Bayonetta 2 for Switch Sells an Estimated 186,189 Units First Week at Retail

The action adventure hack 'n' slash game from publisher Nintendo and developer Platinum Games - Bayonetta 2 - sold 186,189 units first week at retail on the Nintendo Switch, according to VGChartz estimates.

[eagle21]

It's amazing how many games find success on Switch. I can imagine nice first week sales for Bayonetta 3. :)

[gamer7804]

bayo 2 &3 wold be huge on ps and xbox and look amazing

[Theknightofnights]

I don't think that Bayonetta 2 and 3 would be much bigger on Xbox or Playstation unless you are factoring in install base.

Just look at how Bayonetta 1 performed on PS3 and 360.

[eagle21]

They are both published by Nintendo so I don't understand why you felt you needed to say that...lol.

[Asuka]

They wouldn't even exist if it was up to Sony or MS so...

[kevnb]

nothing would be huge on xbox... They even had to spin pubg numbers by telling us how many players they had instead of sales. pubg is a huge game, 33 million copies sold on pc already while xbox has had 3 million players (many got the game free, others are probably multiple accounts). I know pc had a head start, but the game only came out to early access at the end of march last year.

[PhantomS42]

Too bad both Sony and MS turned Platinum down when they were looking for help making the game.

[jukins]

@phantom they turned it down because it ran like crap at least on ps3, which is kinda understandable given its unique system but they didnt want to fund it partly because of that

[Prince_TFK]

Then Sony or MS should have funded this game if you want them to have it that much.

[gamer7804]

No way around that sales would be bigger if it were on Xbox and ps4 and switch. Game could also run at higher res on pro and x. win for everyone. we don't know if ms and Sony turned them down, just that Nintendo was the choice to publish

[rainslacker]

The first game didn't sell amazing well on either system. It did decent enough on each system, and overall, but it wasn't something that lit up the charts, nor were that many people clamoring for a sequel. Given what both systems had going for them last gen at the time, I can see why they may have passed. It sucks for players on those systems, but Nintendo took a chance when it could have bombed, and have been doing well with the franchise. Nintendo at least did market the 2nd game well, and throwing in B1 on disc originally was pretty cool to get both games at once.

[mikeslemonade]

The game should on be on PS4 and PC.

I’m glad Bayonneta ain’t selling on switch.

[ABizzel1]

@Theknightofnights

"Just look at how Bayonetta 1 performed on PS3 and 360."

Over 1 million sold on PS3 (the worst performing version), and almost 1m sold on 360, aka the 2 best selling versions of the franchise thus far....

[Dragonscale]

186 thousand is pretty bad tbh.

[eagle21]

How is it bad for a port? And this probably is not including digital sales. You act as if this is a new game....

[Old McGroin]

I think a lot of people, like me, bought part 1 and didn't buy part 2 until they finished the first one a week or two later. I'd expect part 2 sales increased in the weeks after.

[Xx_Pistol_xX]

@eagle21 because if that was the sales on any other platform it would be a fail.

[Nintentional]

Also the install base of the Switch is 15 million, 186 thousand is really good for first week sales. The game will easily do 700k to 1million, which is around how much Bayo 1 did on PS3/360

[rainslacker]

It's really not for what amounts to a port. Even if it was a new game, for a niche title like that, it's pretty respectable for the first week.

[Christopher]

To be fair, it did well on WiiU, but people aren't given a discount let alone a choice to buy for much cheaper if they owned it previously. I don't like Nintendo's idea of charging full price for recent ports.

[CrimsonWing69]

You consider that a success!?

[FallenAngel1984]

This game didn’t even sell better on Switch than it did on Wii U.

You’re really stretching the term “success”

[Donnie81]

I'm a proud owner! Great games!

[Moonman]

Didn't this game release in February? Why is it April 9th and we are just getting the first week sales? This game has probably already hit 500K.

[FallenAngel1984]

Because VGC doesn’t update software sales as quickly as it does with hardware sales

[OC_MurphysLaw]

I want to see Platinum Games succeed but I am not sure 186K in unit sales first week worldwide is to be considered a great success like some have been saying. Frankly that is a rather poor showing out of the gate and sales likely are just going to decline from here. Will be interesting to see if this game can manage a million in sales lifetime at this point on Switch.

I guess the real measuring stick will be how well Bayonetta 3 sells on Switch since that will be a new game.

[eagle21]

They wouldn't be making Bayonetta 3 if they weren't already happy with sales of Bayonetta 2 on Wii U and now Switch. Bayonetta didn't sell 5 million on PS3 and Xbox 360 so some comments in here are simply confused to how this game sells.

[blackblades]

Yeah but that was then this is now. Ps4 is way different then ps3 was. If nier can do so good I believe this will do just fine on both ps4 and switch.

[porkChop]

You're talking about a port. Don't expect it to be a blockbuster like a brand new game.

[jojo319]

Yet they priced it like one.

[rainslacker]

The series itself was never a huge seller. 186K in a week is respectable for a title like this.

Too many people have it in their heads that a game has to break one million(or more sometimes) for it to be considered successful, but that often isn't the case.

[Concertoine]

I think if you combine this with the Wii U sales it probably is over a million...

Nintendo already greenlit Bayo 3 so evidently they were pleased with the performance of the game on Wii U and anything it sells on Switch is just the cherry on top.

[ZaWarudo]

It's difficult to gauge the success of sales when nowadays games needs to be multi-million sellers to be successful :/

I hope these are good results for Bayonetta 2. Such an amazing game.

[Christopher]

No, they don't. Tons of games are successful with just 100k to 250k sold. Not all games cost $20m+ to make. Bayonetta on cost to make alone wouldn't be considered AAA by many standards.

[Zeldafan64]

I'm guessing Bayonetta 2 cost around $15 million to make.

[Segata]

Fire Emblem Awakening was going to be the last Fire Emblem game ever made. The only way they considered making more is if it hit 240K sales. Then ended up selling a couple million. So only 240K needed to save the series.

[TekoIie]

@Zeldafan64

That's a good joke

[Zeldafan64]

The only reason those other games need to be multi-million sellers is because 1. they are multi-platform and 2. they spend more money on advertising the game than making the game itself. Nintendo is NEVER going to spend $50 million advertising a game so they don't need Bayonetta to sell 5+ million to be a success.

[Goldby]

Hellblade took 3 months to reach 500k units.
And that is successful for them and the game as a whole. Allowed them to get the game on xbox as well as donate quite a bit of their profits to a mental health organization in the UK.

Cuphead took 2 weeks to hit the million mark.

Games can be successful even if they don't hit the million sold mark let alot multimillion units sold

[rainslacker]

This is a niche game with a budget below AAA. Probably in the 15-20 million range....including marketing. It's also a port of a WiiU game, so for the most part, it's just gravy on top of the rather decent sales the WiiU version had.

It's also only one week of sales, not inclusive of life time sales which will obviously be higher.

[PhantomTommy]

I think I've accepted the fact that this series will never achieve the success it deserves. I don't think it's just about exclusivity either, the first game is just as good as the sequel and released on two consoles but still failed to meet sales expectations. At this point I'm just happy we're getting a third game at all, I really never expected that to happen.

[kevnb]

i hope it did well, but vgchartz numbers are worthless.

[Pennywise138]

Serious question. What is considered a good sales number either weekly or even lifespan of game? I've always been terrible with that stuff. Game I think would sell like crazy, like metroid barely make a profit but games I think will barely make a dent end up selling millions of copies.

Like I never would have expected monster hunter worlds to be capcoms best selling game of all time when resident evil is a household name but it jumped over resident evil 7. I'm even hearing that the presale numbers for God of War are lower than expected and I would think every PS4 owner would want that game. So I'm just curious what is considered a success sales wise these days.

[blawren4]

It depends on the developer/publisher if a game is successfull or not if it meets an expected return on investment. People here like to pretend they know more or have some kind of insight. Since we don't know the budget, the expectations of either the developer or the publisher or any deals made between the two, we simply don't know. There is no scale. Everything here is fueled by some made up console war, so you can't believe anyone here honestly. Being that Bayo 3 is coming, everyone involved was probably happy with Wii U sales and Switch version is probably just gravy at this point and to generate hype for Bayo 3.

[Christopher]

***What is considered a good sales number either weekly or even lifespan of game?***

It honestly depends on how much it cost to make.

Many Indies can cost around $500k to $1m to make and make a profit at $15-20 a game by selling about 200k. The benefit with Indies is more profit from digital only, but also the problem is harder to market and sell as well as, in today's market, a ton more competition.

Switch is doing well with Indies, even ports, because its library is still growing as far as wide third-party support. So people who game primarily on Switch are buying more of them.

As far as Bayonetta 1 & 2, the cost here is really only in doing the port, which is likely not even $500k in costs. And that they are selling it at full price like it was on the WiiU, it's making major money here if it sells just 100k worldwide. I'm not sure how much profit it made on WiiU, though. That would depend on its development costs. One thing with Bayonetta on Nintendo is that its marketing costs are almost non-existent compared to Zelda and Mario titles. So, that keeps costs way low, meaning more chance for there to be a profit as marketing doesn't take away from that.

Bayonetta 3 will be the real indicator in success of the series as it will go through the $10m+ development process and sales will be solely from that and not from WiiU + Switch.

[rainslacker]

Depends on who you ask, and if there is some console war reason to say that one game is successful or not. I mean, some games sell 5+ million, and people say they aren't successful, and sometimes even the publishers don't feel they met their goals, so may not consider them successful even if they made a profit.

What it comes down to, is I consider something successful if it makes a profit, and ultimately, establishes a franchise which can support development of more games in the series.

There is no specific number though as to what's successful, and it will vary from game to game.

Overall though, a game like this hitting this mark in a week is pretty good. It's a niche title to begin with. Wasn't really clamored over that much before the Nintendo exclusivity, and while good, isn't what I'd really call a top tier franchise. It's a good series, but it's budget is going to be less than most AAA games, even though the series itself has a high production quality.

[Segata]

My uncle who works at Nintendo is just as much of a reliable source as VGChartz.

[FallenAngel1984]

This series can only achieve moderate success, not huge success

[Prince_TFK]

The amount of trolling in this article is just insane.

[Nintendo4Life85]

I think Bayonetta 2 could had sold a lot of more if the price won't 60 bucks

[Shiken]

It is not 60 bucks. Bayonetta 1 and 2 together are sixty bucks.

[jojo319]

Horrible price point. Even with two games. Doom was also waaaaaaay overpriced. Especially since most people that were going to play it already owned it on something else. I would have considered Doom on Switch for maaaaaybe 30 bucks at most. But it’s cheaper on every other platform. True, it’s portable, but you’re paying the price for that with graphical and frame rate compromises.

[Lexreborn2]

Long term matters more then anything else. Bayonetta 1 has still sold more on ps3 and 360 individually then it has on Wii U or Switch so far. I still don’t believe the audience for this game is very high at all

[DivineAssault]

Ima buy it when theres a sale or something.. I dont like that theres no physical copy for part one wasting precious storage on the switch.. Plus i already have both on wii u so im in no hurry to pay full retail.. Part 3 im getting day 1 though

[PhoenixUp]

Are people forgotting Bayonetta is not a big series. As critically acclaimed as it is it’s never going to move big numbers. Each installment has only moved around an average of 1 million on each platform

[GamesMaster1982]

Great knowing that the series is welcomed in the West . Loved 1 played 2 on WiiU and will pick up Switch one day when 3 is out and a few more games for Switch entice me .

[Xx_Pistol_xX]

I this was any other console this wouldn't be news worthy.

[ErogeMaster]

Nearly 200k isnt monster hunter world numbers.

[maybelovehate]

Ouch, that isn't good at all. Better release it on PC where it can make some real money.