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Fire Emblem: Awakening was released for the Nintendo 3DS last week. The latest game in the long-running strategy RPG series, Awakening brings back the marriage feature from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, among other additions such as the “My Unit” feature. Judging by launch-day retailer musings, the game appears to be selling rather well, with some going as far as to say that they were nearly sold out of all the copies they received.
“We’ve heard that others have been experiencing a scarcity of units, so we’ve added more, but still 90% of it was sold out,” one retailer reports about the game’s first-day sales. He goes on to express concerns regarding whether Nintendo will be able to re-supply stock quickly enough in time for Japan’s approaching Golden Week holiday, which is a period when videogames see an increase in sales across the board.
“60% sold out and it’s looking good,” another retailer says about sales at his store, adding that it sold even better at other branches, for a total of 80% sellthrough.
A third store reports: “Because of rain, sales weren’t too great. But of the new games, Fire Emblem sold the best. Although, most of the people who bought it were old guys, lol.” He adds: “Personally, I was expecting great things of Code of Princess, but it got completely eaten up by Fire Emblem, so I thought that was a bit of a shame.”
He then goes on do a little bit of opining, which we’d recommend taking with a grain of salt. “Why are Nintendo games so cheap despite being high quality?” this retailer wonders. “It’s no wonder the others don’t sell when Nintendo’s games are 1,000 yen cheaper.”
“However, it’s a game directed at core gamers, so who knows how long it’ll sell for,” he concludes. “I don’t think it’ll be a game with lots of stamina like the Mario games, so I can only hope that the numbers will continue to grow for at least next week or the week after that.”
Finally, this last retailer impression was posted on Friday, the day after Fire Emblem: Awakening was released: “First thing in the morning, it’s 3DS Fire Emblem on parade. I feel like nothing else was sold at all. It’s all Fire Emblem. Rare for a Nintendo title, they released commercials and everything, so a crowd of people came in on the release date.”
This particular store didn’t have a bunch of old people buying the game as another retailer suggested. “The customers’ ages dropped, so from dusk onward it was middle/high school students on their way back from school. I completely thought that the only people buying this would be those in their mid-thirties, so I was let down, but in a good way.”
We’ll find out what Fire Emblem: Awakening’s early sales were like when Media Create release their top-20 software sales chart for the week.
