Final Fantasy XIII Imports "The best this generation"

[moogling]

Import Preorders for Final Fantasy XIII are "the best this generation" according to an employee of Import specialists Play-Asia speaking to UFFSite.

The employee, who wished to remain anonymous, told us that Final Fantasy XIII has "far outdone the other big Japanese releases this year."

"We saw a lot of imports for Bayonetta too - especially after Famitsu's score - but over the last few weeks FF13 has gone on to outdo that significantly."

Bayonetta is out in less than a month, which goes a long way to explain why less people would preorder that - but our source goes on to insist that FF13 has outdone every other title since the release of the PS3 and Xbox 360. The Japanese release is region free, making it easy for Western players to play.

Final Fantasy XIII is out in Japan in around two weeks and is out in the West in March.

Source: N4G

 

[Linnaete]

I'm really not surprised by this. FFXIII is part of the Final Fantasy franchise, one of the biggest franchises ever in Japan. It is also an RPG, which is still a dominant genre in Japan. The advertising is also frequent and powerful.

In terms of HD console game releases in Japan, there hasn't been much due to the fact that handhelds seem to be more popular. So FFXIII was always going to be the most popular non-handheld game. I wonder how its preorders stack up against DQIX though.

 

[Fusionist]

I think FFXIII is probably the most anticipated RPG title for the PS3, so I think people would be eager for it xD

Seriously, if there was some English sub option for the Japanese FFXIII game, I would sincerely consider pre-ording the game myself ;D

 

[Sohryuden666]

Final Fantasy is a big title, so having so many FFXIII pre-orders, is a bit expected, I guess. Many fans want that game, and some won't be satisfied with the recent trailers, so I'm guessing that probably a few english speaking fans just couldn't take it anymore and pre-ordered the Japanese release. The Japanese fans are damn lucky, though, since they just have to wait, like, 1 or 2 more weeks.

 

[Gingerbread Lesbian]

"Import specialists Play-Asia"
"other big Japanese releases"

Key phrases.

This guy works for Play-Asia therefore he's only reporting on Play-Asia's preorders so he only knows the figures for Play-Asia, you've also got to look at the fact it says "other big Japanese releases", how many of those would you class as big lately? Probably not many.

I think you've also got to look at the fact Square Enix are shit at releasing games and are well behind the times. They should have been simultaneously releasing games years ago, Metal Gear Solid 4 managed it from the Japanese company Konami and it's widely regarding as one of the best titles this generation.

The guy who was being interviewed should probably reword his sentence, I very much doubt FFXIII has "the best amount of imports this generation".

 

[Kandy-Sugar]

As said before, Final Fantasy is well known and already has fans built up, eagerly awaiting the next release of the series.

For games that are fairly new and aren't that well known, of course they aren't going to be up there. Most people aren't going to pre-order a game that they have no idea about.

There wouldn't really be that many other releases that it has to compete against anyway. =/