When Namco Bandai revealed in late July that they were bringing not just the newest Tales title to the PS3, but a port of the recently-released Tales of Graces to the console as well, with nary another platform in sight. Many were left wondering what this meant for the series, which since Tales of the Abyss has been jumping around from platform to platform with its mothership titles. If you follow the sales figures however, it starts to become very clear what Namco Bandai's aims are and what effect they have on both the Eastern and Western releases of the games.



The data for the above graph comes from our Tales Studio's Debt: What It Means For The Series article, which was garnered from the raw sales figures given out by Namco Bandai for Japan-only sales. While many might be drawn to the severe dip following Tales of the Abyss, the issues started long before that.

The first game in the series, Tales of Phantasia on the Super Famicom (Super NES in the West), sold a respectable 550,000 copies, which at the time was quite impressive. The quality of the game alongside the inclusion of vocals, which hadn't been tried on the system on that scale until then, was a key factor in the staggering sales of Tales of Destiny on the PlayStation, which was just shy of a million copies sold at 900,000. While the next two titles in the series, Tales of Eternia and Tales of Destiny 2, didn't approach the same level (one could attribute Destiny's astronomical sales to a fluke), they sold more than Phantasia's total sales.

The next game in the series, Tales of Symphonia on the Nintendo GameCube, was the worst selling mothership title in the series with only 320,000 units sold, a little above half of Tales of Phantasia, the "worst" selling title up until that point. The company tried to recoup their losses with a sub-par PlayStation 2 port that only sold 80,000 more copies, which only barely match Tales of Destiny 2's lifetime sales. The next title, Tales of Rebirth, only sold 600,000 copies, well below the sales the pre-Symphonia titles received. The company also tried messing around with the formula with Tales of Legendia, which was developed by a team unfamiliar with RPGs and thusly suffered with near-Symphonia-like sales. Even Tales of the Abyss couldn't break the 600,000 ceiling that was imposed after Symphonia GCN's release.

However, following Tales of the Abyss's release is where things started to take a turn for the worst. Instead of sticking to the PlayStation 2, which had given the company respectable sales in Japan, they began to bring mothership titles to almost every platform imaginable. The result of this was barely breaking the 200,000 mark on every title since thereafter. But what does this mean in the bigger picture for Japan and the West? While they have some similarities, the situations caused by this move have very different results for each side.

In Japan, the company realized that something had went wrong following Symphonia GCN's release. This was due to moving to a platform which the fanbase was non-existent and screwing over the customers with a quick port to the "home" platform of the series, the PlayStation brand. When they tried fixing the problem by releasing more PlayStation-only titles and the sales didn't match what they had pre-Symphonia, they tried splitting the brand once again, with even more disastrous results than the first time. Following Vesperia and now Graces's ports to the PlayStation 3, it's become commonplace in Japan to believe that the company will port over any non-PlayStation Tales title closely after the original game's release.

In the West, a series which was extremely niche and nearly died out after Tales of Destiny II (aka Tales of Eternia)'s release, suddenly built up a huge fanbase on the Nintendo GameCube with Tales of Symphonia's release in North America and Europe. But due to the Japanese branch moving the series back to the PlayStation 2, the fanbase diminished quickly because many of Symphonia's owners would have likely never picked up a PlayStation 2. Not to mention the fact that the company barely advertised the game at all, leaving only the hardcore fans aware that Tales was a series, not just a one-off game on the GameCube. The haphazard releases, with games years apart from one another compared to the near-yearly releases in Japan, killed off whatever momentum the series had. With the release of the "beta" version of Tales of Vesperia on the Xbox 360, and no signal of the "complete" PlayStation 3 version or any other titles, many fans feel like the company simply doesn't care anymore.

As was stated in the beginning of this article, Namco Bandai has realized something lately. If they wish to reclaim the sales that the original games got, they need to re-build up their original PlayStation fanbase. This is the reason why mothership titles like Tales of PS3 and Tales of Graces f are being released on the PS3 and spin-off titles and ports are being relegated to the PSP. Most PlayStation owners however, are likely to own both systems, the linking capabilities of the games allow the company to deliver bonuses to loyal fans who are willing to buy the games on both platforms. In Japan, where the PS3 is the biggest HD console, it only makes sense to cater to that demographic.

As for the West, the focus can now be put towards building up a base on one platform instead of being forced to spread it among multiple platforms due to the Japanese branch's decisions. While we haven't heard any news out of the company's Western branch, the pieces would appear to fit nicely enough if they decide to act on this opportunity (and the actions they could employ were discussed earlier in this article).

Nobody knows exactly how this new change in focus will turn out for Namco Bandai, but it is a sign that they now realize that their core base is on the PlayStation and that spreading out the series has only hurt the Tales brand as a whole.