• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Media Create Sales: Week 49, 2012 (Dec 03 - Dec 09)

evangd007

Member
Software - Famitsu (top 30)

n6rvN.png

What a damning argument against the creation of Vita software.

Japan doesn't "hate" Vita. Its problem is that it sorely lacks exclusive content that appeals to the Japanese market.

On a related note, I'm genuinely curious as to why Bandai Namco and Koei Tecmo are still so bullish on Vita. Well, not that bullish - nearly all their upcoming titles are late ports or multiplatform with one of the other Sony platforms - but certainly relative to other Japanese third parties.

Considering how bullish both are on the Wii U, I'd imagine it is a shift of focus to the Japanese market coupled with the assumption that the Vita would be successful in Japan.
 
Nintendo having nearly 90% of the entire country's hardware sales is pretty insane.

multiple titles showing their legs and popping back up on the charts while poor Vita doesn't even get a holiday bump :\

and I agree about the Wii-U software situation in 2013, Nintendo is really keeping their cards too close to their chest there. One of many mistakes Sony made with the Vita was they had a solid launch but the future was, and sadly pretty much still is, a huge question mark. Future titles need to be revealed to build consumer confidence. Hopefully there's a nintendo direct coming to do just that, it'd be a pretty big mistake to wait all the way until e3/tgs 2013 to start showing games beyond the few we know about in q1/q2 2013.

If Sony had actually come out and admitted what support they had in store it would have been a disaster. It seems like they realize quickly after launch they weren't God's gift to Japanese 3rd parties and quickly tried to rectify the situation, but all they could get were niche games.

It'd be something like Saturn. Except it won't tank in the West as hard.

Except in the UK *_*. It seems like Nintendo's run there is over.
 

Kacho

Gold Member
I would be surprised if Nintendo didn't have some nice announcements set aside for upcoming Nintendo Direct presentations. How they keep the momentum going for the Wii U while waiting for those announcements is beyond me.
 
Nintendo having nearly 90% of the entire country's hardware sales is pretty insane.

multiple titles showing their legs and popping back up on the charts while poor Vita doesn't even get a holiday bump :\

and I agree about the Wii-U software situation in 2013, Nintendo is really keeping their cards too close to their chest there. One of many mistakes Sony made with the Vita was they had a solid launch but the future was, and sadly pretty much still is, a huge question mark. Future titles need to be revealed to build consumer confidence. Hopefully there's a nintendo direct coming to do just that, it'd be a pretty big mistake to wait all the way until e3/tgs 2013 to start showing games beyond the few we know about in q1/q2 2013.

In total (through announcements or releases), there are around 65 retail Wii U games.

While that's not great, Nintendo HAS taken some steps to reveal future titles. It's not like the future of the Wii U is completely up in the air.
 

Eternia

Member
Oh, really. I don't know about the series' history, but some in previous threads had said a number around 120k would be a disappointment. Pretty much what I based that comment on. :p

Maybe "bomba" was a bit harsh, lol
Don't forget, those predictions were for 25 days of Paper Mario.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
I kind of feel the "top secret NDA" suspicion has never panned out.

When the 3DS was announced, we found out about a huge slough of games. The only time it's really beneficial to hide what support you have is when, in reality, you don't have that much of it, since then you can at least try to push the idea that you have more support that's just being hidden.

If you really do have support though, it makes far more sense to just run around shouting about how incredibly well supported and successful you are so anyone who wants to buy your system will instantly know they will receive tons of high profile support.

I dunno. Nintendo has absolutely been extremely odd on announcing 3rd party stuff where multiplatform stuff everyone assumes is coming doesn't get announced until 2 months before release.

E3 saw nothing from Japan, no COD, no EA sports, no Epic Mickey- then those were all announced 2 months before release.

Same thing appears to be happening with Need for Speed, F1 Allstars, and most likely Blacklist.

There is clearly nothing coming in Japan for January into February, but thinking there is no support coming for months after that strikes me as premature given Japan's short announcement to release times I'm general plus Nintendo's baffling strategy.
 
I would be surprised if Nintendo didn't have some nice announcements set aside for upcoming Nintendo Direct presentations. How they keep the momentum going for the Wii U while waiting for those announcements is beyond me.

I'm sure they will, but the question becomes will those announcements be the first party titles we expect are coming. Nintendo is not going to be able to support the 3DS and Wii U fullly together. It was almost impossible with the DS and Wii and that took signficantly less resources.

Nintendo has absolutely been extremely odd on announcing 3rd party stuff where multiplatform stuff everyone assumes is coming doesn't get announced until 2 months before release.

What is there to assume is coming? Besides the stuff you mentioned and the AAA Square Enix port we've gotten no indication people are even working on anything Wii U.
 

duckroll

Member
I think it'll be interesting to see how Inazuma Eleven Go 2 performs. In general the 3DS has not been kind to Level-5 at all. They had fast and relatively easy success on the DS, but all their franchises have struggled on the 3DS, and none of their new IPs have really taken off at all. Tough times for Hino.
 

Meier

Member
Seriously, where the hell are the 2013 Wii U announcements from Japanese third parties? We're rapidly approaching the point where it'll be safe to say that Nintendo is having the same problems courting third parties at home as they are in the West.

We've seen that it's fairly pretty common for Japanese devs to announce a game much closer to release date than their Western counterparts. Maybe that applies here as well.
 
I think it'll be interesting to see how Inazuma Eleven Go 2 performs. In general the 3DS has not been kind to Level-5 at all. They had fast and relatively easy success on the DS, but all their franchises have struggled on the 3DS, and none of their new IPs have really taken off at all. Tough times for Hino.
Of course, Level 5 hasn't succeeded elsewhere either. They bomb slightly less on 3DS. Poor Level 5, without that DQ brand, they don't have any funding or good brand image.
 
I think it'll be interesting to see how Inazuma Eleven Go 2 performs. In general the 3DS has not been kind to Level-5 at all. They had fast and relatively easy success on the DS, but all their franchises have struggled on the 3DS, and none of their new IPs have really taken off at all. Tough times for Hino.

What do you think would be a good move for them to take? I've been thinking about it and I guess at the time it made sense that the 3DS was the most sensible platform and their strategy seemed sound at the time. They can't just stop releasing IE and PL. Their big attempt at a new IP on PS3 failed miserably. Their big new guy (Matsuno) left. I don't know what they are going to do but the future does not look bright, and despite me not really being into the PL series I would be sad to see them go.

They bomb slightly less on 3DS. Poor Level 5, without that DQ brand, they don't have any funding or good brand image.

I guess some of that DQ11 money could be good for them if they actually did get the contract.
 
There were criticisms of the "wait for" statements the entire time though. Only some gave the benefit of the doubt.
Sure, there's always criticisms. But the benefit of the doubt with Vita 3rd parties seemed to be the majority opinion (at least in regards to Japan) and when TGS finally came there was genuine shock at how little support there actually was. If Wii U heads down a similar path, I doubt you'll see much surprise, there's really been handwringing every step since E3 with this strategy (where's COD? where's EA Sports? where's ____?).

And to be fair, I think a lot of this also has to do with the previous gen setting expectations. People are probably expecting less from 3rd parties for the successor to Wii than they are the successor to PSP.
 

Pharros

Member
I would be surprised if Nintendo didn't have some nice announcements set aside for upcoming Nintendo Direct presentations. How they keep the momentum going for the Wii U while waiting for those announcements is beyond me.

I still believe the nicest of announcements will be saved for E3 to coincide with the Orbis/Durango possible reveals. However, the drought is looking pretty bad at the moment so I'm hoping they have a few other surprises up their sleeves for the coming months in both the East and West.

Overall excellent numbers here for sure. 3ds is simply going crazy in Japan.
 
I think it'll be interesting to see how Inazuma Eleven Go 2 performs. In general the 3DS has not been kind to Level-5 at all. They had fast and relatively easy success on the DS, but all their franchises have struggled on the 3DS, and none of their new IPs have really taken off at all. Tough times for Hino.

I'd imagine the problem is less the 3DS and more the franchises being driven into the ground.

Layton would still be huge if there was only one entry every two years at the beginning of the franchise.
 

duckroll

Member
What do you think would be a good move for them to take? I've been thinking about it and I guess at the time it made sense that the 3DS was the most sensible platform and their strategy seemed sound at the time. They can't just stop releasing IE and PL. Their big attempt at a new IP on PS3 failed miserably. Their big new guy (Matsuno) left. I don't know what they are going to do but the future does not look bright, and despite me not really being into the PL series I would be sad to see them go.

I don't think the platform is the problem. The 3DS is still the biggest and fastest growing new platform in Japan for the sort of games they make. The problem they face is largely that of declining interest in the things they were originally famous for, and the inability to come up with new IPs which are just as appealing today. There's nothing much they can do other than to suck it up and keep trying.

It's just amusing to see that based on their sales record since they took on publishing, they're the very definition of a fad.

I'd imagine the problem is less the 3DS and more the franchises being driven into the ground.

Layton would still be huge if there was only one entry every two years at the beginning of the franchise.

I think the 3DS created a bigger problem for them because whenever there is a generational shift, it gives people a chance to hop off of franchises they're tired of, especially if they don't have the new system yet. It simply accelerated the decline the franchises were already facing.
 
I don't think the platform is the problem. The 3DS is still the biggest and fastest growing new platform in Japan for the sort of games they make. The problem they face is largely that of declining interest in the things they were originally famous for, and the inability to come up with new IPs which are just as appealing today. There's nothing much they can do other than to suck it up and keep trying.

It's just amusing to see that based on their sales record since they took on publishing, they're the very definition of a fad.

Do we have any idea of their financials and how they are actually doing. They must have a crazy amount of staff to work on the 15 games the have in development at once.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
I dunno. Nintendo has absolutely been extremely odd on announcing 3rd party stuff where multiplatform stuff everyone assumes is coming doesn't get announced until 2 months before release.

E3 saw nothing from Japan, no COD, no EA sports, no Epic Mickey- then those were all announced 2 months before release.

Same thing appears to be happening with Need for Speed, F1 Allstars, and most likely Blacklist.

There is clearly nothing coming in Japan for January into February, but thinking there is no support coming for months after that strikes me as premature given Japan's short announcement to release times I'm general plus Nintendo's baffling strategy.

I mean, I sincerely doubt there are only two games for the system for all of 2013, but that there just might not actually be a huge amount of titles to brag about, so spreading the announcements out makes sense to at least try and give the impression of there being something there.

Sure, there's always criticisms. But the benefit of the doubt with Vita 3rd parties seemed to be the majority opinion (at least in regards to Japan) and when TGS finally came there was genuine shock at how little support there actually was. If Wii U heads down a similar path, I doubt you'll see much surprise, there's really been handwringing every step since E3 with this strategy (where's COD? where's EA Sports? where's ____?).

And to be fair, I think a lot of this also has to do with the previous gen setting expectations. People are probably expecting less from 3rd parties for the successor to Wii than they are the successor to PSP.
I would be fairly surprised if the Wii U ended up with less support than the Vita, but I do still think there's at least some cause for concern whenever someone is unusually quiet.

There certainly don't seem to be any 3DS announcement blocks, so there must be a reason why they would do one and not the other.

That reason doesn't have to be "there aren't many titles", but I do have trouble deciding on too many other obvious ones.
 

vareon

Member
I think it'll be interesting to see how Inazuma Eleven Go 2 performs. In general the 3DS has not been kind to Level-5 at all. They had fast and relatively easy success on the DS, but all their franchises have struggled on the 3DS, and none of their new IPs have really taken off at all. Tough times for Hino.

I imagine so-so. At least from my personal view, the cool novelty of Inazuma Eleven was run to the ground in IE Go, much more in Chrono Stone where there's time travel and playing football against dinosaurs and all that. Might put off new people who wanted to jump in to the series. I suppose it's higher than IE Go, but not significant.
 

duckroll

Member
Do we have any idea of their financials and how they are actually doing. They must have a crazy amount of staff to work on the 15 games the have in development at once.

They're a private company, and they have no need to release any financials to the public, so they don't.
 
I guess my question would be if there is much benefit to those three series?

Not in the West, at this point.

In Japan, given their stronger ties with local third parties, Nintendo actually had (has?) a better chance of bridging the Wii/PS3 casual/core divide by getting HD core titles, first-party Nintendo titles, Monster Hunter, and Dragon Quest on the same platform. Basically, the successful Japanese 3DS strategy translated to consoles.

It doesn't seem to be working out that way, likely due to the same ecosystem concerns that are keeping many Western multiplatform titles off the system, but it makes sense in theory.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
What is there to assume is coming? Besides the stuff you mentioned and the AAA Square Enix port we've gotten no indication people are even working on anything Wii U.

I'm assuming RE6 and Revelations are coming, and just in general there are a ton of Japanese franchises where a Wii U port seems plausible.

Again I am not trying to say there are megatons coming for April or anything- just saying that unannounced software coming in 2013 is exceedingly likely and that I would say Nintendo has a clear MO right now with holding off on software announcements for Wii U (and I think this is completely wrong btw).

One more point- Nintendo isnt even dating its own Q1 stuff yet, which gives me more confidence they have some sort of Nintendo Direct coming.
 

Somnid

Member
I don't think with the types of marketshare Nintendo is getting 3rd parties can really ignore them, they probably won't have a choice about support.

Last get PSP really pumped up Sony and so typical small and mid-sized Sony devs could at least profit there. Vita is probably not going to make a comeback at this point. Those devs will either go iOS or 3DS. Same with consoles. Sony held up the HD game but even late gen it's not doing great, probably not enough to hold the line for another year and then trudge through another slow, expensive Playstation launch while PS4 ramps up. Sure western Xbox gamers are becoming a target for large studios but it will have similar problems and it's hard to completely ignore the domestic market situation where it will be a non-factor. I think any new console given the raise in expense will suffer increasingly slow launches and if it takes another 3-4 years for next-gen to hit it's stride Nintendo will be the only game in town.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
There certainly don't seem to be any 3DS announcement blocks, so there must be a reason why they would do one and not the other.

That reason doesn't have to be "there aren't many titles", but I do have trouble deciding on too many other obvious ones.

2 points

1- I do think this is partly Nintendo overcompensating for the 3DS unveil where a ton of franchises were announced that ended up releasing late or not releasing at all.

2- I do not believe Nintendo has a lot of software lined up for Q1-Q2 in Japan. I think they have more than they have shown, but I don't think they have that much. So I completely agree with you there. As far as next Fall/Winter, Nintendo's own actions and Japan's general way of doing things tells me you cannot read any thing into the 2013 second half lineup right now.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Not in the West, at this point.

In Japan, given their stronger ties with local third parties, Nintendo actually had (has?) a better chance of bridging the Wii/PS3 casual/core divide by getting HD core titles, first-party Nintendo titles, Monster Hunter, and Dragon Quest on the same platform. Basically, the successful Japanese 3DS strategy translated to consoles.

It doesn't seem to be working out that way, likely due to the same ecosystem concerns that are keeping many Western multiplatform titles off the system, but it makes sense in theory.

So, I can kind of see the argument behind wanting to get Final Fantasy on to a platform with a more broad audience than the ps4/720 may end up with in Japan, but is that really a concern for Dark Souls and Metal Gear?

I mean, from the perspective of Konami and FROM Software, how much do they really stand to benefit?

My main concern in regards to Final Fantasy is that Square Enix might view appearing to have absolute top of the top tier graphics and technology as being incredibly important to Final Fantasy in the West, at which point trying to build the game in a way that makes it portable to Wii U could become unappealing.

I have to imagine there was some reason they didn't make a more serious go of Final Fantasy on the Wii, and I could see that logic transitioning over to its successor, whereas a series like Dragon Quest decides to go all in on the Wii/Wii U and not show up on other platforms at all for following the other half of this logic (not worth the time targeting a more core-heavy oriented platform).

2 points

1- I do think this is partly Nintendo overcompensating for the 3DS unveil where a ton of franchises were announced that ended up releasing late or not releasing at all.

2- I do not believe Nintendo has a lot of software lined up for Q1-Q2 in Japan. I think they have more than they have shown, but I don't think they have that much. So I completely agree with you there. As far as next Fall/Winter, Nintendo's own actions and Japan's general way of doing things tells me you cannot read any thing into the 2013 second half lineup right now.
Oh I totally agree with part 2 for sure.

You can't even read most of the West's Fall 2013 line-up right now and they announce much earlier.
 

Road

Member
3rd party software YTD (Famitsu, not all software, only top 30):

PS3: 7.05
3DS: 5.52
PSP: 4.04
Wii: 1.03
PSV: 0.93
360: 0.33
DS: 0.15

millions of units.

Just Dance Wii 1 and 2, Mario & Sonic are "first party". The best selling Wii 3rd party games are: DQX, last year's Taiko, Go Vacation and this year's Taiko.
 

Kacho

Gold Member
I would be fairly surprised if the Wii U ended up with less support than the Vita, but I do still think there's at least some cause for concern whenever someone is unusually quiet.

Agreed.

There are times when I can accept Nintendo being Nintendo. This is not one of those times.

I feel Nintendo should be a lot more aggressive with announcing titles for the Wii U. Iwata stated that they learned from their mistakes with the launch of the 3DS and I'm just not seeing that right now.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
Agreed.

There are times when I can accept Nintendo being Nintendo. This is not one of those times.

I feel Nintendo should be a lot more aggressive with announcing titles for the Wii U. Iwata stated that they learned from their mistakes with the launch of the 3DS and I'm just not seeing that right now.

See in crazy Nintendo land I firmly believe Iwata sincerely thinks that the 3DS 2010 mega game reel was a mistake.
 

Pharros

Member
See in crazy Nintendo land I firmly believe Iwata sincerely thinks that the 3DS 2010 mega game reel was a mistake.

It really doesn't seem like they can find a balance. Too many announced back then, too little now. Even the fact we've heard nothing on a VC service.
 

Nekki

Member
Oh, really. I don't know about the series' history, but some in previous threads had said a number around 120k would be a disappointment. Pretty much what I based that comment on. :p

Maybe "bomba" was a bit harsh, lol

Disappointment, that could be. It's a series that is somewhat stable, i guess people expected some growth on it seeing as how the WII entry performed.

Sticker Star by itself is not a bad game, but the general consensus is that the best in the series is still TTYD
 

Chris1964

Sales-Age Genius
I think it'll be interesting to see how Inazuma Eleven Go 2 performs. In general the 3DS has not been kind to Level-5 at all. They had fast and relatively easy success on the DS, but all their franchises have struggled on the 3DS, and none of their new IPs have really taken off at all. Tough times for Hino.

Personally I expect growth. Fantasy Life on the other good luck.
 

Chris1964

Sales-Age Genius
New Taiko for Wii will be one of holidays big sellers if shipments can meet demand. It's this year's Just Dance apparently.
 
I mean, I sincerely doubt there are only two games for the system for all of 2013, but that there just might not actually be a huge amount of titles to brag about, so spreading the announcements out makes sense to at least try and give the impression of there being something there.


I would be fairly surprised if the Wii U ended up with less support than the Vita, but I do still think there's at least some cause for concern whenever someone is unusually quiet.

There certainly don't seem to be any 3DS announcement blocks, so there must be a reason why they would do one and not the other.

That reason doesn't have to be "there aren't many titles", but I do have trouble deciding on too many other obvious ones.

I think it was around E3 but Nintendo said that they would be only showing launch window games because they didnt want to create a 3DS like situation where people bought the system for games they wanted but those games ended up coming out much much later.

They seemed to take a knee-jerk response and decided to do the complete opposite when they should be taking a middle ground. It seems kinda stupid to do that for Wii U when Wii U had a much much stronger launch lineup than the 3DS to support itself until those appealing far away titles came.

I dont doubt Nintendo is keeping peoples mouths shut. They held the unveilment of Activisions entire lineup and others like Epic Mickey 2 until September. We have evidence of other multiplatform games coming but no official unveil.

On top of that, I dont think most major 3rd party JAPANESE publishers are going to sit out like they appear to be. Capcom has such poor presence on the Wii U and its so uncharacteristic of them to be this MIA for the start of a new platform.
 

kswiston

Member
I wonder if the PS3 still has enough gas left in it to hit 10M in Japan. It should be pretty close even if it misses that mark.
 

Chris1964

Sales-Age Genius
I think it was around E3 but Nintendo said that they would be only showing launch window games because they didnt want to create a 3DS like situation where people bought the system for games they wanted but those games ended up coming out much much later.

They seemed to take a knee-jerk response and decided to do the complete opposite when they should be taking a middle ground. It seems kinda stupid to do that for Wii U when Wii U had a much much stronger launch lineup than the 3DS to support itself until those appealing far away titles came.

I dont doubt Nintendo is keeping peoples mouths shut. They held the unveilment of Activisions entire lineup and others like Epic Mickey 2 until September. We have evidence of other multiplatform games coming but no official unveil.

On top of that, I dont think most major 3rd party JAPANESE publishers are going to sit out like they appear to be. Capcom has such poor presence on the Wii U and its so uncharacteristic of them to be this MIA for the start of a new platform.

This situation of Nintendo making third parties to hold back announcements reminds me of old Vita excuses. The system has launched, there is absolutely no reason anymore for embargo and even if that happens I doubt it will be for many titles.

Until a tile is confirmed to have a Wii U version it hasn't, so simple.
 

Road

Member
Level 5 sales by year or release (Famitsu):
Code:
year sales releases

2007	1.93	2
2008	1.27	2
2009	2.25	9
2010	2.03	4
2011	1.87	8
2012	0.56	10

millions of units.
 
Level 5 sales by year or release (Famitsu):
Code:
year sales releases

2007	1.93	2
2008	1.27	2
2009	2.25	9
2010	2.03	4
2011	1.87	8
2012	0.56	10

millions of units.

My god...that's dire. Don't think Level 5 could survive another year like 2012.
 

mclem

Member
On a related note, I'm genuinely curious as to why Bandai Namco and Koei Tecmo are still so bullish on Vita. Well, not that bullish - nearly all their upcoming titles are late ports or multiplatform with one of the other Sony platforms - but certainly relative to other Japanese third parties.

I wonder if they're expecting Soul Sacrifice to be a MH-level hit, and want to make sure they have some presence on the system for when that occurs. I'm not sure that's necessarily the *best* strategy, but I've seen an awful lot of very weird strategies in the last few years so I wouldn't put it past 'em!
 
This situation of Nintendo making third parties to hold back announcements reminds me of old Vita excuses. The system has launched, there is absolutely no reason anymore for embargo and even if that happens I doubt it will be for many titles.

Until a tile is confirmed to have a Wii U version it hasn't, so simple.

There was no evidence that Vita titles were getting held back. There is evidence that Wii U titles are. Nintendo basically said that they were by saying they were only focusing on launch window. I dont know how much simpler they could've said it without straight up saying it.
 

Mr Swine

Banned
Very nice numbers for 3DS and Wii U! Sad to see Vita sell almost half as good as PSP does :/ I still don't get it why suddenly Vita is getting a resurge of big ip games when its selling so bad as it is right now while 3DS is is sky rocketing into the sun :/ I hope this doesn't become a trend where developers start to ignore 3DS and start making Vita games only :(
 
This situation of Nintendo making third parties to hold back announcements reminds me of old Vita excuses. The system has launched, there is absolutely no reason anymore for embargo and even if that happens I doubt it will be for many titles.

Until a tile is confirmed to have a Wii U version it hasn't, so simple.

Exactly.

I still don't get it why suddenly Vita is getting a resurge of big ip games when its selling so bad as it is right now

It's not? Since when is Dead or Alive a big IP and One Piece is going to obliterate its Vita sales on PS3.
 

creid

Member
It's on a console with a userbase of 300k, compared to how many millions of PS3s were out there when MHP3HD came out. I think 100k isn't too bad considering.
I'm disappointed that while so many people pointed out how stupid my early-morning post was, no one pointed out that MH3U is also part of a hardware bundle, so undoubtedly there are more copies out there than this. I guess there won't be a breakdown on how much each hardware version sold?
 
Top Bottom