Top marathon simulator Final Fantasy XIII is now being sold at bargain prices online and in Akiba stores thanks to plummeting sales and mountains of excess inventory, with the price having dropped from an admittedly outrageous ¥9,240 to ¥3,980 in the few months since its much heralded release.
Previously the game was available second-hand and in promotional sales at rockbottom prices, but not in regular retail.
The game is fast dropping out of Japanese game charts, now selling a few thousand copies a week.
Even Play-Asia is apparently having trouble shifting the game, with a $40 discount adding insult to injury.
Although thankfully for Square Enix initial sales were healthy, with this performance it now seems unlikely the game will be able to achieve long-seller status – compare to Guns of the Patriots, which with 5 million copies sold, 650,000 in 2009, is now the best selling PS3 exclusive.
Whether all this is down to word spreading of the game’s questionable design or some other factor is an interesting question.
In any case it appears Square Enix has long since mastered the art of buying favourable reviews, so international retail success seems possible all the same.
All this bullshit about FFXIII’s price and in here its still fucking 53$….USED.
God damn it,hurry up and drop the damn price already.
its 30 bucks in EB games ROFL. FFXIII is a fucking epic fail
Final Fantasy has gone downhill I feel FFX was moderately decent, FFXII was boring with some strange gameplay schemes, characters were pretty lame in general.
$40 is still too much. Considering the price dropped that fast I’m willing to bet in another 2 months it’ll be $20 then I’ll consider buying it. So far though my love for Final Fantasy ends with 2 and 3 on SNES and Crystal Chronicles on GCN and Echoes of Time. I’ve yet to play 9.
My friend got it for me first day so I paid the original price. The massive changes is just too much, maybe I should have waited to see the review before buying, but I wanted to play a “great RPG” during the X’mas holiday. I still like those very traditional elements of RPG (village, shops, people to talk to get hints, etc). Too bad DQ9 is on DS and I prefer to play games on a big tv screen now.
Serves you all right who bought the game. Final Fantasy is nothing but a brand.
For the people that ask why sankaku bashes on ff13 so much, it’s because this site delivers real news and real opinions instead of all of the praise people get paid to say on other web sites.
I’m tired of all this talk about people being paid to say good things…it’s just ridiculous….and not everything said in reviews have been 100% positive so I don’t see how this is true. Also, I don’t know why you say “real opinions” because everyone’s opinion is their own….I also say this site gives selective news…sometimes missing the whole picture. For all the people who don’t like/hate (I’m talking about people who actually care about the game) this game, I’m sure there are an equal (if not more) amount of people who like/love the game, and the game still hasn’t even been released everywhere…
That wasn’t what I was trying to use as an argument.
How would people know if someone was specifically paid to say good things? They’re just saying it without even knowing.
Just because you’re tired of hearing something doesn’t necessary make it true/untrue. Find yourself a better argument.