"I wasn't expecting this."
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero has obviously been popular with fans, but it turns out it might be more successful than anyone might have guessed.
It was always clear that Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero was going to do well, given that it's the first new entry in the Budokai series in many years, a fan favourite amongst all the games, but just how well it's done has definitely been a bit of a surprise. It even managed to hit 100,000 concurrent players around launch, a seriously strong figure for a fighting game. And now it's sounding like that success is even bigger than imagined, as speaking to GamesRadar Circana's executive director and games analyst Mat Piscatella shared that Sparking! Zero is one of Bandai Namco's best-selling games of all time, if you can believe it.
Piscatella said that he was "as surprised as anybody, not only for it to be the best-selling Dragon Ball game, but to be among the best-selling Bandai Namco games all time." He went on to note that Bandai Namco has "had some really big hits over the years," Elden Ring obviously being one of the biggest, making Sparking! Zero just another one of the strong titles it has in its catalogue. "I wasn't expecting this," Piscatella continued.
"It sure didn't hurt that it had that huge cast of characters and beloved IP allowing people to kind of dig into the history of that thing. Even though I've never personally watched it, I know people are very passionate about Dragon Ball... I'd agree with you that this thing has been one heck of a nice surprise in a year that's been kind of rough overall."
As sad as it is, creator Akira Toriyama's passing earlier this year definitely brought out a lot of nostalgia in fans, and with a new anime also airing, there's a lot of love for the series in the air at the moment. And it helps that Sparking! Zero was really good too.
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