Simple question: does anyone know of a place that lists (Japanese) VGM sales figures, past and present?

That would be very interesting!

I've sometime seen sales figures for an OST when it charts on it's 1st week. They are usually pretty low selling, I think the FF12 OST sold maybe around 10k or so when it came out. OST sales numbers have been going downhill for awhile now. The FF7 OST sold a lot more than the FF12 OST. I think I remember seeing some numbers up on wikipedia as well, but can't be sure how accurate they are.

Nope (at the very least, in Japan), so I'd appreciate it if someone could host such The way I can think of is referring to oricon's chart book or u-taiju service.

As we know the VGM soundtrack sale is pretty much poor (on average 1000 to 5000), except for FF osts (11 and 12 aside), but it's noteworthy that Persona 3 OST has so far sold over 34,000 copies while the game itself sold less than 200,000 copies.

oricon, yes that was the name.

Maybe they should think about doing LE bundles where they sell the game along with the OST. Say instead of $50 for the game and $30 for the OST, bundle them together for $70. This way fans would more likely buy the set when the game is released.

Or go simply with a iTunes or direct download via PSN/Live/etc. Online sales would cut down the costs associated with packaging/distribution and be more accessible and impulse buys for gamers. Physical CDs might go extint pretty quick.

Yes, bundles would be nice! But if so, then release them over here, too.

I would stop buying any music if it was released via iTunes / download only, not just vgm.  I want packages, I want something I can hold on to for 45 years, not something that I'll lose when my hard drive dies or if I forget where I saved it.  Online music distribution is horrible right now, I pray it never goes full force.  Not to mention the fact that it would be infinitely more difficult for US people to purchase overseas soundtracks via online ordering systems in Japan, since 99% of Japanese based retailers only have shipping within Japan and only accept Japanese bank cards, ATM cards, credit cards, and common Japanese payment methods.

Hell yeah! Physical CDs = awesome.

I feel the same way... all the artwork and awesome liners would go to waste

yeah, even looking at a cd-r with the album title written with a sharpie marker makes me sigh in disappointment... especially if i'd already sold my original,,,

I'm sure the more popular OSTs such FF will continue to get retail CDs made. But as we are beginning to see, they are putting more OSTs for their less popular games out as iTunes only downloads. Some games aren't even getting soundtacks, so I guess something is better than nothing, right? Beats having to record the music directly from the game yourself.

One thing to consider with iTunes is what you're getting...I'm not sure a lot of soundtracks are worth .99 cents per track from a 60+ track album (I'm assuming that they keep that pricing scheme). Imagine paying .99 cents for a sound effects track or a 5 second jingle. Give me the Root Beer from the vending machine instead, please...

On the other hand....99 cents per track for, say, Dracula Battle I or the Black Mages (which is on US iTunes), doesn't sound terribly unreasonable. That is, if you can't get an original (still the best method...best quality audio, ripping options, liners, longevity and in some cases, bragging rights all rolled into one). I hope it's not the "wave of the future" for soundtrack distribution.

I've been using iTunes a bit recently, since a lot of original albums are long OOP and the artists I'm interested in only have "Greatest Hits" compilations out. It's convenient and the prices are reasonable, but it sucks not being able to use them in Winamp. Definitely can use improving.

mike: Yeah, I know what you mean. Those things take up room and if I've sold it, it's probably because I didn't listen to it much to begin with. So then I wonder why I have the CD-R...

The idea of distributing music and video via DL has never appealed to me... especially if there is no way to back it up - I mean HD's eventually die (isn't that in itself is going to make these newer consoles a pain to deal with when they eventually become old themselves?) Then again, I guess every positive has a negative.

Here's another another plus about owning a true hard copy: say you buy and soundtrack and grow tired of it. You can sell it and recover some of the money you spent on it in the first place and put it towards another purchase. You can't do this with files, it would basically allow compaines to control/eliminate the second hand/used market.

I mean could you imagine the VGM market without marketplaces such as this? That's a world I don't want to live in cause hammering out deals on the boards if fun.

I think when you download something, you have the ability to download it again, since you've already bought the "right" to something. I know the Wii allows you to do this, but I don't know about Xbox Live or iTunes. I would HOPE so, at least.

I think Sony considered going DL only, so they could eliminate the second-hand market altogether (I know they're not a fan of the used games market). Maybe they backed off because they realized they didn't want to give people another reason to be pissed off at them...Putting Gamestop out of business would surely do just that.

Hahaha, I like how you put that. Yeah, I think Sony has burned enough bridges...

Yeah, I totally agree wtih having something physical.  After all, you can't have the composer sign your mp3s.  Maybe your hard drive?

Anyway, Jeremy Soule's Direct Song thing is kind of a step in the right direction when it comes to electronic distrobution.  Remastered material, 320kbps, different available cover art and back panels.  While it's great to have 'stuff,' some music wouldn't be released at all if it wasn't for electronic distribution, so we may as well hope for more stuff like DirectSong over the junk on iTunes.

I wish some company would take them on and put them in their place.  Every time I see a $45 used game that I know they only paid $20 for, man does that piss me off...

Eh, that's just for the super-new games. If someone's dumb enough to trade in a game that they paid $50 for and get $20 in return, I wouldn't fault Gamestop for that...I get enough good stuff cheap in their sales, I can't complain.

Yeah, I don't like that either... however, you can't blame Gamestop for people willing to shortchange themselves. I remember when my friend would trade his PS1 games in that 2-for-1 deal they ran and went from around 40 games to arount 15 and ended up lamenting doing it - but that was his fault. I try and sell or trade things people I know first, only when I'm extremely desperate to unload something I sell it back.

Lots of game soundtracks are already available via download like iTunes from Famitsu's Listen website (http://listen.jp/game/).  Some even, that didn't receive a widespread album release like Sonic the Hedgehog PS3 (which otherwise, is only available through Sega Direct). 

But I agree that having a physical album is the best possible option and I don' t really like the direction music has taken with iTunes and such.  I still have yet to fully "convert" to the digital side of music and don't have plans to anytime soon.

Out of curiousity though, what makes people think game soundtrack sales are lower these days than they were 5-10 years ago?  Even if vgm sales are still relatively low compared to mainstream albums, that has been the case for over 20 years, and still multitudes of vgm-related albums are released each month.  The only reason could be piracy, which, while isn't as prevalent as other countries, does exist in Japan.

- Justin Pfeiffer

Remember: 250GB harddrives and broadband connections weren't a standard several years ago. That kinda makes the distribution process easy, when your stock gear has everything you need. Even soccer moms can pirate music now. Considering Japanese fans even have their own set of P2P programs on top of that (winny is the only one I'm familiar with), I'd say this is a pretty good indicator as well. Big reason, but I'm sure there are others (like, say, lack of quality official arranged albums...can't buy 'em if they aren't making 'em).

One plug: coco has the Sonic PS3 soundtrack. Very worth it.

I really can't talk about the transition of VGM sales myself, but if anyone says such, he/she might be influenced by the fact that 10 to 15 years ago both FF and DQ soundtracks sold 250,000 to 400,000 copies, while the sales of thier latest installments are about one-tenth of it (I, however, personally wonder if we could call FFXII a Final Fantasy, but that's beside the point).

Probably a more telling statistic would be to look at the sales figures of games in Japan from the last decade. It's assumed that for a soundtrack to sell, you have to barter the game first. Game sales have slipped in Japan, right? Besides that point, I don't see Nintendo pressing the OST to Brain Age anytime soon....

We can't.
It's Vagrant Story 2, actually.

Naw, I can actually play though Vagrant Story... FFXII is an form of torture that defies the Geneva Convention IMHO.

Well, what else did you expect from the infamous Akitoshi Kawazu?

On topic, this thread lists Oricon's Weekly Top 50 for the last few months and is updated weekly (I think you can only see the top 20 on Oricon's official page). Persona 3: Fes sold relatively well this past week, but aside from that and Final Fantasy XI Premium Box, I can't spot any other VGM releases.

I think FFXII was pretty well toasted before Akitoshi Kawazu directed the project - I mean didn't two other directors exit stage right before he got the job? But yeah, he obviously wasn't going to save it.

FFXII is a crisply toasted english muffin with cream cheese...yum!

That chart however was definitely in the vein of what I'm looking for. Though part of me thinks some uber-obsessed Japanese fan has a web archive of game music data we just haven't come across yet.

If you don't mind unreadablity, this is worth checking since we can see the top 300 weekly ranking of CD sales for past 6 years, albeit incompletely.

Are those sale figures for a single album only?  What is the time span?  FFXII has been out, what, a year and a half now?  But for that matter, FFXII wasn't even composed by Uematsu, so of course it wouldn't sell as much.  Not to take anything away from Sakimoto; he's just not as popular as Uematsu.  It makes sense though that those earlier albums would have higher sales.  Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were the two pinnacles of RPGs back then, and game soundtracks were still a relatively new idea.  Now a days, RPGs and soundtracks are a dime a dozen, and the sales have likely been spread out over multiple series and artists, as opposed to only a few successful ones like Final Fantasy.

- Justin