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Admirers of the virtual female form are claiming victory as they point to the growing discrepancy in the view-count between promotional videos starring the bikini-clad vixens of Dead or Alive Xtreme and the battle-ready Princess Zelda of Hyrule Warriors Legends.

Last November, game developer and publisher Koei Tecmo announced that it would not be bringing Dead or Alive Xtreme 3, its latest all-female beach volleyball game, to the U.S. or EU, vaguely citing “issues happening in [the] video game industry with regard to how to treat female[s].” Some have interpreted this as an effort by Koei Tecmo to respect increased Western sensitivity to sexualization of fictional characters, while others merely think the company doesn’t believe there are enough gamers outside of Asia who are willing to pay for a title like Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 to make officially releasing the game in Europe or North America worth the effort or expense.

Recently, though, Dead or Alive Xtreme’s supporters have been pointing to statistical evidence to bolster their argument that plenty of gamers are happy with a little titillation. Koei Tecmo is also the developer behind the Hyrule Warriors series, which takes the characters from Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda franchise and plunks them down in a hack-and-slash action game. Koei Tecmo even serves as the publisher for the game in Japan, and promotes both Hyrule Warriors and Dead or Alive Xtreme through its official Japanese YouTube channel.

Curious individuals have been keeping tabs on the view-counts for the second Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 preview video and the Hyrule Warriors video in which frequent damsel in distress Princess Zelda is revealed as a playable combatant. As of this writing, the Zelda video, which was made public on June 25, 2014, has 1,029,553 views, which is nothing to sneeze at.

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The Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 trailer, on the other hand, hasn’t been around nearly as long, having just been made public on November 19, 2015. But even though Princess Zelda had almost a 16-month head start, she’s getting handily beat by Dead or Alive’s uninhibited martial artist athletes, who’ve racked up 1,060,367 views.

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That’s a pretty impressive upset, especially since the Hyrule Warriors announcement video was Zelda’s first appearance as a playable character in two decades. Still, there are a few other factors that should be considered.

Both Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 and Hyrule Warriors are major releases with multiple videos promoting them on Koei Tecmo’s channel, but the Nintendo crossover has far more trailers than the Dead or Alive spinoff, meaning that the overall YouTube-measured interest for Hyrule Warriors gets split up into a larger number of smaller pieces. There’s also the fact that while Hyrule Warriors is officially promoted in English-speaking territories (where it’s published by Nintendo), Dead or Alive Xtreme 3’s lack of a Western release means that the attention of fans around the world gets funneled into Japanese marketing efforts like the above video from Koei Tecmo Japan.

▼ Pictured: International marketing in its purest, simplest form

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It’s also worth taking into account the potential for rewatches of the videos. After the end of the Princess Zelda Hyrule Warriors vid, it’s likely that many viewers never came back to hit the play button again. But the Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 video? We’re guessing a lot of fans came back for a repeat viewing, especially later that night.

▼ After all, it can be really tough to fall asleep when you’ve got important questions on your mind, like what the proper way to use a hula hoop is.

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Source: Yurukuyaru via Jin
Top image: YouTube/KOEITECMOofficial (1, 2) (edited by RocketNews24)
Insert images: YouTube/KOEITECMOofficial (1, 2) (edited by RocketNews24)