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Tales Studio is in trouble

Apparently this blog post is saying the Tales studio is in trouble. Can't read it but the guys over at the Tales forums are saying that's the case...

http://blog.esuteru.com/archives/516469.html

No surprise since they've been milking them out since 2006 on every platform. I guess this is partly the reason for Graces not coming over? :/ Hopefully they get things straightened out since Tales is my favorite series...
 

RPGCrazied

Member
Or how about letting XSEED/Atlus translated them?

Also they poorly market these games, no wonder they don't sell.
 

Vic

Please help me with my bad english
After watching this year's Konami E3 conference, I am not surprised.
 
RPGCrazied said:
Or how about letting XSEED/Atlus translated them?

Also they poorly market these games, no wonder they don't sell.

Just bolding the clear obvious for people coming in here later on asking about Graces and ToV PS3.
 

Peff

Member
It's a shame now that the latest installments were so good but after Namco milked the series so hard a few years ago something like this was bound to happen. Waiting for more details...
 

Aeana

Member
Diablos said:
So Vesperia isn't even coming out here in NA for PS3?

That's bullshit.
That train sailed long ago. John TV said as much several months ago, and if his company wasn't working on it, I don't think anybody else would be.
 

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
Having their franchises fail is just Namco's first step in becoming a top 5 worldwide publisher.
 

MrDaravon

Member
farnham said:
bring graces, innocence, hearts, PSP ones and vesperia ps3 to europe and NA -> sell units -> ??? -> profit

Most of the Tales games have bombed in the US. The last one that did well was Symphonia, and Vesperia maaay have turned a small profit (I think it did like 200k?)

RPGCrazied said:
Or how about letting XSEED/Atlus translated them?

Also they poorly market these games, no wonder they don't sell.

THIS is the right answer. Namco's apparent refusal to let other companies release these games in other territories really pisses me off. I don't know that some of them would do well by any publisher, but someone like Atlus would bring their userbase and probably make most of these sell well enough to turn a profit, like Graces and Vesperia PS3.
 
SailorDaravon said:
Most of the Tales games have bombed in the US. The last one that did well was Symphonia, and Vesperia maaay have turned a small profit (I think it did like 200k?)

IIRC Vesperia did 130k in NPD. ToS: DotNW did the same...
 

Aeana

Member
As for what's linked, I don't really know if it's very conclusive. It looks kind of bad, but I don't think there is enough information provided to really draw a solid conclusion.
 

madara

Member
First the console jrpgs pretty much completely vanish compared to PS2 era. Then major rpgs on handhelds and consoles that you think surely have to come over don't. Now this, sad times.
 
Aeana said:
As for what's linked, I don't really know if it's very conclusive. It looks kind of bad, but I don't think there is enough information provided to really draw a solid conclusion.
I admit I'm mainly leaping to conclusions based on observations, but damn if it doesn't make sense that Tales Studio is suffering.

It's like watching a Sonic Team-style rut before it happens. (The original analogy was a car crash in slow motion, but I felt this was more gruesome.)
 

kswiston

Member
Bel Marduk said:
IIRC Vesperia did 130k in NPD. ToS: DotNW did the same...

Atlus would not only do a better job marketing the games, but I'm sure they could turn a profit on 125k+ sales. Most of their titles sell less than 150k copies in the US. Why Namco refuses to bring two thirds of the tales titles State-side, and then refuses to let anyone else do it for them is beyond me. 150k of additional sales is nothing to scoff at when some of your games are barely breaking 200k in Japan.
 

Teppic

Member
Worst news ever. Tales of Vesperia is one of the absolute best JRPG's ever made. I can't believe it didn't sell.
 
Symphonia was a combination of a lot of factors, like Nintendo shouldering some publishing duties, an extremely JRPG-starved audience, an artstyle that fit the audience, etc.

I don't know that Tales team can force lightning to strike there again.

Really the smart thing to do would be to put Team Symphonia on a PS3 game and get another Tales team on a good, non-rushed 3DS title to establish the RPG market there out of the gate.

But I'm guessing the decision making process at Bamco is more "Why would we limit ourselves to just two systems?" instead of "How can we focus ourselves better?"
 

duckroll

Member
For the record, I saw this yesterday and discussed it with Y2Kev. I translated the stuff, and he tried to make sense of the financial part of it, but ultimately it's just a balance sheet and there isn't really enough information to draw any real conclusions. If anyone has more details on actual profit or cash flow, or anything that could actually provide concrete details, it'll be welcome. Otherwise, this doesn't really say that Tales Studio is in trouble at all.
 
Dammit, if Sega can bring Yakuza 4 to the states, why can't they (Namco) bring friggin' Vesperia over to the PS3? I sold my 360 copy awhile ago thinking I would just get the more "complete" PS3 version. But that's all kinda beside the point.

Hopefully this news isn't as dire as we think.
 

kswiston

Member
Teppic said:
Worst news ever. Tales of Vesperia is one of the absolute best JRPG's ever made. I can't believe it didn't sell.

Tales of Vesperia didn't light up the NPD charts, but worldwide the game did alright. 550k+ in Japan between both versions, and probably north of 750k worldwide.
 

kswiston

Member
ShockingAlberto said:
Hearts on the DS, I think.

It did not come here.

Last 2D tales game with an english release was the PSP port of Tales of Eternia in EU. Other than a Tales of Phantasia port on GBA, North America hasn't had a 2D tales game in 9 years.
 

flsh

Banned
After thinking about this for a few minutes and reading in wikipedia that the Tales team are a company owned by Namco I have come to the conclusion that GAF must buy it. This will give EviLore the excuse to charge for GAF Gold, and use the extra profit to make Tales of games that will come to the west.
And we could finally have the search feature back!

Maybe Namco will sell a few of team Tales' shares to Sony or Nintendo and the games will be localized by them if Namco doesn't want to pay for the costs
 

Varion

Member
duckroll said:
If anyone has more details on actual profit or cash flow, or anything that could actually provide concrete details, it'll be welcome. Otherwise, this doesn't really say that Tales Studio is in trouble at all.
Well this is encouraging. I think knowing nothing at all about economics I'm going to go with hope over fear.

I've loved all of the games Team Symphonia have put out, so I really hope these guys stick around.

CoolS said:
I actually didn't follow graces after it was released. Was it really good?

If so, fu namco :(
The combat was awesome, but the world felt too small and the story and characters were really poor, even for Tales standards.
 

2San

Member
Is it the same team that keeps making the Tales of Rpg's? Isn't it about time they do something else. I liked ToV since the RPG's this gen where so shitty, but come on it is the same thing all over again.
 
2San said:
Is it the same team that keeps making the Tales of Rpg's? Isn't it about time they do something else. I liked ToV since the RPG's this gen where so shitty, but come on it is the same thing all over again.

No, there's two different "main" teams along with some Tales games being outsourced. Team Symphonia recently did Vesperia and Team Destiny recently did Graces.Then we have Alfa System that did Innocence, and a combination of TS and TD members who did Hearts. Dimps also did Tempest but that's the only (and final :p) Tales they did.
 

RPGCrazied

Member
I think its time for them to just sell the IP.
As I said, I'm sure XSEED/Atlus would be more than happy to buy it.

or atleast let them translate your damn games namco.
 
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