Bayonetta 3 Might Happen

After managing to win over most of the critics and gaining a lot of positive feedback from gamers, Bayonetta 2 could have opened the doors for Bayonetta 3... well, that's according to the design director from the second game. As usual, the developers are definitely open for more stories involving the spicy combat witch.

Nintendo Everything picked up the story from an interview director Yusuke Hashimoto had with GameMasters, where the topic of a threequal for Bayonetta popped into the conversation.

When asked about what sort of sequel Hashimoto would like to see from Platinum Games, this was his answer...

The Nintendo Everything article also points out that Platinum Games' Hideki Kamiya had shown interest in branching off the Bayonetta franchise into the Nintendo 3DS territory.

Of course, whether or not these things come to fruition depends on whether or not a publisher is willing to back them on the project.

Bayonetta 2 only came into existence because Nintendo stepped in to publish the title. Sega, the publisher of the original game, had no interest in the sequel. Given Sega's recent financial plight following questionable publishing decisions with the Sonic franchise, it's not surprising to that they would rather back out of the console scene and focus on mobile and online titles.

Gamers, however, had a hard time coming to terms with Nintendo publishing Platinum Games' third-person shooter because a lot of people didn't want to settle into the idea that they would have to buy a Wii U to get the game. Eventually people came to understand that without Nintendo Bayonetta 2 would have never existed since no other publisher was stepping in to finance the game.

Just before the game launched a group of gamers started up a campaign called #OperationBayonetta in order to get gamers to be made aware of the title and to buy it for the Wii U. The idea was to help Bayonetta 2 sell a million copies to show that gamers do stand behind quality franchises and that hopefully such a move would show publishers that gamers not only support Nintendo and fringe hardware like the Wii U, but that they also support quality-made games from worthwhile developers like Platinum Games.

Nintendo Life had reported that the game suffered “underwhelming” sales and VG Chartz gives a rough estimate of around 630,000 SKUs sold for the Wii U.

Of course, without actually knowing what the peak budget was for Bayonetta 2 it's kind of hard to tell exactly how many units they would have had to sell exclusively on the Wii U in order for it to be considered a success. Sega was kind of hoping for around 600,000 for Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric for the Wii U, so maybe 600,000 is the sort of break-even point?

Anyway, it's nice to know that if Platinum Games can secure funding once again and if demand for the game from fans is high enough, we could be seeing another Bayonetta title somewhere down the line.