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According to a Cake, Catherine Sold 200,000 Units its First Week

Atlus tweets out a shot of its celebratory cake, and gives up the opening week numbers in the process.

Whenever I have a conversation with someone about Atlus and the games the notoriously niche publisher puts out, the conversation always devolves into some permutation of, "Yeah, but how do they make money?" For as great as many of Atlus' titles are, the company almost exclusively deals in oddball Japanese role-playing nonsense that treads pretty far off the beaten (mostly beaten by Square Enix) path of games that American audiences acknowledge the existence of, let alone actively want to play.

The elucidating cake in question.
The elucidating cake in question.

After reading today's news that Catherine, the Q*Bert-meets-anime/mumblecore (animumblecore?) game Atlus mostly recently brought to American audiences, sold 200,000 units in its first week of retail, I may have to stop asking that question. Now, to be fair, this information comes from Atlus' Twitter feed, and specifically from a picture of a cake. In celebration of the milestone, this cake had the sales numbers emblazoned in icing for all to see.

Unfortunately, as we all know, cakes are by far the most unreliable of all dessert treats, known for providing consistently apocryphal information and constantly double-dealing for the pursuit of their own nefarious gains. Perhaps if this information had come on some manner of pie, or spelled out in chocolate chip cookies, then we could rely upon it. But a cake? They're like the Robert Ford of desserts.

Seriously though, whatever you may have taken away from the experience of Catherine, it's always good to see games outside the mainstream norm of "shoot that guy" and "stab that dude" find success. Given the massive retail disappointments that were Child of Eden and Shadows of the Damned, this does at least give us some hope that Japanese weirdness can still succeed in America. Especially if there's marketing for it.

Alex Navarro on Google+

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FluxWaveZ

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Edited By FluxWaveZ
@JoeyRavn said:

It seems the cake is, wait for it, a lie. Well, not really, but not a full truth either:

Last week, Atlus trumpeted strong first-week sales for its eccentric puzzle game, Catherine, via a celebratory cake: "200,000 sold in the first week," it exclaimed. Try: 200,000 sold-in the first week (meaning shipped).
Following today's NPD report of video game sales in North America, you may have been curious as to whyCatherine didn't appear among July's top ten best sellers. The lowest-ranked game, Mortal Kombat, had sold 85K units by month's end. Catherine came in below that, selling 78K copies in its first six days (still making it Atlus' biggest launch yet).

Source.

It's nice for it to be official. I was saying the same thing since the first page.
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JoeyRavn

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Edited By JoeyRavn

It seems the cake is, wait for it, a lie. Well, not really, but not a full truth either:

Last week, Atlus trumpeted strong first-week sales for its eccentric puzzle game, Catherine, via a celebratory cake: "200,000 sold in the first week," it exclaimed. Try: 200,000 sold-in the first week (meaning shipped).
Following today's NPD report of video game sales in North America, you may have been curious as to whyCatherine didn't appear among July's top ten best sellers. The lowest-ranked game, Mortal Kombat, had sold 85K units by month's end. Catherine came in below that, selling 78K copies in its first six days (still making it Atlus' biggest launch yet).

Source.

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xpgamer7

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Edited By xpgamer7

Needs more sauce.

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apoc_reg

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Edited By apoc_reg

Catherine is a weird and wacky awesome test bed for how they will do persona 5 on high def. and what a great little game it is in its own right. Gotta love Atlus
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felipebo

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Edited By felipebo

awesome

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eltrut

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Edited By eltrut

I love spotting an Alex article just from the title.

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ImperiousRix

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Edited By ImperiousRix

I bought the Love is Over edition of Catherine and do not regret it.  I love this game and am glad it's doing well. 
Go Atlus, go!

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FluxWaveZ

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Edited By FluxWaveZ
@XII_Sniper said:

Is that good? I don't even know anymore, blockbuster games have kinda skewed my perception of success. I guess that's pretty decent for an obscure Japanese game.

It's good when their game's budget isn't equivalent to a Call of Duty and when sales expectations are as modest as Atlus usually sets them.
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MikkaQ

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Edited By MikkaQ

Is that good? I don't even know anymore, blockbuster games have kinda skewed my perception of success. I guess that's pretty decent for an obscure Japanese game.

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monkeyking1969

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Edited By monkeyking1969

I think this shows what ADVERTING does for a game. Maybe, the folks at EA in charge of "Shadows of the Damned" will wake up and realize they spent good money getting the rights to a Grasshopper game but all that money was flushed down the toilet with unimaginative and lackluster marketing.

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zityz

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Edited By zityz

That's great news. Not finished the game yet but I'm enjoying the style overall. Also Atlus, about level 6-3....F u!

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cstrang

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Edited By cstrang

I'm 1 of the 200,000, but the game isn't good. The gameplay is barely passable, and the story is downright stupid. I will support Atlas for hopes of P5.

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Dinkmers

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Edited By Dinkmers

Well done sir. Well done.

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figurehead00

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Edited By figurehead00
@FluxWaveZ said:

You should probably play Catherine before claiming to know what it's about. 

Just, this, this, a thousand times this. I had a great experience with Catherine, it was so much more than I had expected. I'm just glad the Persona team is getting some well deserved success, and I can't wait for Persona 5. Geez, who would of thought an internet forum would be a place jerks go to be jerks about stuff?
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shodan2020

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Edited By shodan2020

Sweetest cake, ever. :)

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deactivated-64b8656eaf424

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This pleases me, Persona 5 next.

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jamesisaacs

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Edited By jamesisaacs

Never got a boner off a cake before.

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HerbieBug

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Edited By HerbieBug

Good.  Persona 5 let's go.

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Cybexx

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Edited By Cybexx

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Cybexx said:

I got it from VGChartz. I actually forgot to add the Japanese 360 numbers, which brings it up to around 220,000. The source of that article actually says they "shipped" 250,000. Adriansang incorrectly changed that to "sold".

The 200k mentioned in this article is also shipped, according to Nich Maragos at Atlus. Also, VG CHartz is never to be trusted when it comes to sales information.

I don't know man that cake clearly says "Sold" that is a first-party source. I agree with the unreliability of VGChartz, according to them Okami PS2 never sold any copies in North America but they sold at least one because I have a copy. The Catherine japan numbers make sense though, I would assume demand dropped off and they didn't sell through all the copies they shipped by the end of February. And the 700,000 for Demon's Souls matches the press release issued when the game went Greatest Hits.

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Fascismo

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Edited By Fascismo

"According to a Cake" is the best way to start any news post. A+

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Catolf

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Edited By Catolf
@CosmicQueso said:

@Beforet said:

We are all still friends, right? Whole lot of love in this community!

Well, "Love Is Over" and all... GET IT!?!? Omgz... so funny. Now I'm going to go cry in a pillowcase and smack myself in the face with a pizza box. And put on sheep horns.

I bet your fun at parties.
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FunkyFox

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Edited By FunkyFox

Glad to see it sell.

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FluxWaveZ

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Edited By FluxWaveZ
@Cybexx said: 

I got it from VGChartz. I actually forgot to add the Japanese 360 numbers, which brings it up to around 220,000. The source of that article actually says they "shipped" 250,000. Adriansang incorrectly changed that to "sold".

The 200k mentioned in this article is also shipped, according to Nich Maragos at Atlus. Also, VG CHartz isnever to be trusted when it comes to sales information.
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CosmicQueso

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Edited By CosmicQueso

@Beforet said:

We are all still friends, right? Whole lot of love in this community!

Well, "Love Is Over" and all... GET IT!?!? Omgz... so funny. Now I'm going to go cry in a pillowcase and smack myself in the face with a pizza box. And put on sheep horns.

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beforet

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Edited By beforet

We are all still friends, right? Whole lot of love in this community!

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recroulette

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Edited By recroulette

There you go EA, maybe this will show you something.

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Cybexx

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Edited By Cybexx

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Cybexx said:

Catherine has also sold about 180,000 in Japan so far, so to exceed that in the first week is North America sales is pretty cool.

Where did you get that information? From this article, Catherine had surpassed 250k copies sold in Japan in February of this year.

I got it from VGChartz. I actually forgot to add the Japanese 360 numbers, which brings it up to around 220,000. The source of that article actually says they "shipped" 250,000. Adriansang incorrectly changed that to "sold".

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Catolf

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Edited By Catolf
@Fuga said:
@madlam: die
calm down good lord.
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Fuga

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Edited By Fuga
@madlam: die
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gosukiller

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Edited By gosukiller
@madlam said:
Cake? But isn't the cake a lie....?
ugh...
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madlam

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Edited By madlam

Cake? But isn't the cake a lie....?

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MachoFantastico

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Edited By MachoFantastico

Is there anything cakes don't know?

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OneManX

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Edited By OneManX

I feel good knowing that this is, hopefully, turning into Persona 5 money....

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bigstupidface

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Edited By bigstupidface

Shoot that guy and stab that dude happen to be two of my favourite games so a bit of respect for them please.

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beomoose

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Edited By beomoose

Good for Atlus, here's hoping money means better games in the future.

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FightMeNerd

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@Video_Game_King: Spaaaaaaaaaace

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Edited By Evilsbane

Really REALLY happy for Atlus I may not be a fan of this new game of theirs but I wish neither them or the fans of Catherine ill will Atlus makes amazing stuff and they deserve the success...now about that Persona 5 duders.

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vinsanityv22

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Edited By vinsanityv22

Wish Atlus managed to move 200k copies of Radiant Historia. I don't find it cool that there are people like Alex here, who seem quite aware of Atlus' quality offerings, yet don't seem to actually check out any of them. Historia is seriously one of the best RPGs to ever come out of Japan; doubly so when every other day people are bashing the genre for some admittedly overused and sh*tty conventions. So when JRPGs come around that DON'T do that, and deliver quality storytelling, what do you people do? Ignore them. Tsk, tsk, tsk. 
 
Good on Atlus though for moving that many copies. I wish them continued success, as always. Them, XSeed and NIS America all deserve to find their own, respective Catherines. So they can keep bringing us quality, under-the-radar games (and hopefully convince people like Alex to actually buy them so they become ON-the-radar games). 
 
Hope Atlus has learned a thing or two about how to hype a game now. They seriously move a lot of titles that deserve this kinda success. Maybe if more quirky Japanese developers made games for the HD consoles instead of the  handhelds....

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Video_Game_King

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Edited By Video_Game_King
@TehFlan
 
A ton of popular games are (or, to be more partial, games that everybody has heard of). Trust me, I know.
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TehFlan

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Edited By TehFlan
@Video_Game_King: I thought Alex made a decent one. It's only a bad Portal joke when someone just spouts off a line from the game, which is what happens like 99 percent of the time, as proven by this thread. On a side note: I now realize that Catherine is polarizing as fuck.
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Video_Game_King

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Edited By Video_Game_King
@TehFlan said:
@Video_Game_King said:
Cue the Portal jokes in 3, 2, 1, GO!
Bit late for that, considering the Portal joke in the article itself.
I knew that I should have specified "bad Portal jokes." Are there even any good Portal jokes?....Not counting the ones in the actual games?
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TehFlan

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Edited By TehFlan
@Video_Game_King said:
Cue the Portal jokes in 3, 2, 1, GO!
Bit late for that, considering the Portal joke in the article itself.
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PerfidiousSinn

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@JAH_Donuts said:
That sweet, baked, breadlike food, made with or without shortening, and usually containing flour, sugar, baking powder or soda, eggs, and liquid flavoring is a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive.
As old and beat up as that joke is...I lol'd
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thepantheon

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Edited By thepantheon

Awaiting my copy from PlayAsia.

Thanks region free PS3s!!!

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pavakah

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Edited By pavakah

@Axelhander said:

...Growl; I'm like three cheetahs taped together.

I'd buy that T-shirt.

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GozerTC

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Edited By GozerTC
@Arrested_Developer said:

Apparently sex sells. This means they'll make Persona 5 sexier which I kind of dig.

Proof that marketing works.  :)   
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JAH_Donuts

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Edited By JAH_Donuts

That sweet, baked, breadlike food, made with or without shortening, and usually containing flour, sugar, baking powder or soda, eggs, and liquid flavoring is a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive.

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DonutFever

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Edited By DonutFever
@Catolf said:
@DonutFever said:
@Catolf said:
@Axelhander: can you just be happy for a small company selling games? Huh?
Please, don't be silly.
I'm not saying they have to like the game, just be happy some different ideas are coming into the mix, and not only that, it sold well. be happy for the game industry as a whole for accepting new ideas.
Agreed. And this coming out around the same time as Shadows of the Damned and Child of Eden shows the importance of marketing. Plenty of people are open to new and unique ideas, you just have to let said people know about them.
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Arrested_Developer

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Apparently sex sells. This means they'll make Persona 5 sexier which I kind of dig.

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MikeGosot

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Edited By MikeGosot

But... The cake is good? I mean, i'm happy for Atlus and all, but that's clearly the most important question here.