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Monster Hunter is Capcom’s go-to franchise for Japanese sales. It may not sell by the bucketload overseas, but in Japan, it’s a social phenomenon with sales of recent titles in the range of millions of units.
Here’s a quick look at how past Monster Hunter titles have sold worldwide:
| Year | System | Title | Sales |
| 2005 | PSP | Monster Hunter Freedom (Portable) | 1.2 million |
| 2007 | PSP | Monster Hunter Freedom 2 (Portable 2nd) | 2.3 million |
| 2008 | PSP | Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (Portable 2nd G) | 4.0 million + |
| 2009 | Wii | Monster Hunter Tri | 1.8 million |
| — | — | Monster Hunter series total sales: | 13.0 million units |
Two things to note when reading the above figures:
1. Monster Hunter Tri is an anomaly as the result of being on a platform the series hasn’t historically been associated with, and also being on a non-portable platform. Tri sold better overseas than past Monster Hunter games, but not enough to surpass the second generation of titles, which is currently the peak of the main series.
2. The sales figure for Monster Hunter Freedom Unite includes both the regular as well as the budget re-release in Japan, which has sold in the range of 456,266 units as of October 27th, 2010.
With Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, which returns the franchise to its natural habitat, the PSP, Capcom hope to sell a whopping 3.6 million units in Japan alone.
These high expectations, according to Capcom, can be attributed to successful inroads made with Monster Hunter Diary and Monster Hunter Diary Mobile, which they believe are attracting new fans to the franchise.
