It’s been over a week since the launch of Sonic Frontiers, and people are still talking about the title. For the record, that’s a good thing. After all, SEGA was putting a lot of faith in this title regarding the “push” it could give the franchise. Not unlike a title that’s about to release, the game was the first in the series to embrace an open-world aesthetic. It was also doing new things with the combat, how the world would let Sonic run in 3D and 2D space, and so on. The critics were somewhat mixed on the title, but players loved the game. So the only question left is about the sales numbers.
While we may not get the worldwide sales numbers for a bit longer, we have gotten word of how well the game is doing in Japan. Sources have said Sonic Frontiers sold over 46,000 copies in its first week. For context, that’s not bad for a launch in Japan. The country rarely has multi-million sellers for games in their launch weeks nowadays. The goal is always to get at least high tens of thousands, which this game did. But what’s interesting is what console sold the most copies of the title:
Indeed, it was the Nintendo Switch. Why is that so interesting? That would be because the game was noted by many critics and gamers to have performance issues. It couldn’t run at a solid framerate. Yet many people bought the title on the Switch, where you can argue it would run the poorest.
It’s true that this could simply speak to how more people in Japan have the Switch over the next-gen consoles and that people didn’t want to buy it for the last generation. But, unfortunately, we’ll likely not know the rhyme or reason.
No matter what, though, if this launch in Japan is to be mirrored by the other main regions, then Sonic Frontiers could be a hit game sales-wise. Sonic Team has said multiple times that they made this game the way they did to “get good reviews” and to be the torchbearer for the franchise for years to come. We know the first hurdle wasn’t fully cleared, but the second one is still up for the taking. Hopefully, we’ll get a clearer sales picture in the future, as well as glimpses into what the future of the title may be. Only time will surely tell how we’ll look back at the title.
Source: Twitter
