Last week, Namco Bandai released a game in Japan called Sentouchuu: Survival Battle with the Legendary Ninjas. Based on a popular Japanese TV show, the game involves celebrities going after one another in a vicious free-for-all game of dodgeball. The rules are simple—if you get hit by a ball, you’re eliminated and have to give your money to your attacker.
Sentouchuu: Survival Battle with the Legendary Ninjas sold 45,000 copies in its first week, which doesn’t seem like a whole lot… at first.
However, Sentouchu is the follow-up to a game released last year, titled Run For Money: Tousouchuu. That game sold an even lower amount—just 30,000 copies—in its first week, but eventually went on to sell over 500,000 copies, rivalling the sales of some of Namco’s best-selling games in Japan of late.
Needless to say, Namco probably have similarly high expectations of Sentouchuu, and it shows in the number of copies they shipped to retailers. Japanese sales tracker Media Create reports that Sentouchuu sold through 46.33% of its shipment, which means that Namco shipped around 100,000 copies for the game’s launch.
46% doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but it’s actually a sign of Namco Bandai playing it safe. When Run For Money: Tousouchuu was released, Namco underestimated how well the game would do, and shipped far fewer copies to retailers. As a result, the game was sold out for weeks on end, when it could have been raking in cash instead.
In the case of Sentouchuu, Namco seem better prepared, with a larger shipment, and it should be interesting to see how sales of the game hold up in the weeks to come. We could very well be looking at another major success story that doesn’t involve One Piece, Gundam or Tales, and attracts an entirely different audience instead.
