Sonic Forces sells an estimated 234,000 units worldwide in the first week at retail.

[EzSonic01]

I just hope Sonic Forces is indeed doing well. It's an OK title at best and I really don't like it too much aside the graphics which are pretty nice, but they don't make up for the bad gameplay and messy story. On the other side, I do not want any "Create a Character" option in future games. Maybe in spinoffs and that's it. I'm not into OCs even if they are the selling point for this game. (And to be the selling point, I don't think it has gone that far in sales)

[A sonic fan]

I hope it reached atleast a million.

[Badnik Mechanic]

42 minutes ago, A sonic fan said:

I hope it reached atleast a million.

LOL!

Absolutely no chance in hell it hit that mark.

[ClassicKnuckles]

22 hours ago, Mad Convoy said:

According to this source, Sonic Forces had a solid launch in the UK, outselling Odyssey on all formats (though Odyssey pulls ahead on the Switch format compared to Forces Switch format).

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/11/sonic_forces_on_switch_has_solid_uk_launch_as_doom_moves_up_the_charts

On the other hand, Forces isn't doing so hot in Japan.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/11/sonic_forces_struggles_in_japan_as_super_mario_odyssey_and_switch_lead_charts

Given how this stuff is from November though, I don't think this is anything we didn't know about beforehand. But hey, if this is gonna be the Forces sales thread, its important to put this stuff out there.

Though I am by no means psychic, games that do solidly in at least one region on launch typically do well enough to break even or at least make a profit-- this is because most games make the bulk of their returns off of purchases made in the first three months. Now, there are exceptions to this (Pokemon Red and Blue come to mind, as the games were initially flops in the first three months but people steadily kept purchasing the games after that three month period, until eventually enough fans accumulated to lay the foundation for one of the largest franchises still around) and Forces could be one of them (in a variety of ways including and besides the aforementioned Red and Blue), but for the most part, games follow that pattern pretty closely.

I mostly point this out for people who are priming themselves for Forces to flop. Because there's a good chance it might do decently if nothing else and if that does indeed turn out to be the case (or maybe even better), I don't want to see anybody expressing their shock and disappointment by antagonizing Forces fans or ordering them to return their copy now if it doesn't sell the way its "supposed to." Saw enough of that kind of stuff back when some fans decided that Boom TV Season 1 didn't deserve its fandom and so tried to bully Boom fans off of Sonic discussions or even the internet as a whole, and its as BS now as it was back then.

Sonic really doesn't do as well in Japan compared to here in the states, so that doesn't really suprise me.

[Meta77]

5 hours ago, Mayor D said:

LOL!

Absolutely no chance in hell it hit that mark.

Looks over shoulder at sonic 06 sales)......ok

[Blue Blood]

4 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Looks over shoulder at sonic 06 sales)......ok

I'm not commenting on Hogfather's prediction here, for the record. But you need to remember that that game was 11 years before Forces. Sonic was more popular and relevant back then, and the series saw better sales as standard. It's very different these days.

[Meta77]

29 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

I'm not commenting on Hogfather's prediction here, for the record. But you need to remember that that game was 11 years before Forces. Sonic was more popular and relevant back then, and the series saw better sales as standard. It's very different these days.

I will ask that you do not remind me how old i am now and how much sonics popularity has dropped....well outside the fan art community at least.

[Blue Blood]

20 hours ago, Mayor D said:

LOL!

Absolutely no chance in hell it hit that mark.

I'm curious, actually. Because you've generally got a fair bit of an understanding about these things, what do you think of Forces sales so far going by what we know and can reasonably estimate? It's definitely not hit 1 million so far. But lifetime sales... I'm going to guess below Generations. 

[EmmBee]

I don't think a million units is that unrealistic. Considering it has four platforms behind it a million could probably be reached no problem.

Though it's not like a million between all platforms is still that great.

[Swing]

Question: Do you guys want Sonic Forces to sell well? I mean I'm not hoping for it to fail, but if it will sell decent enough Sega will just produce more mediocre Sonic games, because they will think that this is, what people want. Mediocre Sonic games.

[Tornado]

18 hours ago, Meta77 said:

Looks over shoulder at sonic 06 sales)......ok

And STH '06 is exactly why. It had a large marketing push and actual considerable attention paid to it during its development by magazines and websites. There was a period of time I'm sure most now won't admit to where considerable consternation was made by people who only owned a Wii that it wasn't fair they didn't get it

 

 

Then it actually released.

[Blue Blood]

1 hour ago, Swing said:

Question: Do you guys want Sonic Forces to sell well? I mean I'm not hoping for fail, but if it will sell decent enough Sega will just produce more mediocre Sonic games, because they will think that this is, what people want. Mediocre Sonic games.

I don't want Forces to sell well, and that's for two very different reasons.

1. It's a low quality and cheaply made game. It's partly an asset flip of Generations, with a poorly optimised engine not suitable for the gameplay, relies on copious automation and has cuts a lot of corners. It's poorly programmed by a team who, for whatever reason, couldn't do better. The story, which was supposedly a selling point, is misleading from marketing perspective (hi there, Chaos) presented mainly through speech bubbles in the menu.

2. On a more personal level, it's not what I want from a Sonic game in any capacity. Boosting? No. Nostalgia crap? No. An avatar? No. Lame and edgy? No. The same tired engine they've been physics and gameplay repurposing since Unleashed even though it's not for for the job? Absolutely not. 

 

Bonus reason: It's shit, yo

I want the game to be received in such a way that SEGA decide to completely re-evaluate how they're handling the Sonic franchise. If Forces is a critical and/or financial success, it will say that this is the kind of shit that was pass. They need to know that products like Forces aren't going to cut it, but those like Mania will. That doesn't mean a Classic or 2D game - it means something with a clear vision developed by talented people that is ultimately aiming to please by being high quality rather than gimmicky. They need to make Sonic relevant.

Of course, this is SEGA that we're talking about; their entire legacy is based on the three pillars of bad decisions, mishandling development and Sonic on the Mega Drive. They won't get the message. Ever.

[Mad Convoy]

55 minutes ago, Swing said:

Question: Do you guys want Sonic Forces to sell well? I mean I'm not hoping for fail, but if it will sell decent enough Sega will just produce more mediocre Sonic games, because they will think that this is, what people want. Mediocre Sonic games.

I dunno.

Honestly, I don't think that Forces is really that bad, not to mention that it not doing well doesn't necessarily guarantee any major re-evaluation of Sonic or even them giving up Boost as a whole if that's what you're wanting them to do. If past experience is any indication, it'll at most just result in the opposite extremes-- light-heartedness, no attempts at breaking ground, Sonic only for real this time, etc.

[GentlemanX]

I haven't played Forces so I can't say if I think it should sell based on its merits as a game. I will say that there are elements of it I really like and want to be implemented more successfully in another game. And those elements won't see it to the next game if Sega says "Everything in Forces bad, everything in Mania good".

[Blue Blood]

13 minutes ago, Mad Convoy said:

I dunno.

Honestly, I don't think that Forces is really that bad, not to mention that it not doing well doesn't necessarily guarantee any major re-evaluation of Sonic or even them giving up Boost as a whole if that's what you're wanting them to do. If past experience is any indication, it'll at most just result in the opposite extremes-- light-heartedness, no attempts at breaking ground, Sonic only for real this time, etc.

SEGA is constantly driven by sales when it comes to Sonic. The Boom games ended after all three failed (Fire & Ice entered production before Shattered Crystal and RoL came out), S4E3 didn't happen because E2 flopped, Lost World's style never got a second attempt because it failed, Unleashed spawned Colours which spawned Generations which spawned Forces because of continuing success... 

We don't know how SEGA will respond to Forces reception and sales. But I'm fairly certain that they'll steer course (and miss the point in the process).

[Tornado]

2 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

We don't know how SEGA will respond to Forces reception and sales. But I'm fairly certain that they'll steer course (and miss the point in the process).

Based on past trends, they'll probably make Iizuka CEO of the entire company.

[Baconjack]

I don't get it, why do people want this game to fail?

Sonic has had a long string of commercial failures in the last 5 years. Lost World sold far short of a million and Boom only sold 350,000. Whether you believe it is a bad game or not - think about it - do you really want another failure in what has been almost a decade of failures? The budget has gotten smaller with every Sonic game (as proven with Forces re-using assets from previous games) and another failure could very seriously affect the budget of the next game, if there is one at all. Having three massive failures in a row will not only lower the budget for the next game, but it may not even guarantee another Sonic Team-made game down the line. With a game using their 'flagship' gameplay style failing on store shelves, and 2 consecutive failures, may prompt Sega to decide that Sonic Team is not a profitable division anymore and pull the plug on them. This game arguably NEEDS to be (somewhat) successful in order for another game to be made. I suspect that the next game will probably be a tie-in to the Sonic movie, using the Hedgehog Engine 2. 

'06 sold quite well even if the game was a critical failure, and Sonic Team back then went and did something about it. Why? This was because of how that game became infamous for its low quality. Unleashed sold very well even if the game got similar ratings to Forces, so Sonic Team fixed up the game and we got Colours as a result. All that Sonic Team needs to make those good games we are looking for is to give Iizuka a wake-up slap across the face to tell him that Green Hill is dead old and tired, and sack the level designers who thought levels like Luminous Forest were good. I like the Boost games, they are fun to play, but the level design was not good enough. Past levels like Crisis City Modern and Planet Wisp Modern are shining examples that platforming CAN work in a Boost game, and be enjoyable at the same time. They are not straight line corridors and they require you to make jumps across platforms. There were absolutely none of those kinds of levels in Forces. Not even an attempt at platforming, just corridor levels and "Homing attack a big line of object XYZ" designed for the sake of "go fast". Levels should be a healthy mix of "Go Fast" and proper platforming.

Not withstanding, Modern Sonic's gameplay was easily the best gameplay mode in Forces. Classic Sonic and Avatar were both lame and should never return. Double Boost was good because it allowed me to get myself some food instead of playing the dreadful Tag Team levels.

The problem is that Modern's gameplay was simply spoiled by unusual decisions such as to get rid of the drift and the sub-par level design that was too short for anyone's tastes.

[Swing]

8 hours ago, Sir Laptop said:

I don't get it, why do people want this game to fail?

Because Sonic can do better. Look at how good other games are. Even the ones that are not as popular as Sonic like Crash, DKC, Ratchet & Clank, Cuphead or Shantae are made with a lot of love and care. If a game like Sonic Forces will be a success, than Sega will just produce more games like that. I mean don't you guys want good Sonic games anymore? I mean, Sonic fans really deserve something better. They stuck so long with Sonic, are such a loyal fanbase, and what do they get in the end? A bunch of very mediocre games that were not made with any love or care. 

Such a loyal fanbase really deserves good games. Sega is very lucky that Sonic fans love Sonic so much. Any other series would have died out years ago with only a quarter of such bad games.

[Diogenes]

20 minutes ago, Sir Laptop said:

I don't get it, why do people want this game to fail?

Sonic has had a long string of commercial failures in the last 5 years. Lost World sold far short of a million and Boom only sold 350,000. Think about it - do you really want another failure in what has been almost a decade of failures?

No, but we got one anyway.

Forces is a bad game. I don't want it to sell because I don't want Sega/Sonic Team thinking they can get away with making more bad games. Money is the ultimate carrot and stick for businesses; nothing says "fix your shit" louder than not buying the product.

And yeah, I'm aware that there's no guarantee that it'll work, and that if the budget for the next game does get slashed that could cause its own problems. But them making the same bad games with a bigger budget doesn't get me any closer to what I want out of the series. I want a clear message sent that games like Forces will not be tolerated, not some wishy washy finger wagging with no actual weight behind it.

[Baconjack]

17 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

No, but we got one anyway.

Forces is a bad game. I don't want it to sell because I don't want Sega/Sonic Team thinking they can get away with making more bad games. Money is the ultimate carrot and stick for businesses; nothing says "fix your shit" louder than not buying the product.

And yeah, I'm aware that there's no guarantee that it'll work, and that if the budget for the next game does get slashed that could cause its own problems. But them making the same bad games with a bigger budget doesn't get me any closer to what I want out of the series. I want a clear message sent that games like Forces will not be tolerated, not some wishy washy finger wagging with no actual weight behind it.

I was referring to a commercial failure. Did you think Sonic Team listened to the critics when Sonic '06 came out, despite that game selling over a million copies? Yes, yes they did, and they came out with Unleashed. The reviewers have already been vocally critical of Forces as it is. Sonic Team do listen to the critics. They have been doing that for years. They ditched Renderware after Shadow's poor reception, the Adventure 1 engine after '06, the Sonic 4 engine after Episode 2, and will probably never make a second attempt at Lost World's engine. What do these games all have in common? Average to bad critical reception. As a coincidence, the games that were released after these poorly received games, were initially conceived in order to get good reception. '06, Unleashed and Forces were initially made to get good reception, despite all three of these games not being as well received as Sega had hoped.

On the other hand, having two Sonic Team-made games in a row sell poorly would, like I said, not guarantee another Sonic Team-made title down the road. 

[Diogenes]

Why do you think they care about critic and fan response at all? Businesses don't run on praise or making people happy, they run on money. If people don't like the games, in a sane world, they don't buy them. If there's no threat of the games not selling, if people criticize the games but still reliably buy them, then the criticism doesn't mean shit.

8 minutes ago, Sir Laptop said:

On the other hand, having two Sonic Team-made games in a row sell poorly would, like I said, not guarantee another Sonic Team-made title down the road. 

Good, fuck Sonic Team. Gimme Mania 2 and then put together a new team that can make a 3D Sonic that doesn't suck.

[Mad Convoy]

1 hour ago, Swing said:

Because Sonic can do better. Look at how good other games are, even the ones that are not as popular as Sonic like Crash, DKC, Ratchet & Clank, Cuphead or Shantae are made with a lot of love and care. If a game like Sonic Forces will be a success, than Sega will just produce more games like that. I mean don't you guys want good Sonic games anymore? I mean, Sonic fans really deserve something better. They stuck so long with Sonic, are such loyal fans, and what do they get in the end? A bunch of very mediocre games that were not made with any love or care. 

Such a loyal fanbase really deserves good games. Sega is very lucky that Sonic fans love Sonic so much. Any other series would have dies out years ago with only a quarter of such bad games.

But what if we think that Forces does have things worth praising and refining, and want those things in the future? If people can think that way about Adventure or Unleashed styled games than they can certainly think that way about Forces.

Or for that matter, what if people buy it because they actually enjoy it? Are we not supposed to play and support things we like just because some people have declared it bad? If so, would you be willing to follow that and discard Sonic and the Black Knight even though you like that game? How about you guys who like Sonic Lost World? Or Sonic Adventure DX? I mean, the inverse is true-- you shouldn't play and buy things that you don't like out of a misplaced sense of loyalty. But that absolutely doesn't mean that people who do play and buy things they like only because of some misplaced sense of loyalty, or people who decide to purchase it don't think that Sonic can do better or don't want Sonic games that are good. That's laughably reductive at best.

This kinda ties back to what I was saying earlier about people ordering fans to return or not buy Forces. Of course that usually doesn't get directly said, but think of the implications of what you've said here. If Forces, theoretically, does well, then it'll become the new standard and so Sonic will never get better or any good games. Therefore, if you buy Forces, you don't want Sonic to improve, you don't want good Sonic games, and you perhaps don't even have a good idea of what a good Sonic game is. Its not directly stated, but its pretty hard not to take it as "If you buy Forces for any reason then you bear responsibility for any fuckups that happen in the future, and also have aptly demonstrated that you have bad taste." Its hard not to feel insulted even if that wasn't the intent, not to mention blamed for something that the consumer can't control or change. For that matter, its easy to flip it and say that if you don't buy Forces and the next game is terrible, then you bear partial responsibility for the fuckups because you didn't appreciate and support a better product when you had the chance. Sounds ridiculous because you had no control over how Sega or anybody else responsible for Sonic chooses to react to Forces for the future games? Good. It is. The people buying Forces also have no control over how Sega or anybody else responsible for Sonic chooses to react, so they're about as responsible as you for whatever Sega, Sonic Team, whoever does next in terms of concepts and quality.

-----

To add onto @Sir Laptop's point, Generations actually sold less than Colors, and Colors less than Unleashed. A variety of circumstances allowed this to happen that I'm sure we could discuss all day, but the whys aren't so important here as the responses are. Boost was still well received enough that Sonic Team made Lost World as a way of fixing some criticisms of it while keeping some of the good parts, and for that matter one of the most common criticisms of Forces is that it feels like a clone of Colors and Generations. If sales were literally the only factor in the decision-making process, then why base Forces off of Colors and Generations instead of the clearly better selling Unleashed?

For that matter, you wanna know what one of the best selling 3D Sonic games of all time is? Shadow the Hedgehog, at over 2.5 million copies and counting. But it was such an embarrassment since the day it was announced and everybody thought it was an early April Fool's Day joke, and got such a thrashing from critics and communities as a whole, that Sonic Team never revisited it or made anything even as close to grimdark ever again (not even 06 or Forces are as grimdark and edgy as Shadow, and Shadow is pretty much the reason why they held back in both cases).

And so I ask again, if sales were literally the only factor in the decision-making process, then why make more games derivative of Colors and Gens and not Shadow? Shadow is clearly the biggest money-maker of the three games.

So my point is, sales are a good representative of interest and profitability... and literally nothing else. Your words about a game still hold weight whether you buy it or not, because while many a bad game has sold well, most don't review well or have lasting likability. Words backed by evidence say more about quality than anything sales could do.

So instead of hoping for a commercial failure as some kind of lifeline to the franchise (which is rather naive at best), I'd go with just accepting whatever numbers come up with confidence and security in your viewpoint, as so long as it isn't terribly distant from reality (e.g. hating Forces because it confirms Sonaze), it'll have meaning regardless of how well it sells.

[Milo]

3 hours ago, Sir Laptop said:

'06 sold quite well even if the game was a critical failure, and Sonic Team back then went and did something about it. Why? This was because of how that game became infamous for its low quality.

Said it many times already, but Sonic 2006 actually sold poorly, contrary to popular belief. Go check Sega's official IR reports; it only sold 870K in its first six months. Maybe it did get to one million at some point, but it didn't sell well enough / fast enough to reach that milestone on later reports from the publisher.

As for the questions about wanting the game to fail in sales or not--my stance on the subject is the same as it was when someone brought up the subject some months back. I'm not craving for the game to flop, but I have zero interest in giving it my support or any desire in seeing it perform well. I consider Forces to be a subpar game filled with dreadful design decisions, crude craftsmanship, and ill-advised ideas. Forces being a success would naturally send a message to Sega / Sonic Team of making more games like it, which is something I personally wouldn't want and think would be a net negative for future games. As far as I'm concerned, Forces needs to perform in a way that doesn't bring it success--and if that means it has to outright fail for that outcome, then that's honestly fine with me.

And on the subject about supporting Sonic games to ensure the future of the series: people can warn about the dangers of Sonic going away if even the most aggressively average or painfully poor games in the series aren't sales hits, but the truth of the matter is that nobody is married to Sonic. The buck stops at Sega and Sonic Team, its their job to (consistently) create quality games that meet the market's needs, it's their business to (consistently) produce products that consumers want to buy (and note that when I refer to the market and consumers, I'm referring to people outside the series' diehard fans, who are more-or-less conditioned to spend their money on virtually any Sonic product Sega serves up). If they don't want to do that and the consequence is Sonic is no longer a commercially viable series to continue making games for, then that is Sega and Sonic Team's loss, not the market's loss. There are other games (in other series) available from other studios/publishers that are superior in quality and cost just as much, if not less. The market isn't entitled to buy Sonic games.

[Tornado]

1 hour ago, Mad Convoy said:

But what if we think that Forces does have things worth praising and refining, and want those things in the future?

To be perfectly frank, no one outside that group is obligated to care.

 

 

1 hour ago, Sir Laptop said:

They have been doing that for years. They ditched Renderware after Shadow's poor reception,

They ditched Renderware because the only reason Sonic Team turned to it in the first place, just like most others who used it at the time, was because they needed an easy way to port games to all three wildly different platforms of the time.

Quote

the Adventure 1 engine after '06,

Even assuming Adventure 1 did use the engine originally designed for a game made in 1998 (and assuming it didn't use it in the same way Duke Nukem Forever technically ran on the Unreal 1 engine), Sonic Team had already started work the Hedgehog Engine before STH '06 had actually come out. Probably because, even if it did actually use the game engine of Sonic Adventure 1, mashing together a nearly ten year old game engine with a brand new lighting engine and a licenced third party physics engine to make games for hardware both dramatically different and more advanced isn't a particularly feasible thing to do in perpetuity.

Quote

the Sonic 4 engine after Episode 2,

They threw together Sonic 4 Episode 1 on what was almost certainly the bones of Sonic Rush and laughed their way to the bank even though it was a complete piece of shit. They then spent a decent amount of effort (and therefore money) on Episode 2 in comparison, and it sold like garbage (probably because "Fool me once"). When they haven't released any 2D games since then, what are they supposed to use Episode 2's new engine (rather than "the Sonic 4 engine") with?

 

Quote

and will probably never make a second attempt at Lost World's engine.

Lost World supposedly used the Hedgehog Engine (which wasn't anything amazing when it was new and was at that point already 5 years old) and after its release work on the Hedgehog Engine 2 had already started (used for the only game Sonic Team has released since then), so... what's your point here?

[Mad Convoy]

4 minutes ago, Tornado said:

To be perfectly frank, no one outside that group really needs to care.

To be perfectly frank, you cut off basically my entire post except for that one line. And as a result, your response doesn't really make a lot of sense when you put that one line in context.

I was trying to bring understanding to the table. In the rest of the post, I intended to outline how Swing's answer to the question of why people want Forces to fail unintentionally comes off as pretty insulting and lacking in nuance. Part of the problem was failing to acknowledge that others see Forces differently. While I don't agree with the idea that people should just buy and love Forces out of loyalty because that's really misguided to put it nicely and stupid to put it not-so-nicely, I do think that people should be able to express what they perceive as a game's positives and be taken just as seriously as somebody who doesn't agree with those positives (barring some extreme examples that aren't connected to reality, like claiming to like Forces because Sonic is your husband, but those are exceptionally rare and make themselves as obvious as neon orange on black). I don't agree with every negative criticism people have with Forces, but I do care what they think regardless of what "group" them or I are in. Furthermore, they enter discussions fully intending for there to be individuals who care what they think (otherwise they wouldn't be posting it in public) as an extension of wanting to be taken seriously. So do I, and people who agree with me, and people who don't.

So why draw arbitrary lines in the sand and say that people can only be expected to care about like-minded people? It encourages narrow-mindedness and discourages listening and understanding. The big long term consequences for this kind of behavior are the formation of echo-chambers and toxic factionalism, which is probably even less fun for you and the rest of SSMB staff than it is for me since you have to go deal with any drama that comes of those things (as drama is bound to do). So people should care, barring some extreme exceptions, because the value of somebody's opinion or wants is absolutely not contingent on how much you agree with them.

-------

In general, money is big discussion. But that's not actually how smart businesses roll. Its actually value that is key to success. Value in this context being how much the product is worth to the consumer, to the professional influencers who review the product, and to a smaller extent its quality and profitability. Indeed, an important part of having a successful business and moving on from bad product is being able to view said product in the context of what is valuable (if anything), what is not, and how all that can be applied in a realistic way to the next product, as opposed to viewing said decisions in the context of if it is profitable or not. That way, in your next product, you retain what things people liked about the bad product, therefore satisfying them and making them feel valued because what they liked wasn't just lumped in with the unpopular aspects of the product and tossed, but you also win back people who didn't like bad product, who also are satisfied and feel valued because what they didn't like is fixed or gone. And then you go take a dive in your gold coin swimming pool from the money you get from all those people. JK about the gold coin swimming pool thing, of course, and this is a heavily simplified answer as my full response would be a cumbersome multi-page textbook on good business sense and strategy, but I think the point is clear.

Like, maybe corrupt and/or stupid businesses only seek profits. And hey, wouldn't be past Sega to be either or both of those things. But businesses only caring about money is neither standard nor advisable long term. From a personal perspective, this is kinda the reason I just want to take the numbers for what they are these days instead of carrying hopes of failure or success. I don't want to encourage the attitude that sales are the only thing that matters or even the most important thing in a business.