No matter how big or small the video game is, most people will determine its “success” based on its sales. It’s true that the “expected sales” will vary based on the developer, the title’s popularity, whether it’s a new IP or a franchise game, etc. But the result is the same. You want to sell enough to justify the game’s existence. If you are making a game in a franchise, you want to try and do better than the previous title to show growth and consistent quality. For Fire Emblem Engage, the road to beating the sales of its predecessor is well underway.
The new title in the strategy RPG franchise will arrive on January 20th, and you can currently pre-order different versions of the game. That brings us to Japan, where they meticulously measure the pre-orders of upcoming titles. As it stands right now, Fire Emblem Engage has more pre-orders than the previous entry of the franchise, Fire Emblem Three Houses. You can check out the graph that details this below:
Why this is important is many-fold. First, as noted in the tweet, there is a little less than two months for pre-orders to grow. Nintendo will continue to plug the game throughout that period, so sales will go up in Japan.
Second, look at how the chart shows the “interest” in the two titles regarding pre-orders. For the previous entry, the upward tick is very slow and only upturns steeply at the end. Meanwhile, Fire Emblem Engage has multiple jumps in its interest, and the pre-orders were quicker to grow.
What do we make of this? Simply put, the franchise’s goodwill grew heavily with the past title, which is the current leader in sales for the franchise, and that is passed on here. Furthermore, it’s possible that due to the new game featuring many past heroes from the series, that interest is even higher because of that. Fire Emblem Heroes is very popular in Japan, and many agree that the “Gacha System” of summoning past characters is a big part of its success there.
We recently got more information on the Emblem Rings that will summon those past characters. In addition, we learned of the abilities of Corrin, Lyn, Byleth, and Sigurd. Plus, there are more on the way! While we can’t say for certain that the upcoming game will quickly become the best-selling game in the line, it’s off to a great start.
Source: Twitter
