Tekken 8 has a strong start as its first month sales outpace Tekken 7

It sure is looking like Tekken 8 has a bright future ahead of it, as the fighting game has managed to hit two million copies sold in its first month.

Tekken 8 is the first new mainline entry in the long-running fighting series in about a decade, so it had a lot to live up to. Thankfully, it turned out to be very good, actually, and as it turns out that quality has translated into some strong sales figures too. Earlier today, Bandai Namco announced that the game has managed to sell two million copies since its launch a month ago. “The sale of over 2 million copies in the first month of release greatly outpaces its predecessor, ‘Tekken 7,’ which is still being played and has the series’ total highest sales record of over 11.8 million copies worldwide,” reads a press release on the news.

For context, Tekken 7 only managed to sell two million units more than two years after it launched, so honestly saying that the sequel “greatly outpaces its predecessor” is a bit of an understatement. Why Tekken 8 has sold so much faster than 7 is hard to say, though it will definitely be in part because more people are gaming than ever before, in no small part because of COVID lockdowns. With a start like this, it certainly looks like Tekken 8 is well prepped to overtake 7’s lifetime sales records, though we’ve obviously got a while to go before that happens.

It also looks like it’s shipping at the same pace as fellow fighting game giant Street Fighter 6, which also managed to sell two million copies in the same timeframe. Tekken 7 actually ended up selling more than Street Fighter 5, but right now it looks like the two classic series might end up shifting similar numbers, depending on how successfully they both keep up with post-launch content.

Tekken 8 players have been slightly frustrated with plans for the game, though, as the game is set to add-in paid cosmetics, something that wasn’t in the game at launch.