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Edge interviews Yasuhiro Wada about MMV's sales and Japanese Industry.
- Thread starter AceBandage
- Start date
Hero of Legend
Member
This really made my day, because Wada has shown that they truly do get the Wii, and don't go blaming it for the low sales like most publishers tend to do, or have done before.
I got Rune Factory Frontier and Little King's Story and will get Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga and Muramasa: The Demon Blade ASAP in September.
I got Rune Factory Frontier and Little King's Story and will get Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga and Muramasa: The Demon Blade ASAP in September.
"Strong IP, series or popular characters are the main focus today. They are seen as secured elements in a very risky environment. Publishers and developers have used this for years, leaving little place for originality and new contents. I think this is why gamers are leaving video games. I believe that variety is the only way to bring more people into gaming."
I agree, but I would add that the only way for a new and original IP to get noticed is through a strong marketing push.
I agree, but I would add that the only way for a new and original IP to get noticed is through a strong marketing push.
Anytime someone in the industry says something negative about the Wii and its ability to sell 3rd party games, at least 400 people say something along the lines of "He's right, cue the Wii defense force."
So cue the Wii attack force?
Consoles aside, it's nice to see someone so high up praising original and innovative games and denouncing sequels. Now where is Harvest Moon Factory 7?
So cue the Wii attack force?
Consoles aside, it's nice to see someone so high up praising original and innovative games and denouncing sequels. Now where is Harvest Moon Factory 7?
I'm always hoping for Marvelous' success but always knowing it's not to be. Hope stuff pays off for them, they really are the best publisher on the Wii right now, in my opinion. Will absolutely be buying Arc Rise and Muramasa on day one (and even have a morbid curiosity for Valhalla Knights, though I admit I'll probably wait for that one to bomb beforehand).
I like his potential optimism for MMV's name gaining recognition due to quality. Be nice if it were true.
I like his potential optimism for MMV's name gaining recognition due to quality. Be nice if it were true.
AceBandage
Banned
MoogPaul said:
That has more to due with retailers not having faith in the game, so they order low shipments.
It is a problem though. Not just in Japan, but for all the game industry. Franchises are what sell. Unless they have a multimillion dollar marketing campaign, a new IP isn't going to do well.
Linkup said:
Yep.
So, NMH hit 440,000 world wide. Pretty damn good, if you ask me.
Well I'd definitely agree with the first part, but I want more than original games that will be 'fun'. I want something deep and mature, games don't really have the ability to capture my emotions or intellect, they appeal to more base feelings and that gets tiresome after a while. That WiiWare game MMV have lined up, Discipline, that sounds like my kind of thing but I just know all the thrilling concept will be hampered by conventional game structure and expectations. Sometimes, were it not for a few gems, I'd think gaming as a medium inherently trapped in adolesence due to the very things that define 'video-games'.
And in other news, capitalism is a shit if you want to be creative and different. If it won't turn enough profit or its a bit risky then forget it.
And in other news, capitalism is a shit if you want to be creative and different. If it won't turn enough profit or its a bit risky then forget it.
I think this might just be one of the best Q&A rounds I've read this gen so far. Wada seems to really understand a lot about the game market and also seems to understand that creativity pushes games from a base level as seen with his Gameboy reference.
I really hope these guys can catch up with the big guys in the future, their output lately has been excellent between Muramasa, Little King's Story, No More Heroes & it's upcoming sequel. They just need a breakout game in my opinion and they will be on their way.
I really hope these guys can catch up with the big guys in the future, their output lately has been excellent between Muramasa, Little King's Story, No More Heroes & it's upcoming sequel. They just need a breakout game in my opinion and they will be on their way.
Aside from the US version of Rune Factory, I don't think I own a single MMV game. He's right about the MMV name being responsible for the low sales, but I don't think it's just because they're not a "big" name. It's also because the general opinion of MMV as a publisher is that they tend to release shit. They publish quite a number of games, but very few of them are actually interesting or particularly unique. His ambition might be to make NEW AND ORIGINAL games, but I really don't think they anywhere close to delivering on that promise. It's more like they go after original IPs which are copies of more popular stuff, except with a lower budget and less polish.
AceBandage
Banned
Olaeh said:
Actually, I think they're expecting about 120K in NA alone. Which, given EU sales, may be possible.
ShockingAlberto
Member
They should convince XSeed to take on a distribution partner.
It's criminal how overlooked LKS is going to be because XSeed can't convince anyone to carry it. They need the name of someone with more clout.
It's criminal how overlooked LKS is going to be because XSeed can't convince anyone to carry it. They need the name of someone with more clout.
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
I always enjoy reading his interviews.
I like Wada, and I really like the stance Marvelous has taken and what they are trying to do...
I like Wada, and I really like the stance Marvelous has taken and what they are trying to do...
And a little game called No More Heroes I think is kinda neato helps...
batbeg said:
It doesn't seem very intelligent to me, maybe its ironic but the game seems to quitely support monarchy, imperialism, religion and other unsavoury things behind the cutesy exterior. I'm not one to mind stuff when I'm blasting the brains out of aliens or whatever but for some reason LKS has this menacing undertone to it. Like an Abba song, its all cheery and poppy and then you listen to the lyrics a bit and its actually quite bleak and a little bit scary.
meme said:
well, he basically said it's mostly casual gamers and core gamers are 1 mil of the whole userbase.
Now, if you consider the big but very light population of casual users, they dont know about Marvelous at all. This population is by far the majority on the Wii. So in that sense, you could indeed think the Wii factor is working against us. But at the same time, if you consider games like Umbrella Chronicles, Biohazard 4 or a Tales Of RPG on the same Wii, you find that those games sell more than 200,000 or 300,000 copies. So there is a gamer market on the platform. Im sure there are potentially about a million of them. So we need to gain the trust of these users.
Hero of Legend
Member
AceBandage said:
Wow at LKS! Chartz only has like 37,000 for it in EU so far, impressive!
Muramasa's doing alright, 10,000 or so until it reaches the forecast, hope there's even a chance of it happening.
Not bad for ARF, it's selling slower than Muramasa I think.
AceBandage
Banned
duckroll said:They don't have to convince XSeed to do anything. They should get a localization partner who actually meets release schedules and deadlines instead.
Well, to be fair, XSeed does a great job with localization. They used the 2 month delay for LKS too add quite a bit to the game.
ShockingAlberto
Member
While they're at it, they should get crackin' at finding the Lindbergh Baby.duckroll said:They don't have to convince XSeed to do anything. They should get a localization partner who actually meets release schedules and deadlines instead.
Hero of Legend
Member
duckroll said:
I read them, but never post them as official numbers, so go easy on me.
Hero of Legend said:I read them, but never post them as official numbers, so go easy on me.
Why would you read something you know is made up? It's not even an opinion, it's just numbers. If I started a site making up numbers and rankings for Japanese Wii games will you read my site too?
Hero of Legend
Member
duckroll said:
True, especially as LKS is officially much higher than Chartz tracked it, kind proves your point now doesn't it?
Lesson learned.
Shame we didn't get current numbers for Rune Factory Frontier, only clue we have for NA is that XSEED says it's sold "okay, but we can always use more sales".
lostinblue
Banned
Well, good to see him elaborating, the last news implied he was dissatisfied with the platform when it was clearly a market problem.
It is true that Japanese demography is shrinking, and of course, new IP's will suffer, that said he seems to forget that the Wii and DS are what is holding it together, not the other platforms. Plus, their push could have been bigger than it really was, releasing 32k of Muramasa and 36k of Arc Rise Fantasia into the market is not a recipe for success, as isn't the lack of advertising push.
Plus... look at Sega, they're scretching themselves with Valkyria Chronicles anime, World Destruction anime and Infinite Space anime when they don't even have studios... Marvelous does! and yet they're not putting themselves all behind their titles.
Then we have the PSone paradigm in Japan well over 10 years ago... when PSone launched it was considered a casual console in japan, the games that sold were tie-ins or abstract puzzle/minigame fests... until FF7 came along and you guys know the rest. Up until FF7 multiplatform games would sell better on Saturn, despite the fact it sold less (same is not true on the Wii, because the Wii leads by such a big margin against other 7th generation consoles, although multiplatform with it is not the trend). We still don't know what title will do instead of FF7 (Dragon Quest X?) but I think Marvelous is at the right place now, just keep them coming and be a little more ambitious in the way they push their releases.
What made FF7 such a big success in the first place? why do people still regard it as the best FF and RPG ever? quite simply because it was their first, and why was it their first? because they didn't experience it or the SNES or most likely ever had one... that's why.
Of course, no title could be predicted to reach that status, but it was a matter of being in the right place at the right time with the right marketing push.
Similarly, there's a reason why Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have grown to be what they're today... it's because their main entries were all in leading platforms. This logic still stands true, unless we want to ignore it.
Tales of Phantasia didn't sold that good, compared to other established games, but Namco kept insisting... there's no point for Marvelous to stop cracking the Wii userbase now. Just keep them coming, you're getting there. Namco has a shortcut from last gen with a established franchise that will make even a lousy game with rehashed assets sell well, fair enough... but didn't they expect that to happen in the first place?
Press on!
It is true that Japanese demography is shrinking, and of course, new IP's will suffer, that said he seems to forget that the Wii and DS are what is holding it together, not the other platforms. Plus, their push could have been bigger than it really was, releasing 32k of Muramasa and 36k of Arc Rise Fantasia into the market is not a recipe for success, as isn't the lack of advertising push.
Plus... look at Sega, they're scretching themselves with Valkyria Chronicles anime, World Destruction anime and Infinite Space anime when they don't even have studios... Marvelous does! and yet they're not putting themselves all behind their titles.
Then we have the PSone paradigm in Japan well over 10 years ago... when PSone launched it was considered a casual console in japan, the games that sold were tie-ins or abstract puzzle/minigame fests... until FF7 came along and you guys know the rest. Up until FF7 multiplatform games would sell better on Saturn, despite the fact it sold less (same is not true on the Wii, because the Wii leads by such a big margin against other 7th generation consoles, although multiplatform with it is not the trend). We still don't know what title will do instead of FF7 (Dragon Quest X?) but I think Marvelous is at the right place now, just keep them coming and be a little more ambitious in the way they push their releases.
What made FF7 such a big success in the first place? why do people still regard it as the best FF and RPG ever? quite simply because it was their first, and why was it their first? because they didn't experience it or the SNES or most likely ever had one... that's why.
Of course, no title could be predicted to reach that status, but it was a matter of being in the right place at the right time with the right marketing push.
Similarly, there's a reason why Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have grown to be what they're today... it's because their main entries were all in leading platforms. This logic still stands true, unless we want to ignore it.
Tales of Phantasia didn't sold that good, compared to other established games, but Namco kept insisting... there's no point for Marvelous to stop cracking the Wii userbase now. Just keep them coming, you're getting there. Namco has a shortcut from last gen with a established franchise that will make even a lousy game with rehashed assets sell well, fair enough... but didn't they expect that to happen in the first place?
Press on!
°°ToMmY°° said:
Yeah, but he didn't put that, because they are casuals, they don't buy "core" games, he simply puts that the casuals aren't familiar with the Marvelous name and games, hence, they don't buy them. Other companies, like THQ, just say that "there isn't market for core games on the Wii, so let's produce just some casual crap". here:
Barkley's Justice
Member
thats the kinda shit that frustrates me about japanese culture. but whatever.
MoogPaul said:
That's the problem. If a game is undershipped by retailer's then the retailer's need to be proven that they're wrong. Best way to do this is destroy the first shipment by the first week. Not meeting expectations. (50 percent first day and 80 percent first week for these types of games(niche and no legs) are considered meeting expectations.) Hey they need to have that stock storage space for games like Wii Fit/MHPG2/bunch of DS games that continue to sell forever.
Take Altier for the PS3 for example. That game was also undershipped but it sold more 150% of its first shipment in the first week meaning it absolutely destroyed it's first shipment and quickly got another shipment out.
That will cause the next Altier or that style game for the system to get more shipments.
Haruspex said:
Have you played it...? That's exactly why I say it's intelligent, because it's in no way subtle about the themes you're referring to, especially the villagers who will often make very forthright, blunt statements that support imperialistic viewpoints. Or the soup church guy who is outwardly menacing and unlikeable.
Of course, even if it did support those things (which, if the game wasn't blunt enough about in it's message that it does not, the directors interviews genuinely drives it home), they'd still be very high issues. Just because you'd disagree with the stance doesn't change the level of sophistication in raising them.
Majora said:
I haven't played the game, but from impressions I gathered it did or the game was trying to be ironic but reviewers missed the point.
batbeg said:
Shows the paucity of gaming if addressing those things is sophistication. I would call Killer7 sophisticated because it delivery and exploration of its themes is so sharp yet open and suitably ambiguous whilst still conveying a viewpoint.
DeaconKnowledge
Member
Sage00 said:
There's this thing grown-ups use called money. When you don't have a lot, you can't spend it on stuff you can't afford. I think that might be this nice Wada man's problem. Time for juice.
semiregular
Neo Member
jay said:
That's basically it. They released way too many horrible bug-ridden games in the past with shitty customer service, and Japanese gamers are wary of their games because of that.