Dragon Ball Franchise Sales = $5 billion

[Basaku]

Wouldn't Pokemon be considered video-game franchise primarly though?

[DBZAOTA482]

I wouldn't be surprised if Dragon Ball Z had higher Home Video sales than all other Anime series combined.

Even more than Pokemon?

The Pokemon anime is nothing now while DBZ is still going strong.

[Bullza]

A bit of research and I found...

http://www.amazon.com/Pokemon-Johto-Lea ... mon+Vol+56

From a video released May 2003 - Over 25 million videos sold! #1 for kids Top-rated shows for boys 6-11!

So yeah it would be more but Pokemon died off pretty quickly, it was a bit of a fad so it's probably not significantly more. I imagine that Dragon Ball Z has sold far better on Home Video than Pokemon for years now and will only continue to do so.

The article says they've sold 25 million DVD's and Blu Rays but it probably includes the VHS sales too.

[Basaku]

The games are still going very strong selling millions on Nintendo handhels and well, the franchise started as games and the anime was done to promote them, hence why I wouldn't really consider it a manga/anime franchise as DB, One Piece, Sailor Moon or others

[Skar]

I was curious how Dragon Ball stood up against the other big name anime franchises.

Manga sales:
1. One Piece +345 million.
2. Dragon Ball +230 million.
3. Naruto +200 million

If you compare them by volume Dragon Ball has the least with 42 while One Piece has 77 so far and Naruto 72. One Piece is still ongoing so who knows how much it will reach by the end.

Dragon Ball has the best selling video games out of the three. According to VGchartz, the best selling Naruto and One Piece games sold about 1.2 million copies. There's no comparison to Pokemon which sold 30 million for gen 1, 23 million for gen 2, and at least 10 million every generation after. The best selling DBZ games were Budokai in 2002 and Tenkaichi Budokai in 2007 at about 3 million each. The popularity of the recent movies doesn't seem to reflect in the video game sales since after 2007 every game sold less than the last. Battle of Z sold less than 500,000 for all the consoles combined and XenoVerse hasn't been doing much better so far. Xenoverse has shipped 1.5 million copies but these have to get sold first before stores decide to order more I think. In the future, we'll probably have less DBZ games released especially if the sales continue to decline.

[rereboy]

All I know is that Dragon Ball is worth all that and instead of doing a real remake, they do Kai, while other animes get proper remakes made only a few years after the original ends.

Amazing...

[Basaku]

Xenoverse has shipped 1.5 million copies but these have to get sold first before stores decide to order more I think.

Stores won't order 1.5 million copies if they think they will sell 500k or less like Battle of Z. Xenoverse got good reviews, very positive word-of-mouth and good sales numbers so stres are ordering more. 1.5 shipements at this stage with positive reception essentially guarantees the game will sale 2+ million this year. Namco Bandai is already very pleased with numbers

[Lord Beerus]

Dragon Ball has the best selling video games out of the three. According to VGchartz, the best selling Naruto and One Piece games sold about 1.2 million copies. There's no comparison to Pokemon which sold 30 million for gen 1, 23 million for gen 2, and at least 10 million every generation after. The best selling DBZ games were Budokai in 2002 and Tenkaichi Budokai in 2007 at about 3 million each. The popularity of the recent movies doesn't seem to reflect in the video game sales since after 2007 every game sold less than the last. Battle of Z sold less than 500,000 for all the consoles combined and XenoVerse hasn't been doing much better so far. Xenoverse has shipped 1.5 million copies but these have to get sold first before stores decide to order more I think. In the future, we'll probably have less DBZ games released especially if the sales continue to decline.

VGChartz is incredibly unrliable as far as data on video game sales and units are. Their statistics should really be taken with a huge grain of salt.

[Bullza]

The Metal Gear franchise was said to have sold 39.1 million units by September 2014 so Dragon Ball has sold around the same as that, though obviously it has far more games it's impressive nonetheless.

Tekken was said to be the best selling fighting game series at 42.5 million back in September 2013. At the rate these DBZ games come out I bet eventually it'll be #1 itself one day.

[Skar]

Xenoverse got good reviews, very positive word-of-mouth and good sales numbers so stres are ordering more. 1.5 shipements at this stage with positive reception essentially guarantees the game will sale 2+ million this year. Namco Bandai is already very pleased with numbers

That's true but in most cases their best sales will be during their first few weeks. That's how it is with other video games, movies, albums, etc. I think at this point the sales will either keep steady or decline after this. Xenoverse is doing best on the PS4:
Week Ending Week Weekly Change Total
07th February 2015 1 32,554 N/A 32,554
14th February 2015 2 12,178 -62.6% 44,732
21st February 2015 3 7,072 -41.9% 51,804
28th February 2015 4 206,301 2,817.2% 258,105
07th March 2015 5 72,551 -64.8% 330,656

It was released worldwide in the 4th week so that explains the jump in that period. Unless there's a big DLC I don't think the sales will spike again.

VGChartz is incredibly unrliable as far as data on video game sales and units are. Their statistics should really be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Well could you provide a different source? It comes up first when I search "video game sales" and the only one that provides weekly sales.

[Lord Beerus]

VGChartz is incredibly unrliable as far as data on video game sales and units are. Their statistics should really be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Well could you provide a different source? It comes up first when I search "video game sales" and the only one that provides weekly sales.

NPD. Their data is pretty solid.

All I know is that Dragon Ball is worth all that and instead of doing a real remake, they do Kai, while other animes get proper remakes made only a few years after the original ends.

Amazing...

I know right. It's quite sad. Toei know that they can slap Dragon Ball on anything and it will sell. Dragon Ball is just that damn marketable and popular. It's kinda of a double edged sword. Great popularity can breed great complacency.

[Skar]

NPD. Their data is pretty solid.

I was looking on their site but I couldn't find any charts. Could you show me where they list the game sales? I've seen VGChartz's numbers pop up on other sites and they weren't that off from the estimates of other groups so I assumed they were reliable enough.

[Bullza]

Well could you provide a different source?

I did a lot of research on this recently for a Video Game sales thread I made here.

http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... 11&t=29226

And to sum up the sales of the Home console sales then...

Budokai - Shipped 3.5 million copies Worldwide on PS2. Sold 2.04 million copies in US and 543k copies in Japan on PS2.

Budokai 2 - Sold 1.5 million copies in US and 584k copies in Japan on PS2.

Budokai 3 - Sold 1.14 million in US and 642k copies in Japan on PS2.

Tenkaichi - Sold over 1 million copies in US and Europe in half a year and 532k in Japan on PS2.

Tenkaichi 2 - Sold 1.18 million copies Worldwide on PS2 in half a year and another 116k copies in Japan on Wii.

Tenkaichi 3 - Sold 1.04 million copies Worldwide on PS2 in half a year and another 90k in Japan on Wii.

Burst Limit - Sold 730k copies Worldwide in half a year on PS3 & X360

Raging Blast - Sold 117k in Japan on PS3 & X360.

Raging Blast 2 - Sold 580k Worldwide in half a year on PS3 & X360.

Battle of Z - Shipped 620k Worldwide.

Xenoverse - Shipped 1.5 million copies Worldwide.

All Official and most recent figures.

[Skar]

And to sum up the sales of the Home console sales then...

The sales you listed now were almost identical to what I saw on VGchartz. Where were you getting them from a different source? I'm just curious because I want to find the most reliable source.

[MarcFBR]

Just to further point out.

Like multiple people have clarified from actually reading the Funimation sales catalogs, the numbers given are apparently lifetime merchandise sales from the entire world for Dragon Ball Z (which for the sake of argument we will assume are accurate.) This number is roughly $5 billion as of late last year (for the lifetime of the franchise.)

Based on various bits over the years we know that while Marvel did quite well once Iron Man came out that Marvel as a true unstoppable juggernaut began the year Avengers came out in theaters (2012.)

According to Advertising Age, in 2011 alone Marvel's merchandise did $6 billion in retail merchandise sales.

[Bullza]

VGchartz have clearly used the same source when they came up with their figures.

There's no one website that has all this information it's spread across multiple sites. I'll give you a few though, if you want a specific source for a specific game I can find it for you.

http://www.the-magicbox.com/Chart-USPlatinum.shtml

^^^
Has a list of games that have sold 1 million copies in US by the end of 2007.

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Famitsu_2 ... game_sales

^^^
Has the yearly Japanese sales. That sites offers the info from 2002-2008.

A lot of the other information came from Namco Bandai's press statements which get published on different gaming news sites like this one for example

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/.../nam ... financials

[Faisal Shourov]

"Toriyama keeps doing Dragon Ball movies, because he's afraid of Fairy Tail becoming the number one."

DBZ will never be dethroned.

These new movies are nothing but icing on the cake and have nothing to do with DBZ still being around all these years after it's original ending.

DBZ has been around for over a decade after it's original ending and will still be around decades after these new movies are finished while the likes of Fariy Tail,Naruto,One Piece,ect. will be dead the minute they're creators are done with them.

You must be trolling. One Piece is bigger than Dragon Ball could ever be in Japan. Dragon Ball is comparable to Naruto in Japan, not One Piece

[DBZAOTA482]

"Toriyama keeps doing Dragon Ball movies, because he's afraid of Fairy Tail becoming the number one."

DBZ will never be dethroned.

These new movies are nothing but icing on the cake and have nothing to do with DBZ still being around all these years after it's original ending.

DBZ has been around for over a decade after it's original ending and will still be around decades after these new movies are finished while the likes of Fariy Tail,Naruto,One Piece,ect. will be dead the minute they're creators are done with them.

You must be trolling. One Piece is bigger than Dragon Ball could ever be in Japan. Dragon Ball is comparable to Naruto in Japan, not One Piece

Dragon Ball is much bigger than Naruto in Japan and it was like the #1 anime/manga for nearly decade in Japan. ... much like One Piece nowadays.

[sintzu]

You must be trolling. One Piece is bigger than Dragon Ball could ever be in Japan. Dragon Ball is comparable to Naruto in Japan, not One Piece

How big will it be after the Oda's done with it ? DB was huge from the time its manga ended till Toriyama came back 18 years later with BOG so will One Piece be able to last that long without Oda ?

[Bullza]

DBZ will never be dethroned.

These new movies are nothing but icing on the cake and have nothing to do with DBZ still being around all these years after it's original ending.

DBZ has been around for over a decade after it's original ending and will still be around decades after these new movies are finished while the likes of Fariy Tail,Naruto,One Piece,ect. will be dead the minute they're creators are done with them.

You must be trolling. One Piece is bigger than Dragon Ball could ever be in Japan. Dragon Ball is comparable to Naruto in Japan, not One Piece

Dragon Ball is much bigger than Naruto in Japan and it was like the #1 anime/manga for nearly decade in Japan. ... much like One Piece nowadays.

Yeah Dragon Ball is definitely bigger than Naruto in Japan evident by...

1. The superior TV ratings.

2. The video games sell better and they make more of them because of it.

3. Battle of God's made ¥3 billion and Resurrection F made ¥3.74 billion which was considerably more than The Last Naruto movie which made ¥2 billion and Boruto the movie which made ¥2.62 billion.

One Piece > Dragon Ball > Naruto