Atlus has announced that Demon’s Souls has sold over 250,000 copies in the U.S., helping to push the publisher’s home-gaming sector sales to 8% over the year before.
This is a big deal because Demon’s Souls not only has an awkward name, but it is also anything but mainstream. Extremely difficult on purpose, dark, atmospheric, punishing and unforgiving, Demon’s Souls has proven that an odd RPG from a Japanese developer with a generally low pedigree (as of late) can still have a breakthrough success and sell games based on word-of-mouth, critical acclaim and uniqueness. And while 250,000 is a long way off from one million, it is enough for Atlus to consider the game a success and is a significant jump from the 15,000 copies the game initially sold upon it’s Western debut.
So much so that Sony, who passed on the chance to publish the game themselves in the West like they did in Japan (leaving Atlus to fill their place), is regretful of their choice to not release the From Software-developed game themselves.
Speaking at the localization session, Sony Computer Entertainment VP of international software Yeonkyung Kim reportedly admitted that was a mistake, saying that concerns over its difficulty and unusual design decisions kept them from publishing the International release themselves.
Atlus is happy with the performance of Demon’s Souls thus far. In a quarterly report this week, the publisher said sales of Demon’s Souls were strong, helping push sales of its home gaming segment up more than 8 percent year-over-year as reported above. According to a translation by game site Siliconera, the company’s six-month operating profit more than doubled, jumping 236.1 percent to 78 million yen (roughly $4.15 million).
Here’s GameTrailer’s review of Demon’s Souls.
Via GameSpot