Marvelous Lost Money On Wii, Made Money With PSP

Marvelous Entertainment candidly stated during a financial presentation they lost money on three out of the four Wii titles published in the first half of 2009. This year, Marvelous released Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Arc Rise Fantasia, Little King’s Story, and Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga.

In Japan, Muramasa: The Demon Blade sold 47,000 units. Arc Rise Fantasia reached 45,000 units and poor Little King’s Story only reached 26,000 units. Little King’s Story did a little better in North America where 37,000 units were sold and performed best in Europe racking up 67,000 sales. Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga, which came out in September, only reached 16,000 units in North America.

Compare those figures to sales of their PSP games like Valhalla Knights 2: Battle Stance which sold 35,000 units and Hitman Reborn! Battle Arena 2’s 41,000 units. Half-Minute Hero topped all of Marvelous’ games with 70,000 units. Four out of the five PSP games made money, but not enough to keep Marvelous in the black.

One thing to consider is Marvelous’ PSP games weren’t as expensive to make. Valhalla Knights 2: Battle Stance being a revised version of Valhalla Knights 2 wouldn’t require much work. Marvelous already made a Hitman Reborn! engine and their other two PSP titles were visual novels. Comparatively, their Wii games like Muramasa: The Demon Blade and Little King’s Story were ambitious. Marvelous also believes their games, while critically acclaimed, didn’t sell well because they were new IPs and their brand isn’t well known.

Next year, Marvelous will release their first multi-platform PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 games, No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise in Japan and Deadly Premonition in North America.