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NEWS: Last K-ON!! BD Tops Sales Chart for 2nd Week in a Row




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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14886
PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:38 pm Reply with quote
Why do they need to round the numbers to the nearest thousand?

Anyways, this is why they don't lower the Japanese prices. Laughing
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Megiddo



Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Posts: 8360
Location: IL
PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:57 pm Reply with quote
enurtsol wrote:
Anyways, this is why they don't lower the Japanese prices. Laughing

Honestly, this is true.

Take for instance the Supernatural first BD. It's 1000 yen (though on sale for under 500 yen) and it only sold 2k copies.

2,000 * 500 yen = 1 million yen
30,000 * 7,000 yen = 210 million yen

So K-ON BD vol 9 sold 15 times more (and made 200 times as much) than Supernatural BD vol 1, despite the latter only being $5.
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reanimator





PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:14 am Reply with quote
Megiddo wrote:
enurtsol wrote:
Anyways, this is why they don't lower the Japanese prices. Laughing

Honestly, this is true.

Take for instance the Supernatural first BD. It's 1000 yen (though on sale for under 500 yen) and it only sold 2k copies.

2,000 * 500 yen = 1 million yen
30,000 * 7,000 yen = 210 million yen

So K-ON BD vol 9 sold 15 times more (and made 200 times as much) than Supernatural BD vol 1, despite the latter only being $5.


Many thanks for the math. Despite what fans here think, the reality of numbers and statistics overrules wishful thinking.

I don't know how well Supernatural franchise is established in Japan. For $5 to $10 price range, it should have sold at least 20,000 copies for being super cheap to mainstream Japanese audience. So far, that never seem to materialized.

I wonder how many copies of Supernatural were sold in the States...1 million yen wouldn't even cover one episode budget.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14886
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:35 am Reply with quote
reanimator wrote:

I wonder how many copies of Supernatural were sold in the States...1 million yen wouldn't even cover one episode budget.


People are waiting for the fansubs! Laughing
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:54 am Reply with quote
reanimator wrote:

Many thanks for the math. Despite what fans here think, the reality of numbers and statistics overrules wishful thinking.

I don't know how well Supernatural franchise is established in Japan. For $5 to $10 price range, it should have sold at least 20,000 copies for being super cheap to mainstream Japanese audience. So far, that never seem to materialized.

I wonder how many copies of Supernatural were sold in the States...1 million yen wouldn't even cover one episode budget.

lol, and where are they going to get 20,000 fans? Certainly not among most of the guys buying K-On. Not every anime viewer is going to buy every title.

Also more info Supernatural sales as the "2k+ copies" doesn't paint the entire picture:
Quote:

avg copies per vol :: vol 1 promo + box :: dvd + bd :: 2 vol total so far
SUPERNATURAL: THE ANIMATION *1,691 +*1,597 = *3,288 (2+) (Madhouse)
DVD:
2011/02/23 *2,711 First Season Vol. 1 (Two episodes)
2011/03/09 ***670 DVD Collector's BOX (Ten episodes up to BOX 2)
BD:
2011/02/23 *2,620 First Season Vol. 1
2011/03/09 ***574 Blu-ray Collector's BOX

So that's 3381 people who bought the DVDs and 3285 people who bought the BDs, or in total 6666 so far (there is still another set to go for the second half of the series). Retail price for both dvd and bd for volume 1 is 980 yen and the box (10 ep) retails for 12,800 yen -- 9,389yen at amazon -- which is also very cheap for Japan.

But one critical element is that the series is also released as an OVA. So they were able to entice 5,331 people to buy the first volume blind but only 1,244 of those people decided to buy the rest. What is more telling than how many bought the first volume is that difference. The fact that it had a gigantic drop after vol 1 despite the continued low pricing just shows you how unpopular the series was.

On the contrary look at NANA, which was hugely popular especially among females in other ways, but its pricing was flipped:
volume 1 = 700 yen - 63,000+ copies
volume 2 = 3800 yen - 10,900+ copies
17,691 Copies Sold Per Volume Average
none of the other volumes had anywhere near the buyers as the first. That's a lot of people who dropped the show despite its popularity. However, unlike Supernatural, NANA completely aired on TV, people were already very familiar with it, and amongst other more anecdotal measures was hugely popular, quoting from another user: "Cigarette smoked by Nana increased in sales, and the type of fashion characters wear had increased as well,"

And yet despite it's popularity, perhaps among the shoujo base, one can only conclude that they dropped buying the DVDs after the first because they couldn't afford it.

However I don't think they'll get any more buyers out of titles like K-On!/!!, Bakemonogatari, Kara no Kyoukai, etc by cutting the price. since they've already reached most of the potential buyers (although, as I've mentioned before, I strongly think this is at the expense of other titles for consumers)
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reanimator





PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:00 am Reply with quote
Many thanks to Configspace for accurate info.

Of course not all anime fans will buy every single anime show. For that 20,000 potential buyers, I was expecting non-anime viewers as a part of the whole.

Upon looking at NANA's vol.1 sale, it comes down to compulsive purchase. Anyone would buy the disc if the starting price is far lower than average, 700 yen for NANA and 1000 yen for Supernatural respectively. Since numbers and stats measure overall actual demand, even the savvy pricing can't maintain the same number of buyers in a long run. Compulsive purchase looks pretty in sales charts, but they can't make profit in long run.

enurtso wrote:
People are waiting for the fansubs!


I hope that Supernatural animation sell well with American fans of the live action. It would be disheartening if majority of live action Supernatural fans watched the fansub instead from legal sources. Supernatural seems to have better mainstream appeal than anime titles that we tend to watch and I want Japanese studios have fighting chance to win more hearts and minds of mainstream audience.
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Ingraman



Joined: 07 Feb 2005
Posts: 1084
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:13 am Reply with quote
configspace wrote:
On the contrary look at NANA, which was hugely popular especially among females in other ways, but its pricing was flipped:
volume 1 = 700 yen - 63,000+ copies
volume 2 = 3800 yen - 10,900+ copies
17,691 Copies Sold Per Volume Average
none of the other volumes had anywhere near the buyers as the first. That's a lot of people who dropped the show despite its popularity.

I bought half a dozen copies of that first NANA DVD. I kept one, and gave the others away (some of the copies went to NANA fans who didn't have R2-capable DVD players, too). I didn't buy the rest because I decided to wait for a US release (and bought the four sets, although they are a bit crippled musically ;_; ).
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superunature



Joined: 09 Feb 2010
Posts: 110
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:58 am Reply with quote
It really isn't about the contents of the blu-ray. (for me anyways)
I bought the set of 9 volumes of BD for the tapestries, I don't even own a blu-ray players.
and it "sold additional 10,000 copies" because of the earthquakes causing it not to be available to many websites immediately.
I pre-ordered half a year ago, and was not available on first week, but the second.
based on the 27th episode of k-on, the k-on film will likely be on their graduation travels.

http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/492759
vote for your favorite k-on characters.[/spoiler]
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14886
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:23 pm Reply with quote
configspace wrote:

So that's 3381 people who bought the DVDs and 3285 people who bought the BDs, or in total 6666 so far (there is still another set to go for the second half of the series). Retail price for both dvd and bd for volume 1 is 980 yen and the box (10 ep) retails for 12,800 yen -- 9,389yen at amazon -- which is also very cheap for Japan.

But one critical element is that the series is also released as an OVA. So they were able to entice 5,331 people to buy the first volume blind but only 1,244 of those people decided to buy the rest.


So far, at least. It takes longer for people to afford 12800 yen as compared to 980 yen. Especially if they haven't seen the series before.


reanimator wrote:

enurtso wrote:
People are waiting for the fansubs!


I hope that Supernatural animation sell well with American fans of the live action. It would be disheartening if majority of live action Supernatural fans watched the fansub instead from legal sources.


I betcha there won't even be fansubs. Laughing
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