Final Fantasy XIII day-one sales hit 1 million in Japan

@patrickstar1986 FFXIII has done the exact opposite of changing the way "we" see RPGs. If you boil it down to gameplay nothing meaningful has changed or improved. Fallout 3 and Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age have changed the way we see RPGs! And if you literally mean see then Dragon Age has got FFXIII trumped too. Alpha Protocol may be a significantly less fun game to play than FFXIII, but even AP has done more to change the way RPGs tell stories.

Gamers are too jaded in America. Stop whining and buy the game if you like final fantasy games. If you don't put your headset back on and go back to shooting some more. Why do you flame developers for trying something new? Innovation isn't just a natural thing, I enjoyed the titles of the past even though I agree FF7 is very overrated, it is still a great and very innovative title for gaming at the time. MW2 didn't change the way people see shooting games. FFXIII probably will change how we see RPGs though.

I hope it sells just as big here. (Probably won't,) but I've been waiting since 2006 for this game and can't possibly wait longer than march 9th. Getting it first day of its release. Also, I just hope it's not like twelve.

@ ZippyDSMLee: Yea Im 100% sure its not gonna be as good as 7 or 10. (Or 8,9) But its still a good title. They removed all the RPG elements I loved about the previous games though | : But great it sold that much. Japan + Rpgs = Crazy. So thats expected

AceCometh: Yes they do, but it's common practice in Japan to skip work to pick up the latest game. Some businesses close down for the day of the release because they know their workers won't come in. Also true of Dragon Warrior releases in Japan.

A shame it sold so well tis worse than FFX and perhaps even smaller..... god how I hate brands and trends........... well at least they are not releasing it in the US/EU first then finishing it then releasing it in japan with the "international" title....

i wonder if the western multi plat release will do better? even more interesting is whether this will continue the trend of 3rd party games selling better on the 360. ps you cant dismiss this until it does or doesnt happen, then you can say im wrong.

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@ runnermpls Heres the deal, if your friends harass and brag in your face about them getting better exclusives then thats not cool. But because of their fanboyism, you really should still remain open minded and not be swayed by rumors and accusations that is caused by fanboyism. I just think you should keep an open mind towards thing but try not to listen to all the rumors. Think of it this way enjoy Final Fantasy XIII for what it is, Final Fantasy XIII, play it on your console of preference and thats that. We should focus on the games and not so much on consoles as we tend to do. I will be honest, my console preference is the 360, but thats my preference, its what I like. I am not going to force it upon people or bash people who own Playstation 3 or do any of that, because I respect others opinion. Just giving you some advice, donot listen to these bull rumors, for either console, if its bad or good. Their just fanboy propaganda(Such as 360 holding back the Playstation 3 or the so called lack of exclusives on the PS3, and I do plan on getting one soon), just enjoy the games, I hope my advice help. And as for your friends, just ignore them and if they bash your console, donot stoop to their level, but stand up and say look, thats what I like, donot like it, deal with it....

1 million in one day. Yikes! Don't these people have jobs?

@ runnermpls No reason to think anyone is claiming ignorance, lol. Hadn't though of this before, but because of how long, how detailed and covered the game has been, it's a first experience for a lot of "regular" (non JP version importign) players to see the horribly frustrating system at work. 3 months turnaround for an English version is AMAZING considering how long it's ever been in the past even before voiceovers or games that didn't need anything but menu texts changed. If all JP-originated and later localized to English games had a turnover this quick, none of 'us' (mostly JRPG players) would ever need feel a need to import the things. A lot of decent games in a lot of different genres just never get translated at all, or get a company blessing for investment to do so. This is slowly improving, but that bluray has no region protection is a MAJOR plus to this niche demographic and a big advantage of the PS3 to us when combined with import Anime/Movies some buy as well. ...Thus why the PS3 version gets more general chatter and is defaulted to in Gamespot news on it.

@runnermpls And my thanks to you for providing such an honest and mature reply. I'm so used to receiving the opposite on forums that your post completely caught me by surprise :). Thanks again my friend.

@MTMind2 I certainly wasn't criticizing the fact that it's coming out in Japan first. That only makes sense for a Japanese IP. And I don't doubt that I've been swayed by hearsay regarding postponement to allow for porting to Xbox. As someone who owns a PS3 and not an Xbox, I constantly have to hear about Xbox exclusives that pwn all and my friends always buying multi-platform titles on Xbox so I can't multi-player with them. Forgive my ignorance on this particular topic as mostly just annoyance that a game that was originally going to be PS3 exclusive now, once again all my friends will buy for Xbox instead. I'm just going to go back to playing Demon's Souls and UC2. Thanks for the information and your response. :)

@ selmagery i totally agree, this will ensure that more people know the greatness of the FF franchise. this could also be one of those times where everyone benefits, i mean once someone gets hooked into an FF game, its hard to not want to play the rest.

I only got two words out of that video. xD But it is very nice, the music in the background too...

@runnermpls (and @OJdaLIONKing) Sigh, that's completely untrue runner, you're simply jumping to the same false conclusions other gamers make without really looking at the facts. Don't get me wrong, I'm not angry or attacking you, but the facts are that for every game in the main FF series, the NA version comes out many months after the JP version (typically 6 months), and the Europeon version comes out many months after the NA version (again typically 6 months). Hence in Europe, gamers have waited for up to a year or more before getting the game! This has happened with every FF game in this series, with gamers on forums asking why it has to take so long and therefore saying things like "Surely it doesn't take 6 months to translate a game into English!". This time, the wait is better than ever before, with less than a 3 month wait for both the NA and EU release (March 9 2010). So if anything, the wait has reduced following the announcement of a 360 version, which shows the 360 did not delay the game. As for recognizing the PS3 as a solid format in its own right, that happened right from the beginning, it's only taken longer for devs to get up to speed on the hardware due to it's greater complexity compared to the 360.

It's disappointing that other multi-platform games will come out on Xbox three-six months before they are released on PS3, but they will hold a PS3 title until the Xbox is ready to launch simultaneously. I'm hopeful with the number of PS3 consoles being sold this holiday that they'll stop focusing all their energy on Xbox and start recognizing PS3 as a solid format in its own right.

Cool graphics, beautiful cgi and voice overs look and sound spot on. I'm a lil disappointed to hear about the go for mulitiplatform, yea it's nice to see 360 owners gettin some love too, but still major pain that sony owners have to wait even longer. As for the linear play of this game I personally enjoy being able to have the freedom of that non-linear play affords you, but I can see where you're coming from as having some structure is also nice (does get a little bit boring without it), so the fact that FFXIII has a bit of both sounds great to me XD!

@seimagery i totally argee with you, i own both console's but i'll be buying it on both too(coz one is in my sitting room and ones in my room) , hopefully more deveopers hop on THIS bandwagon rather than the wii fit one...

@neoand12 Highly, highly, unlikely.

Japanese sure luv there home-grown goods! who blames them....they rock went it come to this sort of stuff!

not much of surprise!

O_O

@Alex_09 Well, I do enjoy open world games, I've played a lot of oblivion, GTA, and Fallout for instance. It's more fun for me to have some kind of structure, though. For instance, i couldn't keep playing oblivion for more than a half hour at a time until I worked out an order to play the game in. Eventually, these open-world games can have so much content that you kind of get lost in it--in fact, that was a common complaint I've heard about FFXII, that it starts off well but there's so much to do in the middle-end of it that people have trouble finishing. Considering that Japanese games tend to be more linear than western games (the aforementioned FFXII is an obvious exception), one can infer that Japanese players like their games more structured as well. This might also explain why big sellers like gta and oblivion don't do so hot over there, and if this is the case it's understandable that they'd make FFXIII more linear after the complaints about FFXII. That said, I heard that it's only very linear for the first part of it, and it really opens up in the later parts, which is really par for the course for JRPGs.

@OJdaLIONKing I don't know about that. Have you played the saboteur? It's version of Paris is almost too big when you first open the map, but it promises so much content that the game basically never ends. I love being able to progress at whatever pace I wish, especially in an RPG.

Does Anyone know that the 250GB ceramic-white PS3 is coming to the US? I've been holding out on a PS3 for something like this.

Even though I would much rather this be a PS3 exclusive, I think that it's a generous move to have this on the 360 as well. Instead of console flaming, the gaming community needs to appreciate what SE did here, more people are going to experience a great game. Is that something to start a war over?

itz too bad this song's not going to be in the american release, it sounds really nice too=P still can't wait to play this one tho and ffxiii versus. they both look awesome!

come on...?? Give it to me!! : p

hmm.. go figure.. PS3 is big in Japan as well as FF, who knew?

Only two months left out of the 60 month wait! Seriously, its about frickin time.

Woot! Woot! Final Fantasy XIII can't wait, I'll have to pre-order this one, something tells me the bonus will be awesome.

Hopely they will replace this video english once the game gets released in the U.S. I couldn't understand a word they were saying. lol!!

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can't f****ing wait for this orgame.....

That video looked crazy, and that chick with the blue dress reminds me a little bit of Riona.

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@ Jag-T1000 Um...have you not been, let alone heard of anime conventions? I'm pretty sure there are more than a million people out there willing to play the next FF game here in the US. I've been done with the FF series since X. X-2 really killed it and XII was just annoying to play. The FF series really is a re-hash, but they cover it up so much that you barely notice. They do make the minor changes to each game, but its teh same thing over and over. Level your character from 1 to 100, rinse and repeat. When a game takes the genre and goes to other places with it, I'll bite. RPG is a great genre but they need to mix things up to keep it fresh. They also need to dive into Story more than anything. Every FF game plays out the same way now. I'm tired.

I'm dying to play this game. In fact, I would have imported it, but getting it 3 months earlier is not worth a 30-50 dollar premium to me (according to importing sites I've looked at). I do wish SE hadn't given Microsoft that day one deal, it seems to be the main reason for this delay, but what are ya gonna do? 360 owners want some love too, I can't fault them for going multiplatform, but it shouldn't have been at the cost of the Sony fans that have been loyally following them for over a decade. So far the main complaint I've heard is that it's very linear but...is that really news? Japanese games, FFs in particular, are always pretty linear, and personally I never got the appeal of total non-linearity--a good amount of people play through in the order that's the most "efficient" by consensus anyway.

@Liferow When I say Square games are recycled I'm referring to the storylines. They're always filled with complete archetypes ripped straight out of just about any other J-RPG or anime series, they never have any interesting twists (FFX almost had one before they decided to say, 10 hours into the game, "This is the ending twist"), they always have the same motives and the same personalities... I don't know how anyone with an IQ above 70 could possibly find them entertaining. But see, the problem is that Square holds a MONOPOLY on the RPG genre. There are a few RPGs that popped up that I really love, because they did unique things with their stories or their characters, they had brilliant plot twists, etc etc. Unfortunately most of these games either sell horribly and don't get followups, or they sell poorly and the companies decide to make the sequels more Square like - more archetypical characters, more formulaic plot, more of that utterly boring fantasy Square seems to love that's just an erratic mish-mash of names, archetecture and style they just think looks or sounds cool. tl;dr: Square recycle their storylines, they're so rich that all other companies follow their footsteps eventually.

This makes me Sad... I want it now, not in March..

Dragon Quest IX has already sold over 4.15 million copies in Japan. I don't think FF XIII will catch it. I'm still not sure if I want this for my PS3 or XBox 360. I might get it for the PS3, so I can at least have more games to play on it. I have over 100 XBox 360 games and about 20 PS3 games. Uncharted 2 is still the best PS3 game I own. Square's next multplatform game is Front Mission Evolved. They need to make all their RPG's multiplat.

Now if it weren't for that pesky 360, we could probably have our copy by now!

Preordered for PS3, like the idea of having the game designed with the console in mind and having 1 disk to play with instead of... alot.

@ iiIsSueZ yes it is possible to get it the way u mentioned, very legal & the PS3 is "NOT" region locked. only thing is can u understand Japanese? if so then go ahead mate n get it. kind of stupid that people say its region locked as sony will not lockout japanese who are overseas from playing it, it is stated on PS3 launch day that its region locked free. so get ur facts right.

this game certainly looks amazing but judging from the rating on amazon japan it may not be all that its hyped up to be. oh well, least its raking in the cash and i'll still most likely get it

So what kinda reviews is this getting in Japan?

YES!!! Oh, and the PS3 "IS" Region blocked. Sorry guys/gals! I am really back and forth on purchasing this for the 360 or PS3 when it hits the states for sale. Anyone having the same issue?

@iilsSueZ - why would it be illegal? yes its possible there is no area code block on the playstation 3. you may purchase the game and play it on your console without worry.

Sexy