Catherine moves 500K copies worldwide

by Alexander Sliwinski on Oct 19th 2011 11:00AM

Relationship-infused puzzler Catherine has definitely shipped (and maybe sold) 500,000 copies globally, according to financial results published by Atlus parent company Index. Andriasang also points out strong brand performance by Atlus' Persona series during its latest fiscal year, ended August 31, 2011.

Atlus had a slight communications snafu in early August when its cake (above) reported the game sold 200,000 copies -- given our experience with the truthfulness of cake, this should have been immediately suspect. Turns out, Catherine shipped 200K copies, but still sold a respectable 78K during July in North America.

We've followed up with Atlus to confirm the shipped vs. sold conundrum and will update when we hear back. Either way, not bad for a niche Japanese game -- and it should teach Shadows of the Damned to put a tantalizing picture of a woman undressing on the cover next time.

(Oh, who are we kidding? There won't be a next time.)

Source: Andriasang

Tags: Atlus, atlus-usa, catherine, index, japan, microsoft, playstation, ps3, xbox

Reader Comments (28)

These days when I'm watching TV or reading a book I find myself getting distracted fantasizing about new block moving techniques.

@Chiren i was definitely seeing blocks in my sleep for a while. such a great and original game. also very challenging

I really need to get around to finishing this game.

@Faceless Troll
Yes you do - not many games, movies, or books have a good storyline AND a good ending (not even Heavy Rain could manage that)!

And as a small added bonus, good gameplay :)

@Faceless Troll

Before playing Catherine I thought it would suck, I thoguht it was a game for horny japanese-lovers.

But then I played it.

It's REALLY Great! All that relationship simulator made me and some friends (we were playing in 5 people) really think about our past relationships and some of the events that the main character goes thorugh went really hard on us, we were really feeling bad about everything that was happening with him because we could relate to things that happened to us... But then the story throws itself into an abyss and it almost ruined everything if it wasn't for the ending...

Actually our ending sucked (DON'T PLAY IN THE MIDDLE, do one of the TRUE endings), but we saw the other endings on youtube and we thought it held itself really good (the TRUE endings only) and rescued a lot of what it had.

In shot, the game has a GREAT story, but to middle to end it throws itself in a sucky way but if you do one of the True endings it recovers itself pretty good.

Serious question: Is there anything more to the game than the Q-Bert styled block moving? I played the demo and enjoyed everything about it, but I'm iffy if that is the only puzzle type in the game.

@Golgo13 Yes.

@Golgo13

Yeah, it's the only puzzle. It doesn't change much, but it does get harder and more complex.

But you do start to have more choices and consequences on the real life side of things, which I would say is the real focus of the game.

I bought the game and I liked it a lot, but I admit it was because I was more interested in the story and characters. The puzzle game is really good, but not the selling point of the game.

Well, if it shipped 200K to start and then had to refill orders to get to 500K, that's still respectable for such a niche title. No one was expecting a multi-million blockbuster.

Congrats, Atlus. Bring more weird Japanese games over to USA.

@Sponge
*coughMorePersonaGamescough*

Good for Atlus. Really enjoyed this game and hope to see more interesting games from them.

I don't get this game.

Before playing it I was wondering what kind of magic it would pull off to make a simple block puzzle game big and deep enough to live up to today's triple-A standards, but it doesn't. A simple block puzzle game is all there is, this would have been padding material in most RPGs.

It's good, I enjoy the game, but IMO it's just not big and complex enough for a full price retail title, and the gameplay tends to get pretty messy, I actually enjoyed the Rapunzel minigame a lot more than the main game.

Other than that I liked the story, I would have loved a persona-like RPG with those characters and that story, they could even have included the block puzzles as minigames.

Great for ATLUS. I'll be picking this game up when it hits $20.

Heres to a million sold on KOF13

And hopes for Shin Megami DS2 getting released Stateside

This is great news. Catherine is my second favorite game so far this year, just behind Dark Souls (which I'm enjoying immensely). I know there's a lot of good stuff coming out now/soon (batman/uncharted), but even though those games are sure to be amazingly well done, I don't think they'll resonate quite so strongly with me as Catherine did. I really enjoyed it, and recommend it to anybody looking to break free of the stagnation in the AAA videogame market.

I'm happy the game did well.

I know some people may not like it, and I understand that, but I really enjoyed playing a game that had a more mature story and that focused on relationships and fears. I like to compare it to Cowboy Bebop (which was a clear inspiration for the main char design) to some extent.

I hope this is a clear sign to developers that putting some work on creating deep characters, beliavable relationships and a good story really pays off. There is no reason a game can't have the same quality of a movie/series in terms of dialogues.

Monkey Island, Fallout 1 and 2, Torment, Heavy Rain, Final Fantasy (really) are games that are succesfull both because of gameplay as for story, characters and script.

Ps: I like to point that gameplay is important, I don't want to take that away from Catherine (good puzzle game in there). Just saying.

I liked the idea of a Person style RPG. It really fits the story and would allow some good gameplay concepts.

But I still love the game, though. It was the first time ever I felt I really had a real voice in the story of a game (texting your girlfriend is the world's hardest puzzle, in the game and in real life).

@Dashx747

Sorry folks, reply system fail.

It was meant as a response to Luciano.

Downvote as you wish

Blame prude Americans, here's the Japanese cover for Shadows of the Damned:

http://www.play-asia.com/Shadows_of_Damned/paOS-13-71-bp-49-en-70-4bar.html

Whether it's shipped or sold, 500k is still a really impressive number for a title like this. Very cool!

*raises mug* To variety!

And Shadows of the Damned was so damned good (last boss fights withstanding)...

It is sad to hear that this title did not sell more....it was original and had a good storyline and good gameplay.

Alas...my believe that the population continues to get less intelligent as a whole increases as interesting intelligent and challenging games disappear.

I fear that Angry Birds and the CODs of the world are leading to my lifetime favorite hobby evolving into a medium for drooling testosterone laden morons who have the subtletly and manners of a chainsaw.

Oh come off it. Shadow of the Damned was not some genre busting triumph for form. It was a generic RE4 clone (ironic because its from that games creator) with really childish humor.

At no time while playing the game was I moved into thinking that everyone should stop playing whatever game they had been enjoying and pick up Shadows of the Damned.

I'm all for talking up games people might have missed but not by talking down other games or implying that a games sales solely have to deal with there being a scantly clad woman on the cover. If that were true X-Blades would the best selling game of all time.

I just hope this means that Atlus will not only be dropping all their Persona team work over here for the foreseeable future, but that it'll also be multiplatform. I want everyone to experience stuff like Catherine and Persona, I don't want it locked behind any platform exclusivity.

... and, in related news, I've moved my bowel just as many times...

I kinda see Catherine also as the sort of groundwork/infrastructure building game they need to do as part of the move to PS3. Their next game should be able to have a lot more areas, etc..

But the puzzle component is done so well to me, that its perfectly acceptable as an alternative to a more traditional combat mechanic.

I really liked that it was more the player's mind that "levels up", instead of the game's characters.

Unbelievable. Gaming media obsessed over this game when the only thing they knew about it was that it seemed really strange. And now that they've figured out it isn't very fun, they're STILL obsessed with it. Hey, gaming media! Games are about fun! Games that are not fun deserve ZERO coverage!

@tehixe

But these guys are having fun...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCUT7Jrr6dE&t=35s

Catherine

Catherine moves 500K copies worldwide

Reader Comments (28)

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:05AM Chiren said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 12:25PM KIRBY SMASH said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:11AM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 12:39PM BlueRajasmyk said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 1:28PM Ashkental said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:15AM Golgo13 said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:22AM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:35AM Dashx747 said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:18AM Sponge said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 12:14PM foxhound said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:20AM RasenganFury said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:33AM Luciano said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:35AM rbzsfg said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:36AM Trilancer said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:44AM gordeaux said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:51AM Dashx747 said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:58AM Dashx747 said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 11:59AM Dashx747 said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 1:24PM Ballistic H said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 1:53PM Electrium said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 2:20PM RickGhastly said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 2:20PM GoonieGooGoo said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 3:30PM ZenGaijin said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 3:44PM TehPeanut said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 4:51PM Lordd G said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 5:03PM Chiren said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 9:14PM tehixe said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 10:37PM Acosta02 said

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