Sega’s latest Vocaloid game, Hatsune Miku and Future Stars: Project Mirai, was released on the Nintendo 3DS last week. In its first week on store shelves, Project Mirai sold close to 87,000 copies. Japanese sales tracker, Media-Create, report that this is 70.73% of all copies that were shipped to stores.
By comparison, the very first game in the Project Diva series on PSP sold around 101,000 copies in its first week, back in 2009, and that was a 93.69% sellthrough.
Media-Create don’t provide reasons for the lower sellthrough rate for Project Mirai, but our theory is that the game possibly suffers from a lack of sharing features like the Project Diva series’ “Edit Mode,” which allows players to create custom performances and share them with each other over the Internet.
The upside to Project Mirai’s sales is that it partially appears to be reaching a different audience as a result of the game’s Nendoroid-inspired look. Media-Create say that more girls in their late teens in particular have taken an interest in the game.
How Project Mirai continues to sell going forward should be interesting to watch.
Published: Mar 17, 2012 11:30 am