[mclem]

Does anyone have the Japanese release schedule for 3DS and Vita? Wikipedia seems to have serious holes in its list.

So does Sony.

How likely do you think a Dreamcast/total loss scenario is here? Is it at all possible for this system to eventually just fade away from existence? (Not that I'm wishing it would, preemptive flamebait armor)

I don't think Sony can afford for it to fade away. If they *are* going for a powerful PS4, they could do with a system on the market as a place for those who don't want to take on the extra costs to go to instead.

How low did 3DS get during that period (was it one week?) between the announcement of the price cut and the price cut actually taking place?

[Lord_Byron28]

It's not Brain Training 3 though. It's a different sort of game for a different purpose. Since we don't know much about it in terms of content, pricing, or release, it's a bit hard to make any sort of assumption. The main target audience for Brain Training wasn't gamers, so it would entirely depend on how appealing this product is in terms of what it offers to them, rather than it being any sort of brand name related to previous titles.

I guess it could be considered a spin-off but I'm not sure if that's Nintendo's intentions. From the comments it seems like it's a mainline game.

Kawashima explains why Nintendo has waited so long to release a third entry in the series. Apparently, he and Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata agreed to wait until they could create something with "a special idea." During today's Nintendo Direct broadcast, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata revealed that the new title trains your "Concentration" and "Working Memory" with exercises so difficult that they refer to the game as "Oni Training," or "Devil Training."

http://andriasang.com/con029/oni_training/
http://andriasang.com/coms29/kawashima_brain_age/

I think we'll have to wait for a 100% confirmation but it seems like the next Brain Training just focusing on a different category of the brain and in typical Nintendo fashion a new gimmick thrown in(Devil Dr. Kawashima).

With that said your other comments make perfect sense.

[slaughterking]

It's surely debatable how much sense this comparison makes, but I figured that the Lost Planet franchise is probably the closest to what Binary Domain is. So here are the first week numbers (Famitsu) for those games:

[360] Lost Planet - 34,610
[PS3] Lost Planet - 22,954 (late port of the 360 game)

[PS3] Lost Planet 2 - 93,098
[360] Lost Planet 2 - 49,228

[PS3] Binary Domain - 73.683 (Media Create)

[Kazerei]

. How low did 3DS get during that period (was it one week?) between the announcement of the price cut and the price cut actually taking place?

2011-05-30	27,357
2011-06-06	24,649
2011-06-13	40,649
2011-06-20	27,905
2011-06-27	30,233
2011-07-04	22,943
2011-07-11	46,637
2011-07-18	31,826
2011-07-25	16,415
2011-08-01	4,132   <---
2011-08-08	196,077
2011-08-15	105,639
2011-08-22	60,781
2011-08-29	54,744

[duckroll]

I guess it could be considered a spin-off but I'm not sure if that's Nintendo's intentions. From the comments it seems like it's a mainline game.

I'm not dismissing it as a spin off at all. I'm simply saying that it's not a direct continuation of the same sort of game BT and BT2 where, hence it is not BT3. As far as "mainline" and "spin offs" are concerned, I don't even know why would would bother giving it these labels. The people who buy software like this are not game enthusiasts following some game franchise. They're just normal people looking for something that caters to their needs, and if it is well marketed and they are aware of the existence of the product, and they are interested, they will pick it up.

[Aostia]

Not exactly massive. The second one had great legs but debuted a tad lower than Theartrythm.

Never did big numbers IIRC. At least the first one didnt did it? Paging Chris.

It debuted low but I remember very good LTD numbers. Am I wrong?

Does anyone have any predictions for how well Brain Training 3 will do? I can't recall the exact numbers but didn't Brain Training sell roughly 2.5 million and Brain Training 2 sell roughly 5.5 million. I know some people think that the audience is long gone but I don't think a game that sold 5.5 million can drop massively. I can see it underselling sort of like Nintendogs + Cats but not complete bomba. I don't think it selling at least a million is out of the question.

More or less I agree with you, up to now that we don't have details about it.
As a general consideration, I think that it will sell less than the previous 2, but could still be very strong.
Something similar to Nintendogs (it will sell less than the first one, but at the end LTD will be still a strong release)

[Grimmy]

Vita is PS3 all over again, software wise. Sony should have secured God Eater 2 if they couldn't get Monster Hunter. Are they that out of pocket or are they just out of touch/delusional?

Not really, since at least PS3 had exclusives Japanese people were looking forward to.

[Alrus]

How low did 3DS get during that period (was it one week?) between the announcement of the price cut and the price cut actually taking place?

4k but the previous week (where it sold 16k) was also effected by the announcement iirc.

[Bullza2o]

Wow 3DS hardware surge due to Love Plus.
And Gravity Daze went way down :(

[liger05]

2011-05-30 27,357 2011-06-06 24,649 2011-06-13 40,649 2011-06-20 27,905 2011-06-27 30,233 2011-07-04 22,943 2011-07-11 46,637 2011-07-18 31,826 2011-07-25 16,415 2011-08-01 4,132 <--- 2011-08-08 196,077 2011-08-15 105,639 2011-08-22 60,781 2011-08-29 54,744

i didnt know the 3DS hit £4k.

A price cut alone isnt enough. A price cut causes a spike but you need software to go with it.

[Lausebub]

If they make it clear that the game is different from the old Brain Training games, why not. I see it selling more than Nintencats did, because people forgot about the game once 3DS sales started to improve. And a lot of people who would buy Nintendogs or Brain Training don't have a 3DS yet!

[muu]

Good numbers for NLP. I can see Theatrhythm picking up again after Kingdom Hearts launches (and whenever they get another shipment out) -- it's a surprisingly good game but it reeks of cash-in unless you at least play through the demo.

How likely do you think a Dreamcast/total loss scenario is here? Is it at all possible for this system to eventually just fade away from existence? (Not that I'm wishing it would, preemptive flamebait armor)

Wouldn't that be what Wonderswan/NGP/Nomad/Jaguar/3DO did?

I'm not too in tune with the Japanese market or release schedule; is there anything that can stem the bleeding for the Vita in the near future?

You'll have to wait till June when Persona 4 Golden comes out.

[lazybones18]

Gravity Rush dropped like a rock :(

And as for Theaterhythm FF, I don't think those numbers look bad, but what do I know. All I know is that the game interests me very much, and I hope that it comes stateside

[Lord_Byron28]

I'm not dismissing it as a spin off at all. I'm simply saying that it's not a direct continuation of the same sort of game BT and BT2 where, hence it is not BT3. As far as "mainline" and "spin offs" are concerned, I don't even know why would would bother giving it these labels. The people who buy software like this are not game enthusiasts following some game franchise. They're just normal people looking for something that caters to their needs, and if it is well marketed and they are aware of the existence of the product, and they are interested, they will pick it up.

Very good points. Was the price much smaller in Japan like it was in the US? I think given the right marketing it could still do well in Japan. However, I'm not sure how it would do in the west. Brain Training and Sudoku seem a lot more like fads.

I think it'll be interesting to watch and see if Nintendo will be able to reclaim the non-gamer market like they did with the original DS.

[OrangeGrayBlue]

2011-05-30 27,357 2011-06-06 24,649 2011-06-13 40,649 2011-06-20 27,905 2011-06-27 30,233 2011-07-04 22,943 2011-07-11 46,637 2011-07-18 31,826 2011-07-25 16,415 2011-08-01 4,132 <--- 2011-08-08 196,077 2011-08-15 105,639 2011-08-22 60,781 2011-08-29 54,744

That week is a technicality. It was the time between the price drop being announced and the price drop going into effect. All the prior weeks listed give a much clearer view of how the 3DS was selling.

[duckroll]

Very good points. Was the price much smaller in Japan like it was in the US? I think given the right marketing it could still do well in Japan. However, I'm not sure how it would do in the west. Brain Training and Sudoku seem a lot more like fads. I think it'll be interesting to watch and see if Nintendo will be able to reclaim the non-gamer market like they did with the original DS.

The Brain games from Nintendo were all 2800yen each, significantly cheaper than the average price of 4800yen of a DS game in the early years. The average price of a 3DS game these days is about 5800yen. I think a lot of it depends on how Nintendo markets it. For the US, it might actually make more sense to offer it on the eShop instead, since most adults are familiar with buying digital content due to the Smartphone and Tablet surge. It would allow Nintendo to offer it at a lower price while making the most money out of it since they would cut out the retailers.

[Kinvara]

I agree. But I'm still a little bit cautious on calling the US launch as bad as Japan's, or bad at all. It won't be amazing, but there's still a few factors that I haven't decided yet. The only thing I am 100% sure about is that Vita will not sell on the strength of the hardware alone.

It's a shame we can't get reliable weekly sales numbers for NA.

What would be a good source to find PSV launch numbers?

[beril]

Never thought I'd hear the terms mainline and spinoff being used in a discussion about Brain Training. Now I want Brain Training Gaiden, set in a parallel dimension where you have to defeat Oni Kawashima

[Kazerei]

That week is a technicality. It was the time between the price drop being announced and the price drop going into effect. All the prior weeks listed give a much clearer view of how the 3DS was selling.

Yup, that's why I included data from past weeks. After the launch rush, 3DS hardware settled in around 20k~30k, and got boosts from OOT3D in June and a new color in July.

[chickdigger802]

Has any of the love plus games been fan translated?

Am really curious what they are about. They aren't your usual eroge/vn right?

[angelfly]

Has any of the love plus games been fan translated? Am really curious what they are about. They aren't your usual eroge/vn right?

The first one got a patch. As for the games they're different than VNs. There's a lot more interaction involved.

[PSFan]

Man, March is gonna be HUGE for 3DS in Japan with Hatsune Miku, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear, and Kid Icarus coming out

[duckroll]

Man, March is gonna be HUGE for 3DS in Japan with Hatsune Miku, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear, and Kid Icarus coming out

Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition is also out in March. It may be a DS game, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to hurt that the 3DS can play all DS games. Mario & Sonic At London Olympics is also coming out at the start of March.

So's Girls RPG, but that might be a dud. I'm surprised Level5 hasn't said anything about all their other 4986356438563 announced games yet. Maybe Hino is too busy crying about the terrible failure that Gundam AGE is.

[gkryhewy]

Come on North America and Europe... keep the Vita alive!

There is zero chance of this unless Japanese third-party support pulls through against all odds.

[PSFan]

Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition is also out in March. It may be a DS game, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to hurt that the 3DS can play all DS games. Mario & Sonic At London Olympics is also coming out at the start of March. So's Girls RPG, but that might be a dud. I'm surprised Level5 hasn't said anything about all their other 4986356438563 announced games yet. Maybe Hino is too busy crying about the terrible failure that Gundam AGE is.

Didn't he say that all of Level 5's games would sell at least 150k first week or something like that lol?

[01DragonFly]

Has any of the love plus games been fan translated? Am really curious what they are about. They aren't your usual eroge/vn right?

The way you play the first part(before your conquest) is to chose from several activities to increase your stats and interact with the characters. You get to know their story and help them resolve their problems. After several days one of them will confess to you. This is as far as I got , now you can see them and chat with them all the time . Since they only translated the text the voices are still in Japaneses.

[Chris23235]

That week is a technicality. It was the time between the price drop being announced and the price drop going into effect. All the prior weeks listed give a much clearer view of how the 3DS was selling.

You can see the effect of the announcement in the week prior to the 4k week, the price cut was announced july 28th, and in this week, the sales dropped by almost 50% to 16k. Sales were on a downward trend anyway, but not at this rate.

Wow at New Love Plus numbers, it sold almost, what Love Plus+ sold in it's first week, but 3DS userbase is much smaller, then DS userbase was at that time. It will be interesting to see, if it can achieve Love Plus+ lifetime sales, this would tell a lot about the potential of 3DS 3rd party titles vs DS 3rd party titles. But on the other side, maybe people are more willing to buy games for their console, when it's new, like the 3DS, which sold millions during the last months in japan and has plenty of new users, who are waiting to try new software.

[TheNatural]

So how about instituting some smarmy Media Crate headlines each week to keep the spice up. Like playing off the goofy Vita OT names:

"Simply the most undesirable system in Japan"
"Vita .. it does everything! (except succeed)"

Maybe Sony will wake up and drop the price so we can actually get some competition going.

[The Abominable Snowman]

Is DQX still destined for Wii Only?

[Hasemo]

Vita, don't bomb yo! I bet my money on you.

[hardcastlemccormick]

Is DQX still destined for Wii Only?

With a WiiU up-port to come at a later date, yes.

[boingball]

Vita fighting to stay above 10k. And PS2 increasing its lead over the 360.

[duckroll]

So how about instituting some smarmy Media Crate headlines each week to keep the spice up. Like playing off the goofy Vita OT names: "Simply the most undesirable system in Japan" "Vita .. it does everything! (except succeed)" Maybe Sony will wake up and drop the price so we can actually get some competition going.

How about you keep your terrible ideas to yourself?

[TheNatural]

How about you keep your terrible ideas to yourself?

Lighten up, sheesh. It was a joke?

[wrowa]

If that 67K number is because of shortages it does not magically make the number good. What it does mean is that it has a good chance to let those numbers improve if they can get the second shipment out in a timely fashion.

Why would it be a bad number? Theatrythm is a low-budget rhythm game, and for what it is it sold pretty good. The name Final Fantasy doesn't magically turn a niche game into a big seller either; especially not in this day and age.

[hardcastlemccormick]

Lighten up, sheesh. It was a joke?

Vita's poor performance is no laughing matter, my good man! Have some tact.

Why would it be a bad number? Theatrythm is a low-budget rhythm game, and for what it is it sold pretty good. The name Final Fantasy doesn't magically turn a niche game into a big seller either; especially not in this day and age.

It would have done better if it wasn't apparently sold out in many stores.

[Lord_Byron28]

The Brain games from Nintendo were all 2800yen each, significantly cheaper than the average price of 4800yen of a DS game in the early years. The average price of a 3DS game these days is about 5800yen. I think a lot of it depends on how Nintendo markets it. For the US, it might actually make more sense to offer it on the eShop instead, since most adults are familiar with buying digital content due to the Smartphone and Tablet surge. It would allow Nintendo to offer it at a lower price while making the most money out of it since they would cut out the retailers.

Ah thanks for the info. I think it depends on marketing and what Nintendo's goals are. If Nintendo's goals in the US is to just make a profit than online may be a possibility. If the goal is to grab the non-gamer market than I think a retail offering along with a good marketing campaign might be in store. I think the original Brain Training had a pretty massive marketing campaign in the US.

As for the price, I think they'd have to do a reduced price on Brain Training as well. However, big marketing campaigns and reduced prices seem to run against their philosophy of low budget, quality games are still capable fo selling well. Afterall, the game has been in development for a while. Dr. Kawashima originally stated that it was going to be releasing for the 3DS at the end of 2010 presumably when the end of 2010 was the set launch date.

[duckroll]

Vita's poor performance is no laughing matter, my good man! Have some tact.

Exactly, people could die in here! It's pretty serious.

[creid]

Good People Die Vita sells 2/3rd the amount of copies as the 3DS version, a platform with 10x the install base? Interesting.

[TheNatural]

Vita's poor performance is no laughing matter, my good man! Have some tact. It would have done better if it wasn't apparently sold out in many stores.

Hey, I'll have some tact, when the companies show me some tact and start considering the cost of their product when they make it instead of thinking they can chanrge whatever they want. Nintendo learned a hard lesson, now Sony is (again really.) They'll get all the tact, handshakes, and salutations in the world from me when they start learning $250-$300 isn't rock bottom pricing. :P

[Kazerei]

Good People Die Vita sells 2/3rd the amount of copies as the 3DS version, a platform with 10x the install base? Interesting.

Vita owners have nothing else to play :>

[OrangeGrayBlue]

Good People Die Vita sells 2/3rd the amount of copies as the 3DS version, a platform with 10x the install base? Interesting.

Not really that interesting. 3DS also has a much larger game library to choose from. Kind of like how RE4 on PS2 didn't sell 6x what the GC version did, despite having 6x the install base.

[beril]

Wow at New Love Plus numbers, it sold almost, what Love Plus+ sold in it's first week, but 3DS userbase is much smaller, then DS userbase was at that time. It will be interesting to see, if it can achieve Love Plus+ lifetime sales, this would tell a lot about the potential of 3DS 3rd party titles vs DS 3rd party titles. But on the other side, maybe people are more willing to buy games for their console, when it's new, like the 3DS, which sold millions during the last months in japan and has plenty of new users, who are waiting to try new software.

I think the 3DS is starting to reach the point where the install base isn't really an obstacle for most games to reach their full potential. No one would have predicted vastly higher sales if the install base had been at a few million higher

[donny2112]

From last thread,

Vita hardware feels like it's settling,

Jan 23-29: 18,942
Jan 30-Feb 5: 17,141 (-1,801; -9.5%)
Feb 6-12: 13,939 (-3202; -19%)
Feb 13-19: 12,309 (-1,630; -12%)

[wrowa]

Good People Die Vita sells 2/3rd the amount of copies as the 3DS version, a platform with 10x the install base? Interesting.

It just shows once more that for certain games the look at the total userbase is rather useless. It's much more important of what particular groups the userbase is made of than the actual total number.

The Vita, for example, is quite obviously a system that gathers most of its sale in the Otaku/Core gamer crowd who also buy games more obscure titles such as visual novels. Also, gamers who have both a Vita and a 3DS are more likely to choose the technically superior Vita version over the 3DS one.

Due to the same reason I'm confident that also the RPGs by Falcom, Gust and other small RPG houses will sell as expected on the Vita, simply because they are being sold to a pretty specific group of people. Sales on the 3DS probably wouldn't be much better.

[Kazerei]

From last thread, Jan 23-29: 18,942 Jan 30-Feb 5: 17,141 (-1,801; -9.5%) Feb 6-12: 13,939 (-3202; -19%) Feb 13-19: 12,309 (-1,630; -12%)

13.939 to 12.309 isn't much of a decrease. It's within range of what I think will be normal week-to-week variation.

[frankie_baby]

13.939 to 12.309 isn't much of a decrease. It's within range of what I think will be normal week-to-week variation.

It's going down on a weekly basis that can hardly be called week to week variation

[Lord_Byron28]

13.939 to 12.309 isn't much of a decrease. It's within range of what I think will be normal week-to-week variation.

When you're at 12,000 and you keep decreasing 1.5 - 3 thousand units a week it is a bit more significant.

[Chris23235]

I think the 3DS is starting to reach the point where the install base isn't really an obstacle for most games to reach their full potential. No one would have predicted vastly higher sales if the install base had been at a few million higher

And this is what makes me suspicious, a smaller install base should result in lower sales, at least, if we are talking about 5 million 3DS against almost 30 million DS (September 2009).

The theory would be, that the crazy software numbers are part due to the abnormal sales development of the 3DS.
Usually, there isn't such a sales spike, shortly before the 2nd generation of games arrive on a console. The 2nd generation of games is often much more polished, then the launch titles and it is often the generation, where companies start to release their bigger franchises (Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, Love Plus). The companies often aren't willing to throw these titles on the market at launch, because the user base is much to small at this point to justify the high development costs for such franchises, so they wait.
The 3DS is in the lucky position, that this generation arrives, shortly after the system really exploded sales wise. People that just bought a 3DS are seeing a lot of big names released in a short time and they are just more willing to buy a lot of these games, because they are looking for new games to try out their new console anyway.
I don't know, if this is the case, but as much, as I am happy, that at least one system seems to be able to move software in Japan, I think the numbers are driven partly due to the performance of the 3DS in the past months, which I think will normalize as software sales will be in the coming months.
I would love to be proven wrong here.

[Kazerei]

It's going down on a weekly basis that can hardly be called week to week variation

The overall downtrend coming off the holiday season is normal.