Tekken has almost always been one of the heavyweight champions in the fighting genre. Fans have more or less stayed by the series through its ups and downs, given how the Tekken franchise sales have surpassed 47 million units since its inception in 1994 (or 1995 for its first console release).
Series Director Katsuhiro Harada announced the news earlier today on Twitter. He thanked the fans in the tweet and shared some of the stats. Tekken 7, the most recent installment, has surpassed over 3 million sales. While the tweet initially looks like a celebration of that specific milestone, Harada revealed that Tekken 7 sales had reached 3 million back in December 2017. He even said as much in the tweet by stating that “Tekken 7 had achieved Over [sic] 3 million sales before one year passed from release, but there was no timing to upload this.” The lack of some of the new DLC characters—like Lei or Anna—in the picture shows that the team had hit that number some time ago.
Tekken 7 was widely revered as a good entry, with our own review hailing it as “fresh despite its classic formula.” It was also one of the most popular games at Evo 2018, being the third most-entered game in the tournament. The game is also still getting DLC characters like Noctis from Final Fantasy 15 and Negan from The Walking Dead, who still isn’t out yet.
Other entries in the franchise have also been successful even if they have been viewed by most as low points in the series. Tekken 6 sold over 3.5 million copies by May 2011, which was about a year and a half after it landed on home consoles in 2009. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 fell short of sales expectations and only hit 1.5 million units as opposed to Bandai Namco’s goal of 1.7 million. More than 1.3 million of those sales were in its first nine months.
