Players Taking A “Wait And See” Approach With Toukiden Extreme

Last week, Koei Tecmo released Toukiden Extreme in Japan. The game was released for the PlayStation Vita and PSP, and sold 90,410 copies in total. 79,384 copies of the game were sold on Vita, while 11,026 were sold on the PSP.

Japanese sales tracker Media Create pointed out in a report today that Toukiden Extreme only sold 50% of the original Toukiden, which was released in June 2013.  That game sold 188,810 copies at launch (122,794 copies on Vita and 66,016 on PSP).

In the case of the first Toukiden, the PSP version of the game sold nearly half as many copies on PSP as it did on Vita. In the case of Toukiden Extreme, however, the PSP version sold six times less than the Vita version, and the Vita version itself didn’t do all that well. There are two ways to look at this situation:

1. People have stopped playing games on their PSPs. These same people do not care to buy a Vita to play games on, and so opted out of buying Toukiden Extreme altogether.
2. A small part of Toukiden’s PSP audience has shifted to the Vita, but clearly not enough to make up for the number of lost players.

The reality is probably a mix of both. Either way, Toukiden Extreme’s drop in sales mirrors that of Soul Sacrifice Delta, which also saw a fairly sharp drop from the first Soul Sacrifice game. I would assume the lack of a “2” in front of the new games lets people know that they aren’t really full-fledged sequels, which further decreases the need to buy these titles.

It should be interesting to see how Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and God Eater 2: Rage Burst—both of which are hunting-action games like Toukiden and Soul Sacrifice—do in comparison to their own predecessors, just so we can compare if a 50% drop from a numbered title to an updated “G” version (or its closest equivalent) remains consistent across the board.

Either way, though, Toukiden Extreme’s numbers aren’t really much to write home about. In their report, Media Create say it’s difficult to evaluate how the game will perform, because retailers have indicated that people that bought the first Toukiden are taking a “wait and see” approach with Extreme.