The lights are on
From Software's Dark Souls II has earned respect from both fans and critics, who say the game is a worthy follow-up to its 2011 predecessor. Looking at Bandai Namco's most recent financial report, it's clear that the punishing game has its share of supporters at the publisher, too.
According to the report, 1.2 million copies of Dark Souls II have been shipped between the game's March 11 release date to the end of the month. That number doesn't include sales of the PC game, which was released on April 24. To provide context, it took Dark Souls 1 nearly six months – from its Oct. 4, 2011, release to March 31, 2012 – to reach that same number of shipped units.
A quick glance at the other games on the statement shows just how important From's game is to the publisher. The second highest-shipping game on the list is God Eater 2, a Japan-only game for the PSP and Vita that shipped 700,000 copies. After that is Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z at 620,000 units, followed by the Japan-only JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle (550,000 units) and Disney Magic Castle: My Happy Life (500,000 units).
[Source: Bandai Namco]
Our TakeIt's clear that Dark Souls is important to Bandai Namco in the short term – at the very least – and it's going to be interesting to see how From Software's recent acquisition by publisher Kadokawa will affect things moving forward.
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It's still a shame that they don't at least release it on PS4 or Wii U.
This game is on my gaming list, but because of that there are games unexpectedly climbing straight before it.
The time I'm finally ready to play it will then pass and it'll end up just like the previous Dark Soul, it'll go from "A game I'm gonna play" to "A game I HAVE to play" to finally "A game I wished I've played"....
But hey, I guess that if that happens I'll still have Dark Souls III or whatever they name it.
Praise the sales!
Good to see Dark Souls II love! I hope these numbers tell the publishers that people still want punishingly hard games that refuse to hold your hand. That also play well and look good too.
Wow that's great. Love these games. Hope project Beast is real.
Awesome. I'm glad its doing good. Games like these are rare and I can't wait to see what DLC or next gaae will look like.
Still waiting to pick up my copy on the PC.
Good for them, always nice to see the underdog succeed and continue to do so.
I want another good Armored Core game like the first two for ps2, all the ps3 ones i check out seemed real lack luster, and awkward. Hope they develop some more of those games, and boy were they difficult too like the Souls games.
Between Project Beast and the fact they've reportedly already started work on DS3, I'm a very happy camper. Congratulations From.
I've been enjoying this game a lot recently, I'm happy to see it be successful.
Dark Souls 2 on the PC is by far the best iteration of the game. I'm at about 67 hours of play time and still haven't beaten my first play-through. I'm thoroughly enjoying this game. It runs liquid smooth at 60 fps.
Look up project beast, possibly a demons souls sequel!
Interesting that the numbers don't even include PC sales, which is actually the biggest chunk of the pie. I was surprised how many more people there were on PC than the consoles. I suspect a lot of people migrated after purchasing the console version first.