[pswii60]

nvm

[jimbo]

Hell why not. Throw millions at Gooch for LO + BD or throw millions at B/N for exclusitivity to an established series. I guess hindsight is always 20/20 tho so you never know. Just a thought.

Except that BD did what ToV is doing right now on a user base that's just a fraction of what it is now. BD bascially sold to half the user base.

In reality though, I think BD has a chance of doing lot more long-term for the 360 than ToV in Japan. A BD2, done right, would help the 360 quite a bit more in Japan one year down the road. One, it would probably sell a lot better than ToV on its now larger user base, and two it's a branding thing: Blue Dragon box, exclusive to the 360.

Same for Lost Odyssey in the west.

I think MS did the right thing. Both BD and LO can become established XBOX JRPG franchises with a quality sequel for each game. And the key word here is Xbox.

In all honesty, with how fast they got both games up and running, and with very early technology and development tools, both LO and BD turned out really great. They are in all aspects first generation games and can't help but feel rush jobs on both so for how fast they got them out, and still coming up with a quality product, Mystwalker did a really amazing job.

[sphinx]

did we ever get the leaked famitsu HW numbers we always get on wednesday (or is it thursday)?

I have been searching to find how many 360 units did ToV sell but can't find it...

[botticus]

did we ever get the leaked famitsu HW numbers we always get on wednesday (or is it thursday)? I have been searching to find how many 360 units did ToV sell but can't find it...

24k for 360, haven't seen any other hardware numbers yet.

[xero273]

did we ever get the leaked famitsu HW numbers we always get on wednesday (or is it thursday)? I have been searching to find how many 360 units did ToV sell but can't find it...

sinobi blog said 24K 360s

[PSGames]

24k for 360, haven't seen any other hardware numbers yet.

Is that the highest week ever for xbox?

[jimbo]

With the last week sales numbers from Famitsu and the what they have in the pipeline going forward I stand by my prediction that they will easily hit the million mark before it is all said and done this gen. Not saying a whole lot, but it will be essentially double what they did the previous gen in the territory. With SO4 at least a timed exclusive how well has the series done there in the past? IU should help spur sales for a bit as well.

I stand by my original prediction that it will do 2 mil in Japan before it is all said and done.

Is that the highest week ever for xbox?

No, I think it did 35k when BD came out, but it was also December.

[PhatSaqs]

Except that BD did what ToV is doing right now on a user base that's just a fraction of what it is now. BD bascially sold to half the user base. In reality though, I think BD has a chance of doing lot more long-term for the 360 than ToV in Japan. A BD2, done right, would help the 360 quite a bit more in Japan one year down the road. One, it would probably sell a lot better than ToV on its now larger user base, and two it's a branding thing: Blue Dragon box, exclusive to the 360. Same for Lost Odyssey in the west. I think MS did the right thing. Both BD and LO can become established XBOX JRPG franchises with a quality sequel for each game. And the key word here is Xbox. In all honesty, with how fast they got both games up and running, and with very early technology and development tools, both LO and BD turned out really great. They are in all aspects first generation games and can't help but feel rush jobs on both so for how fast they got them out, and still coming up with a quality product, Mystwalker did a really amazing job.

All good points and all probably true. Except we have no idea if there will be sequels to BD and LO. Hopefully we hear something at TGS.

[sphinx]

sinobi blog said 24K 360s

thanks to you and botticus

that pretty much confirms 360 over PS3 for the second time this generation...

Now, if people take long enough to finish ToV so that they sell their 360's back in a couple of weeks, maybe next week we have 360 at around 10k with big possibilites of beating the PS3 for 2 consecutive weeks.

[jimbo]

All good points and all probably true. Except we have no idea if there will be sequels to BD and LO. Hopefully we hear something at TGS.

I thought BD2 was pretty much confirmed. Nothing on LO, more of a personal wish than anything else but its sales should make it a possiblity. I am just now playing through it, and I like what I see right now, even though it's pretty clear this game deserved to be a third generation game, with its own graphics engine and a lot more money behind it. It started out slow, but when you get to the opening movie, where he's riding the mono rail and the game officially starts, it sets the tone for the whole game, and got me pumped for it.

[alske]

Except that BD did what ToV is doing right now on a user base that's just a fraction of what it is now. BD bascially sold to half the user base. In reality though, I think BD has a chance of doing lot more long-term for the 360 than ToV in Japan. A BD2, done right, would help the 360 quite a bit more in Japan one year down the road. One, it would probably sell a lot better than ToV on its now larger user base, and two it's a branding thing: Blue Dragon box, exclusive to the 360. Same for Lost Odyssey in the west. I think MS did the right thing. Both BD and LO can become established XBOX JRPG franchises with a quality sequel for each game. And the key word here is Xbox. In all honesty, with how fast they got both games up and running, and with very early technology and development tools, both LO and BD turned out really great. They are in all aspects first generation games and can't help but feel rush jobs on both so for how fast they got them out, and still coming up with a quality product, Mystwalker did a really amazing job.

I actually agree. Hopefully MS sees it the same way. Mostly because both are some of favorite games released so far this generation.

[JoshuaJSlone]

Not knowing much about your algorithms, Josh: wouldn't "Wii -Sports" be a feasible method for such a task? Or are hyphens reserved for other uses?

As is the matching doesn't work like a search engine. It uses SQL's "LIKE", which allows you to find something that matches a certain pattern, including wildcards for single characters (_) or an indefinite number of characters (%). But if you give it "Emblem Fire" it's not going to find the Fire Emblem games, and if you give it "Wii -Sports", it's going to look for a game with the exact name "Wii -Sports".

You can even look for all games that have a hyphen in their title.

[Stumpokapow]

Josh, you could consider switching some of your LIKE searches to FULLTEXT index searches and engage boolean search mode if you really need to.

[AnimeTheme]

Word of mouth (?) is that is nothing but a shitty port of a PSU, which isn't really a masterpiece. If Sega ports it in the States, I wouldn't mind trying it, though.

I would like know the comments from any GAFer here who has actually played the full game (not the demo), especially those who have played console PSU before.

I have been playing the full game for some hours already. I haven't played the console PSU before so I can't tell if it is a good "port" or not, but as a standalone multiplayable RPG, I think it's still OK. The only major complaint I have is the laggy multiplayer part, which is quite a contrast with MHP, in which the multiplater part is basically just as smooth as solo.

[botticus]

As is the matching doesn't work like a search engine. It uses SQL's "LIKE", which allows you to find something that matches a certain pattern, including wildcards for single characters (_) or an indefinite number of characters (%). But if you give it "Emblem Fire" it's not going to find the Fire Emblem games, and if you give it "Wii -Sports", it's going to look for a game with the exact name "Wii -Sports". You can even look for all games that have a hyphen in their title.

I'd imagine displaying the relevant SQL to allow people to throw in their own NOTs would be easiest. Might also consider introducing some obscure special character (can't imagine ^ is used in many game titles) to denote the exclusion, but that would require some string manip before submitting the query.

[jimbo]

I actually agree. Hopefully MS sees it the same way. Mostly because both are some of favorite games released so far this generation.

If you stop and think about where they came from, it's all the more impressive considering they were done by a "scraped-together" developer using a lot of outside help on a brand new console. Even though it had Sakaguchi, when you were reading about Artoon(Blinx developer) coding BD and the Unreal Engine for LO even though I was pulling for them, I know deep down in the back of my head I couldn't help but think disaster back then.

If in a year or so, Mystwalker actually manages to pull itself together and become a real developer, with large internal studios and Gooch at the top....then, what MS and Sakaguchi did is not only help bring about two great games, but also gave birth to another Japanese quality developer. If Cry-On turns out just as good or better, than they will have a damn good track record and anything they put out from that point on will be taken a lot more serious.

The only question remains though, will MS be able to keep them exclusive, or at least 90% exclusive the way Square has been in the past?

[alske]

If you stop and think about where they came from, it's all the more impressive considering they were done by a "scraped-together" developer using a lot of outside help on a brand new console. Even though it had Sakaguchi, when you were reading about Artoon(Blinx developer) coding BD and the Unreal Engine for LO even though I was pulling for them, I know deep down in the back of my head I couldn't help but think disaster back then. If in a year or so, Mystwalker actually manages to pull itself together and become a real developer, with large internal studios and Gooch at the top....then, what MS and Sakaguchi did is not only help bring about two great games, but also gave birth to another Japanese quality developer. If Cry-On turns out just as good or better, than they will have a damn good track record and anything they put out from that point on will be taken a lot more serious. The only question remains though, will MS be able to keep them exclusive, or at least 90% exclusive the way Square has been in the past?

I can't imagine that either games made MS money though. I'd be very surprised to see sequels. I do think it would be fairly forward thinking of MS to get some more XBox exclusive franchises. However, I'm not sure who actually owns the IP in this case, but considering the BD DS game I'm going to guess MW.

[cvxfreak]

Deal? Namco made games for the 360 before the PS3 because the development environment was ready. Nothing more. There'll be a PS3 port later for sure. They just decided not to screw themselves like they did with Symphonia, by announcing the port before the 360 version even had chance to sell.

I think you're confusing Biohazard 4 with Symphonia. Symphonia wasn't announced for PS2 until 10 or so months after the GC game was out in Japan. :P

[jimbo]

I can't imagine that either games made MS money though. I'd be very surprised to see sequels. I do think it would be fairly forward thinking of MS to get some more XBox exclusive franchises. However, I'm not sure who actually owns the IP in this case, but considering the BD DS game I'm going to guess MW.

I doubt MS went in expecting lots of money out of this whole deal from the first two games though. They had to have been thinking long term. And I think Mystwalker does own them, after all, Sakaguchi wanted control over his stuff. But with BD on the DS, and even a spin-off on the Wii....all that would do is create more brand recognition for the game, in which case if MS is smart, they get the exclusive to the main sequel on the 360. That would help even more than just an immediate BD2 on the 360. At least that has been the way SquareEnix and Sony has been operating until recently.

It just seems like MS gave them money, and helped them get started, now they probably have some kind of deal where Mystwalker returns the favor with exclusives while funding their own projects.

Anyway, back to sales, does anyone have sales data for the Banjo series in Japan? Were they ever any popular?

[Durante]

I can't imagine that either games made MS money though. I'd be very surprised to see sequels.

Given LO's total global sales I don't see why it couldn't have made a (moderate) profit. It's solid, but it doesn't seem like a "crazy budget" affair.

Edit: then again I forgot about marketing costs (I don't watch TV so I don't know how much - if any - there was).

[jimbo]

Given LO's total global sales I don't see why it couldn't have made a (moderate) profit. It's solid, but it doesn't seem like a "crazy budget" affair. Edit: then again I forgot about marketing costs (I don't watch TV so I don't know how much - if any - there was).

LO probably broke even, considering they were also using the UE which I am sure helped save a lot of money. But again, I seriously doubt MS expected anything other than what it got out of it. To bad LO didn't do better in Japan, but then again, I will never figure that market out. ToV would be WAAAAAAAY down on my list compared to those games, in fact, I doubt I will even play it after trying the demo. That's what's so hard about Japan. Just when you think you figured something out......they buy the complete opposite and shun the stuff you were certain they would like. Example: Halo > Ninja Gaiden, Viva Pinata. WTF?

[grandjedi6]

I think what would be best is to keep FE on the DS and move AW to the Wii - I think that AW could benefit a lot from a move to the Wii. They could do a lot of cool stuff with the editor, the map sizes, units etc.

I think the exact opposite actually. I prefer AW on handhelds by far. And for FE I like a mixture of Handheld and console titles (I love FE on-the-go but I also adore the additions the Gamecube/Wii versions added)

[JoshuaJSlone]

So I created a new simple thing to put into the /labs directory. I've thought it would be interesting to find a way to quantify "legs". However, with so many conditions being unequal from game to game, it's never been something I tossed on a game's own page. However, this should at least let us find games with particularly long legs.

Legs rankings. Give it a number of days from launch (defaults to 3, the most common), and it will find games whose first appearance was on that day. It gets their sales from that time, as well as that game's most recent sales, and thus is able to find out how many times the original one was multiplied. Since a vast majority of the games in the database have their first appearance 3 days after launch I limited it to displaying the top 500 results.

"The Best" types do take up many of the top spots, but Brain Age is the champ for games who first appeared after 3 days, with its total being about 84 times its first week.

Josh, you could consider switching some of your LIKE searches to FULLTEXT index searches and engage boolean search mode if you really need to.

Something to look into; I didn't even know that was possible. My knowledge of PHP and SQL has been growing in haphazard ways over the last year as I either run across some new capability or realize I need to.

[jimbo]

I found some data on Banjo in Japan from the site that shall not be named.

Please feel free to correct me if the numbers are wrong but it seems Banjo 1 did 560k and Banjo 2 about 280k in Japan. What I didn't know is that the first game did 3.5 million world wide on the N64 and the second 1.5. I had no idea they did anywhere near that good.

With its upcoming line-up, the 360 has a damn good chance of putting up decent numbers in Japan over the next 6 months. They are very well spaced too with ToV, Infinite Undiscovery and then The Last Remnant basically one month apart. That ought to do well for its momentum.

[dabra]

Famitsu

Banjo 1 405.944
Banjo 2 194.173

[jimbo]

Famitsu Banjo 1 405.944 Banjo 2 194.173

Thanks, anyone know if Banjo is slated for Japan this year?

[icecream]

It hasn't been mutually beneficial at all. Basically MS is the one who has gotten the most out of the deal.

Are you sure Namco didn't get what they wanted as well?

Hcoregamer00 keeps screaming "BOMBA" at Valkyria Chronicles all around the board, a brand new niche IP with a budget clearly lower than ToV. Its Japanese LTD is 130k.

It's also in relation to the userbase. Namco knows how many 360 owners there are in Japan, they know what to expect that's reasonable from a 600K userbase. In the same token Sega thought they knew what to expect from a high quality JRPG on a 2.2 Million userbase. It'd be silly for Namco to expect half or so of a console userbase to pick up their game in the first week.

Scale plays an important part in sales expectations.

[jimbo]

Are you sure Namco didn't get what they wanted as well? It's also in relation to the userbase. Namco knows how many 360 owners there are in Japan, they know what to expect that's reasonable from a 600K userbase. In the same token Sega thought they knew what to expect from a high quality JRPG on a 2.2 Million userbase. It'd be silly for Namco to expect half or so of a console userbase to pick up their game in the first week. Scale plays an important part in sales expectations.

I agree. I really don't think GAF gives enough credibility to developer's financial forecasting. Surely they can see what we see too, when they plan these things out.

It's like GAF treats all publishers as morons.

[Phife Dawg]

LO probably broke even, considering they were also using the UE which I am sure helped save a lot of money. But again, I seriously doubt MS expected anything other than what it got out of it. To bad LO didn't do better in Japan, but then again, I will never figure that market out. ToV would be WAAAAAAAY down on my list compared to those games, in fact, I doubt I will even play it after trying the demo. That's what's so hard about Japan. Just when you think you figured something out......they buy the complete opposite and shun the stuff you were certain they would like. Example: Halo > Ninja Gaiden, Viva Pinata. WTF?

Why would you think that the idea of Pinatas would fly in Japan of all countries? Does the average Japanese even know what a Pinata is? For Halo we at least know that there's an avid niche fanbase for these sort of titles.

Plus Tales = established franchise, with a seemingly shrunk-down fanbase but they have a fanbase at least.

I think the exact opposite actually. I prefer AW on handhelds by far. And for FE I like a mixture of Handheld and console titles (I love FE on-the-go but I also adore the additions the Gamecube/Wii versions added)

I like AW on DS too, I just think they could do a lot more with AW on Wii than what they did or could do with FE on Wii.

I agree. I really don't think GAF gives enough credibility to developer's financial forecasting. Surely they can see what we see too, when they plan these things out. It's like GAF treats all publishers as morons.

Well I too think that if it meets publisher's expectations it's a good sign (see Z&W for instance) and I think Namco will get what they expect from the title, but with a lot of publishers posting losses all over the place, going out of business or getting bought out, you do have to question their ways of running things now and again.

[jimbo]

Why would you think that the idea of Pinatas would fly in Japan of all countries? Does the average Japanese even know what a Pinata is? For Halo we at least know that there's an avid niche fanbase for these sort of titles. Plus Tales = established franchise, with a seemingly shrunk-down fanbase but they have a fanbase at least.

Just because of the type of game that it was. I just figured animal raising sims would go a lot better there than western fps with aliens would.

[Johann]

We've seen that craziness happen before with the ultra gory, Z-rated Gears of War's first week sales debuting on par with the cutesy and heavily advertised LocoRoco. LocoRoco had a bundle, a large advertisement campaign, simple controls, and a cute graphics going for it.

Supposedly, LocoRoco was seen as Sony attempt to cash-in on the bright and happy Nintendo look and bombed hard. The 360 had build up a dependable hardcore niche that eats up mature-rated Western games and pays dividends to Spike.

Assuming Viva Pinata attracts Japanese people who love Pinata games developed by Western developers, will they give it a real shot and see if they like it or will they just call out Microsoft on trying to get into 'Nintendo's turf' and ignore it?

[Tron 2.0]

Just because of the type of game that it was. I just figured animal raising sims would go a lot better there than western fps with aliens would.

It's really not that surprising. The audience for the 360 is very limited. People that want Viva Pinata-type games don't own a 360, they own a Wii.

Japanese that are buying a 360 want Halo and Ninja Gaiden. They don't necessarily want Viva Pinata.

[jimbo]

It's really not that surprising. The audience for the 360 is very limited. People that want Viva Pinata-type games don't own a 360, they own a Wii. Japanese that are buying a 360 want Halo and Ninja Gaiden. They don't necessarily want Viva Pinata.

Well they didn't like NG 2 too much.

[AFreak]

If only Tales of Vesperia was on PS3, those numbers would be even better.

[Sage00]

ToS GCN only sold around 20k less than ToS PS2 iirc. And that's with PS2's massive userbase.

I don't see a ToV PS3 port setting the world on fire.

[Tron 2.0]

Well they didn't like NG 2 too much.

They liked it better than Viva Pinata.

[Jonnyram]

DS Lite 60,434
PSP 58,501
Wii 38,506
Xbox 360 24,962
PS3 9,673
PS2 8,503

[Hcoregamer00]

DS Lite 60,434 PSP 58,501 Wii 38,506 Xbox 360 24,962 PS3 9,673 PS2 8,503

WHAT THE HELL????

Why is the PSP below the DS lite?

This is shocking.

[Jtyettis]

DS Lite 60,434 PSP 58,501 Wii 38,506 Xbox 360 24,962 PS3 9,673 PS2 8,503

[Liabe Brave]

ToS GCN only sold around 20k less than ToS PS2 iirc. And that's with PS2's massive userbase. I don't see a ToV PS3 port setting the world on fire.

Symphonia was just one of many RPG choices when it came out on PS2; Vesperia would be releasing into a much more open genre field on PS3. You're right that sales probably wouldn't rock the world, but it seems likely it could at least double the numbers for, what, an extra 10% dev cost?

[RBH]

DS Lite 60,434 PSP 58,501 Wii 38,506 Xbox 360 24,962 PS3 9,673 PS2 8,503

[mclem]

DS Lite 60,434 PSP 58,501 Wii 38,506 Xbox 360 24,962 PS3 9,673 PS2 8,503

The times they are a-changin'

(Join us next week for "the more things change, the more they stay the same")

[dragonknight337]

If only Tales of Vesperia was on PS3, those numbers would be even better.

I'm happy with the way it is now. :)

[iceatcs]

dammit, I would love to see 360>Wii just for one week :(

[Frillen]

DS>PSP and 360>PS3.

There will be lots of faces missing this week.

[Jonnyram]

Yeah, the thread is already very low key.
It's alright guys, we won't bite.

Much.

[Shiggie]

DS Lite 60,434 PSP 58,501 Wii 38,506 Xbox 360 24,962 PS3 9,673 PS2 8,503

first time posting in (Sales thread lol).
Oley shit 360
Go Go DS

[Slurmer]

good for 360. will be interesting to see how it sells up to IU in Septermber.

[Rpgmonkey]

Interesting week...

[Gaborn]

first time posting in npd. Oley shit 360 Go Go DS

No, this isn't.