‘Pokken Tournament’ Outsells ‘Street Fighter V’
Pokken Tournament was super effective against Street Fighter V in retail, as the fighting game from Nintendo and Bandai Namco outperformed Street Fighter V in sales in the United States.
According to video game analyst ZhugeEX, who provides video game sales data and has access to early NPD reports, Pokken Tournament did very well against Street Fighter V here in the U.S.:
Pokken Tournament for Wii U has now outsold Street Fighter V for PS4 in the US at retail. pic.twitter.com/U0oPTDtoB6
— ZhugeEX (@ZhugeEX) May 13, 2016
Though no specific numbers are provided, ZhugeEX does say that based from his information, more physical copies of Pokken Tournament were sold in the United States than Street Fighter V–even though Capcom released their game a full month before Pokken Tournament.
How could this be, you ask? Good question. How does the most recognizable fighting franchise in the world fail to meet sales expectations and underperforms to a game hybrid between Tekken and Pokemon? As discussed by many of us at the Geekscape Games Podcast, Street Fighter V feels more like a demo than a full retail game–especially when compared to the vanilla version of Street Fighter IV.
Suffering from a Story Mode which abandoned Street Fighter’s traditional formula, online matchmaking issues, and a number of bugs found in the PC version of the game, Capcom’s newest entry from its flagship franchise failed to become the retail juggernaut many thought it would be. Instead of selling the projected two million copies Capcom predicted, the latest entry in the Street Fighter franchise only managed to sell 1.4 million copies worldwide. Yes, Alex and Guile are in, but many fan favorites are painfully absent.
Where’s Akuma?!
Considering the 36 million people who make up the install base for the Playstation 4 far surpass that of the Wii U (which stands at nearly 13 million), it is surprising Street Fighter V couldn’t pull off the sales goal. Those who received review copies of the game reported how much Street Fighter V lacked in content, but one would assume that the name of ‘Street Fighter’ alone would move units. It should be noted that while sales for Street Fighter V are low, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the franchise is losing its popularity among the competitive fight scene. On the contrary, it’s quite the opposite.
As of April, over 4,000 Street Fighter V players have registered to compete at this year’s EVO Tournament in Las Vegas–making it the biggest tournament in the event’s history. Pokken Tournament has over 1,000 players registered at this year’s EVO as of this writing.
How can Capcom translate the game’s popularity into a financial gain? What can Nintendo and Bandai Namco do to capitalize on the success of Pokken Tournament? Let us know in the comments below and we will discuss your points on the next episode of the Geekscape Games Podcast!
