Bandai Namco has announced that it’s pulling the plug on Soul Calibur 5 and all of its associated DLC on 19 June 2023. The game will be delisted from PS3 and Xbox 360 digital stores, meaning players will no longer be able to purchase the game digitally after the cut-off date. However, you’ll still be able to play the game if you own or manage to find a physical copy out in the wild.
Developer and publisher Bandai Namco made the surprise announcement yesterday, confirming that Soul Calibur 5 is being delisted from all digital storefronts soon. The publisher didn’t specify any exact reason why this is happening, though the game is over 11 years old at this point. Some fans have expressed their disappointment in Bandai Namco’s decision to pull the game, stating that it didn’t require much to keep it up as most of its contents can still be enjoyed offline.
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Others have speculated that the reason behind Soul Calibur 5 being axed was largely a financial decision. The game released back in 2012 to mostly positive reviews at launch but sales-wise, it performed under the publisher’s expectations. A sequel, Soul Calibur 6, was released in 2018 and seemed to perform much better. According to a report from 2021, Soul Calibur 6 managed to sell over two million copies worldwide.
Bandai Namco stated in 2019 that Soul Calibur 6 did sell better than its predecessor, though not nearly as many copies as the franchise’s earlier titles. The future of the fighting game series could be up in the air at this point as the sixth entry failed to gain traction in the esports scene – a good estimate for publishers to gauge the interest and longevity of a fighting game.
That said, Bandai Namco can fall back on the Tekken series which has performed considerably well over the last decade. Back in December 2022, the company confirmed that Tekken 7 managed to sell over 10 million copies. Its anticipated upcoming fighter, Tekken 8, could also be a popular seller.
Source: Bandai Namco
