One Piece: Pirate Warriors Off To A Grand Start In Japan

For the initial launch of One Piece: Pirate Warriors, Namco Bandai shipped 650,000 copies of the game to retailers in Japan. That’s a high number, and it indicates that Namco expect the game to do very well indeed. Given the popularity of One Piece in Japan and Namco’s high expectations, we were curious to see how the game was doing, and so, we perused the blogs of a few Japanese retailers to find out what their experiences of the game’s launch were.

The general consensus is that the game more or less sold out at launch at various stores. One retailer indicates that over 90% of copies at his store (including pre-orders) had sold out. Customers ranged from highschoolers through people in their 20s, and even people over 30.

“Today, on the day of release, an adult man cheerfully came to pick up One Piece: Pirate Warriors,” another retailer echoes on his blog. At this particular store, adults comprised the majority of customers.

Retailer #3 indicates that the game started selling at a rapid speed at his store from the moment he opened for the day. In contrast, a fourth retailer says that sales of the game didn’t really pick up at his store until the evening, but by the end of the day, most copies were sold out.

While each of these anecdotes says something a little different about One Piece’s first day sales, the one thing all of them agree on is that the game sold tremendously well at launch. The golden PlayStation 3 bundle sold out completely at various stores, and one retailer even wonders if more PlayStation 3s were sold with One Piece: Pirate Warriors than at the PlayStation 3’s launch.

As far as new shipments are concerned, Namco Bandai appear to have things under control, with a smaller second shipment being sent out over the weekend. One retailer says that the second shipment consists of another 50,000 copies, but wonders how the game will sell in the long run, after the initial launch is done. Other retailers are instead concerned about stock being able to keep up with demand, and one says that a third shipment of the game won’t be sent out until March 9th.