We’ve learned (via My Game News Flash) that despite western enthusiasm towards Bandai Namco and Nintendo’s Wii U-bound fighter, Pokken Tournament, the game is performing very bad in its native country of Japan.

To be more precise, the fighting game is performing so bad that arcades are saying it’s literally “in the red,” meaning they aren’t making the money back for their investments into the costly arcade cabinets and controllers.

One popular arcade, Fantasista Arcade in Kurashiki city in Okayama Prefecture, was even so bold as to make public tweets and blog about their removing of the game from their arcade next month.

Japanese commenters are generally tearing into the game, saying things like “only 10 characters, no boss, therefore it’s shit,” or “boring,” and even just simply “kusoge” (Japanese portmanteau for ‘shit game’).

This is certainly interesting considering that console ports of arcade games are sometimes entirely reliant on the game’s performance in Japanese arcades – although this is also sometimes reliant on the game’s developer picking up a publisher.

Pokken Tournament is getting a worldwide Wii U release in the spring of next year, despite these supposed failures in Japanese arcades.

Translations provided by Katie Ujihisa