Today, during their third-quarter financial results briefing, Nintendo announced that PlatinumGames’ Astral Chain and Marvel/Team Ninja’s Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order have both sold over 1 million units worldwide.
Both games are published by Nintendo and Astral Chain co-owned by the company.
Astral Chain has sold 1.03 million units as of the end of 2019, with 870,000 units being sold in the west and 160,000 in Japan. Astral Chain director Takahisa Taura has stated in the past that he has ideas for a sequel, should PlatinumGames get the opportunity to develop one.
Meanwhile, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 has sold 1.02 million units as of the end of the 2019, with 980,000 units sold in the west and 40,000 in Japan. The game has regularly been updated with additional characters and costumes since its release in July 2019, and is scheduled to receive a major expansion pack featuring Marvel’s Fantastic Four characters this Spring.
Notably, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is the first notable Marvel game in some time to heavily feature the X-Men and Fantastic Four—both popular Marvel brands that found themselves embroiled in complications and omissions from major games in recent years, owing to an alleged rivalry between Disney (which owns Marvel) and 20th Century Fox (which held exclusive movie rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four until recently).
Things have settled down somewhat over the last two years. 20th Century Fox is now part of Disney following its acquisition, and the complications around the X-Men appear to have dissipated of late. As a result, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 launched with a number of X-Men on its roster, and six new X-Men characters have been added as downloadable content since. A trailer for the game’s X-Men DLC was played at the start of the 2019 Game Awards, which probably helped going into the holiday season.
