living Single
 
Last edited:

Metnut

Member
Game came out during the end of the PS4 lifecycle when the user base was quite large. Insanely positive word of mouth combined with the user base made it happen.
 
Word of mouth was just that damn good, and that wasn't just in Japan. People within my circle who don't play video games, or do but not FromSoftware games, were all curious about Elden Ring. It just had insane buzz surrounding. I was at a bachelor party a couple months back where I met a friend of the Groom who talked about how in love he was with Tears of the Kingdom. I asked him if he's played Elden Ring, and he vented about how much he despised Elden Ring and any game that's "hard just for the sake of being hard", he ranted as he sipped on his Strawberry Daiquiri.
Lmao what a beta.
 
Why is this surprising? From has an amazing track record and combining their skills in level, world, and enemy encounter with an open world was bound to get quite a bit of interest.
 
Those 280,000 units was reported by Famitsu.

Maybe people should stop paying attention to them that much and realize physical games aren’t all that anymore.

You’re comparing physical sales on ps4 and ps5 with overall sales from all platforms including PC which is almost 100% digital. That’s what that million stands for.
 
Last edited:

fart town usa

Gold Member
That reminds me. A few months back my buddies and I were playing coop and all of a sudden we each found ourselves being summoned into wrong games. A random group of friends in Japan had the same 'unique' coop password. Led to some good laughs. Funny how each group was trying to kill the same boss. We actually helped each other a few times before tweaking the password.

Love ER. Love Japan.
 

Woopah

Member
By 20 March Elden Ring was at over 400,000 in physical sales. Add in shipped physical copies, digital PS copies and PC sales and you get your other 600,000.
 

blackjon24

Member
Those 280,000 units was reported by Famitsu.

Maybe people should stop paying attention to them that much and realize physical games aren’t all that anymore.

You’re comparing physical sales on ps4 and ps5 with overall sales from all platforms including PC which is almost 100% digital. That’s what that million stands for.

Do you not find that weird?? If you follow the sales of the game on consoles in japan it is around 420k at around the time of the announcement by From software.

[PS4] Elden Ring (FromSoftware, 02/25/22) – 13,918 (307,546)
[PS5] Elden Ring (FromSoftware, 02/25/22) – 4,184 (120,747)

That would leave 580k for digital version + Pc. I don't know how someone could not find this surprising since in the past physical sales for a console game used to be some indication of a games success. With the majority coming from outside of that, we will have even less data to know if a game performed well.
 
Last edited:

The Cockatrice

Gold Member
It's a marketing trick. Simple as that. Most likely it didnt at that time but it was close. Whenever a company announces sales, it's to boost sales more. People are HUGE suckers for "hey our game sold so much!" and every sheep will want in on that. Even my friends who never played any souls game, wanted to buy it, only because it sold well and it was popular. And before anyone goes, well yeah because it's also a good game, garbage games also sell well, due to popularity. Welcome to the corporate consumerism age where marketing and ads dictate what you will enjoy. Very rarely, even on gaf, have I seen these days where people genuinely buy games because they want to rather than due to its ratings/popularity.

You must consume OP, that is all. Obviously no one will agree cuz they know in the last years they bought games, watched movies, shows only because the ratings and popularity and marketing dictated it and not because they felt like it. Enjoy the shitty truth, welcome to the beginning of the cyberpunk age. Oh yeah I'm also part of the problem as I work in a big corporation for 10 years whose goal is to sell products.
 
Last edited:
Do you not find that weird?? If you follow the sales of the game on consoles in japan it is around 420k at around the time of the announcement by From software.

[PS4] Elden Ring (FromSoftware, 02/25/22) – 13,918 (307,546)
[PS5] Elden Ring (FromSoftware, 02/25/22) – 4,184 (120,747)

That would leave 580k for digital version + Pc. I don't know how someone could not find this surprising since in the past physical sales for a console game used to be some indication of a games success. With the majority coming from outside of that, we will have even less data to know if a game performed well.
Nothing weird with a 50/50 split between physical and digital, plus pc sales.
 

Thief1987

Member
It's the marquee title of the greatest gaming franchise of the last decade. Of course it's gonna sell big.
OP didn't ask "why" it sell million.

Nothing weird with a 50/50 split between physical and digital, plus pc sales.
Yeah, 50/50 split is pretty common on the west. There is a perception though that Japan has much lower digital rate, but i don't know from where it came and how true it is.
 
Last edited:

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Could it be the super high reviews and crazy buzz around this game post launch?
 

kiphalfton

Member
completely missed the point lol
First problem is you're quoting two different sources. Famitsu and Fromsoftware. The former is very precise. The latter is rounded it seems.

Also the former is in the first week. If you extrapolate out that first weeks numbers, to March 14 (i.e. 3 weeks later), to get an additional ~720k sales isn't crazy. It's not linear, which you would expect 560k more sale if it were, but it isn't far off.

Case closed.

Edit:
The 280k sales aren't even one whole fucking week. That's just two days (i.e. between 2/25/23 and 2/27/23). The number of days between release (i.e. 2/25/23) and that fromsoftware release (i.e. 3/14/23) is 17 days. Linear extrapolation would dictate it would sale 2.38 million copies if it continued to sell at the same rate it had in those first two days. However, it only got to 1 million sales by 3/14/23. So sales DID fall way off after release.

OP you need to go back to school and learn math.
 
Last edited:

blackjon24

Member
First problem is you're quoting two different sources. Famitsu and Fromsoftware. The former is very precise. The latter is rounded it seems.

Also the former is in the first week. If you extrapolate out that first weeks numbers, to March 14 (i.e. 3 weeks later), to get an additional ~720k sales isn't crazy. It's not linear, which you would expect 560k more sale if it were, but it isn't far off.

Case closed.

Edit:
The 280k sales aren't even one whole fucking week. That's just two days (i.e. between 2/25/23 and 2/27/23). The number of days between release (i.e. 2/25/23) and that fromsoftware release (i.e. 3/14/23) is 17 days. Linear extrapolation would dictate it would sale 2.38 million copies if it continued to sell at the same rate it had in those first two days. However, it only got to 1 million sales by 3/14/23. So sales DID fall way off after release.

OP you need to go back to school and learn math.

You got issues man but yes it is crazy high for japan console game sales
 

kiphalfton

Member
You got issues man but yes it is crazy high for japan console game sales

I proved you wrong, and you're pushing it back on me.

Know when to bow out. Since you don't even know wtf you're talking about, can't use basic logic, and can't even get your facts straight.

I'll break the numbers down for you, not that it matters since you probably won't understand it.

2/25 - 2/27: Sold 280k copies
2/25 - 3/14: Sold 1 million copies

Number of days in first sales week (i.e. 2/21 to 2/27) that game was available is 2 days (since it released on 2/25, and wasn't out that entire 7 day sales period).

So...

280,000 copies / 2 days = 140,000 copies / day

If it had continued to sell the same amount for that whole 17 day period (i.e. 2/25/23 to 3/14/23), i.e. sales were linear, it would have sold...

140,000 copies * 17 days = 2.38 million copies

It only sold 1 million though, so CLEARLY sales dropped off by a considerable amount.
 
Last edited:

blackjon24

Member
I proved you wrong, and you're pushing it back on me.

Know when to bow out. Since you don't even know wtf you're talking about, can't use basic logic, and can't even get your facts straight.

I'll break the numbers down for you, not that it matters since you probably won't understand it.

2/25 - 2/27: Sold 280k copies
2/25 - 3/14: Sold 1 million copies

Number of days in first sales week (i.e. 2/21 to 2/27) that game was available is 2 days (since it released on 2/25, and wasn't out that entire 7 day sales period).

So...

280,000 copies / 2 days = 140,000 copies / day

If it had continued to sell the same amount for that whole 17 day period (i.e. 2/25/23 to 3/14/23), i.e. sales were linear, it would have sold...

140,000 copies * 17 days = 2.38 million copies

It only sold 1 million though, so CLEARLY sales dropped off by a considerable amount.
You sound unhinged. Once again you missed the point of this topic, nobody is debating anybody here. All I asked was an explanation on how elden ring reached a million in sales in japan out of curiosity and you go nuts. If anything you do realize that all you did was give me what I was looking for minus the crazy rambling
 
Top Bottom