[slaughterking]

Yeah Girls Age and Guild 01 aren't going anywhere. Ninokuni is being localized. I don't see what games Level 5 haven't brought over that they need to.

Which makes Level 5 USA look all the more pointless.

[Man God]

The only niche title you might see get a localization from LEVEL 5 is Guild-01 because they can always break it up into small pieces on the eshop.

[duckroll]

So you don't think they'll be localizing ANY of their more niche titles, such as Guild 01 and Time Travelers and (potentially) Fantasy Life?

Who is "they" here? Like I said, I don't think Level-5 themselves are really interested in localizing anything. They want to sell what licenses they can to major publishers who can help them publish and market it accordingly in the region. If no one is interested in publishing those niche games, then they won't be released.

[Nekki]

Damn it anihawk i can't tell if this is serious or not.

I think the very end kinda gives it away (or my detector is broken lol).

I think KI:U sales have been good, but they probably expected a bit more. Being a relatively new franchise (in a way), in a genre that isn't all too popular for the masses.. it had a lot going against it, so i think its sales have been good.

FE:A is a no brainer though, it's definitely a success.

[Green Slime]

Who is "they" here? Like I said, I don't think Level-5 themselves are really interested in localizing anything. They want to sell what licenses they can to major publishers who can help them publish and market it accordingly in the region. If no one is interested in publishing those niche games, then they won't be released.

I guess it's foolish to hold out hope for Level-5 localizing content through the eShop then, yes?

More and more, the US office is looking quite pointless. I get that maybe they just exist to broker deals with bigger publishers, but couldn't the Japanese office handle that?

[lunchwithyuzo]

I sort of can't see how LBX 3DS wasn't made with the west in mind.

The only niche title you might see get a localization from LEVEL 5 is Guild-01 because they can always break it up into small pieces on the eshop.

I've been arguing for this since the start. I'd totally pay $5-10 for Liberation Gal, Bug Tank and Crimson Shroud!

[Nirolak]

I guess it's foolish to hold out hope for Level-5 localizing content through the eShop then, yes? More and more, the US office is looking quite pointless. I get that maybe they just exist to broker deals with bigger publishers, but couldn't the Japanese office handle that?

I feel the primary purpose was to make iOS games for the West with local developers, but they ultimately realized they don't offer much on that front as a publisher, and thus couldn't sign many (any?) contracts.

I'd say KI is a moderate success from Nintendo's perspective. It didn't become a blockbuster hit but it'll still (at least eventually) become a million seller worldwide. Fire Emblem however must've beaten Nintendo's all expectations because it became the best-selling entry in the series in like 15 years. They're most definitely more than pleased about that. It's important to remember that both FE and KI represent overal pretty niche genres that don't sell millions like Mario or Zelda.

I feel financially, Kid Icarus likely did fine.

The main failure with that game (along with RE:R at the same time) was that it didn't really establish a notable Western audience for core focused games on the 3DS, and thus is very unlikely to cause a flood of similar titles to follow from third parties.

[eighty(one)]

I was really, really hoping Cinderlife Girls RPG would be localized. It seems highly doubtful (considering L5), but it looks super cute. And fun.
I'm surprised the game didn't really have any traction, it look thoroughly Japanese - appealing to me, at least.

I'm being serious, too.

Separately, do any of you feel Capcom might have proclaimed their pleasure with Dragon's Dogma too early (debuted high, Capcom hails the new IP, drops like a stone)?

A case of them speaking too soon? Is that games performance lower than anticipated, in Japan?

(I loved the game, really refreshing take on fantasyRPG + great, great, great combat..)

[CottonBaller]

It'll probably knock off 3D Land. It's already become the best selling 3d mario ever, so I don't think Nintendo is too upset.

Wha?? um no!

[Nirolak]

Wha?? um no!

I think they mean in Japan.

[Lord_Byron28]

Maybe I misunderstand handheld gaming? I've always been primarily console, so when I hear that games have bombed in the East/West, I often expect to hear a publisher vocally praise/condemn sales numbers and expectations. I'm certain the HD systems have a larger budget allotment for titles and therefore, to maintain or even debut an IP/iteration of IP, a million or more sales is expected. With handhelds, what is the litmus for a flop? Success? Moderate success? If KH3D performed less than other installments, but performed decently in relation to its budget, is it really a flop (still needs to release in Western territories)? If Resident Evil Revelations performed poorly at retail and in all territories, isn't it a bigger flop? Owning a Vita and 3DS this gen is fantastic and I try to follow these Mediacreate/Famitsu threads as best I can, it's interesting to me...but when I see a number like 200K, 300K, 500K or even lowly 75K in sales for a handheld games - what is the determinate factor of flop/non flop in relation to budget/series expectations? When you have Nintendo, who is so geared to stockholder reaction/pressures and sales reception (Miyamoto placing SF fate of SF64 3D sales) - is 300k+ for KI:U celebratory for them? Would they have expected better for FE:A, maybe become the dominant selling iteration, seeing the refresh and changes they've made? We've seen Metroid and F-Zero, even Star Fox shoved in the broom closet for not reaching the Zelda and Mario highs... I'm just curious as to what is determinate of success on these handhelds?

I think the issue is that Kingdom Hearts has precedent on handhelds and does hold certain expectations. Revelations was a test and a bit of a wild card. Right before Revelations hit, Capcom released expectations of all their major titles except for Revelations which says to me that they had no clue how the title would perform. They also provided little advertising and was even marketing RE6 in some areas when Revelations hit. Capcom seemed happy with initial sales in Japan but undoubtedly the sales in the west were dissapointing. People have chalked up perhaps Mercenaries mudding the market and lack of advertising as to possible contributing factors. However, ultimately I think the west isn't interested in a portable RE. Even looking at GAF the community/official thread was fairly inactive and most people on this forum are aware of Revelations. Financially, I don't think Capcom is worried since Mercenaries was being developed at the same time by the same team and that did well given the nature of the title. I wouldn't expect to see another handheld RE for a while though given Revelation's sales. Unlike Revelations which had never received a mainline(sort of) title on a portable KH has received plenty of iterations on GBA, DS and PSP and this one had noticeable decline.

As for Kid Icarus, it outperformed most expectations and given how long the franchise had been gone it sold pretty well. Given Nintendo's marketing, I'm not sure what their expectations were at whether they truly believe this could be a major new ip or if it was more to do with Iwata trying to please Sakurai. I wouldn't call it a major success but i do think it did fine given all the factors. Even before the final verdict on sales WW were in Sakurai stated he had no intention of doing another Kid Icarus game. Metroid and Star Fox's decline were Nintendo's own doing. Super Metroid was the best selling, or close to it if I recall correctly, in the franchise and then they took an 8 year hiatus never returning to the style again. Star Fox 64 was a break out hit and Nintendo followed it up with 3 lack luster outsourced titles. They either had no interest or no clue on what to do with the franchise.

[mugurumakensei]

Wha?? um no!

It is in Japan. This week it passed SM64.

[lunchwithyuzo]

Wha?? um no!

Um YES!!

Super Mario 64 - 1,639,921
Super Mario Sunshine - 789,989
Super Mario 64 DS - 1,217,587
Super Mario Galaxy - 1,017,287
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 1,003,763
Super Mario 3D Land - 1,654,602

[grimshawish]

The Kid's alright! Sold decent enough.

Revelations I only hope that Capcom try a 'Revelations 2' (also maybe a better cover for Revelations 1 whilst their at it) once they've brought out Monster Hunter 4.

The userbase will be bigger - we'll have had another holiday and MH4; maybe a Pokemon in the wings. I hope they give the dice another throw, but one of the shittest RE games made sold a lot lot lot more than Revelations. Thats the sad truth.

[Green Slime]

I think a second "Revelations" title is very possible, though I think Capcom will ensure that it's cheaper to make and does a better job of appealing to the 3DS userbase.

I would expect a much bigger focus on Raid Mode, and a much shorter campaign.

[extralite]

Thanks for the info :) On the topic of Dokuro, i hope that this game gets localized.

The Japanese version already has text options for 7 languages, Japanese, Korean and the usual 5 Western ones. So they could bring it over whenever they decide to do.

[Mpl90]

Considering Revelations did best in Japan where it actually sold a good amount of copies in the end, I'd say they could try with a remake of RE2. Why? Because RE2 is by far the best selling entry in Japan.

[Green Slime]

Considering Revelations did best in Japan where it actually sold a good amount of copies in the end, I'd say they could try with a remake of RE2. Why? Because RE2 is by far the best selling entry in Japan.

That would be a slippery slope towards what happened with RE4 on Wii.

[eighty(one)]

I think the issue is that Kingdom Hearts has precedent on handhelds and does hold certain expectations. Revelations was a test and a bit of a wild card. Right before Revelations hit, Capcom released expectations of all their major titles except for Revelations which says to me that they had no clue how the title would perform. They also provided little advertising and was even marketing RE6 in some areas when Revelations hit. Capcom seemed happy with initial sales in Japan but undoubtedly the sales in the west were dissapointing. People have chalked up perhaps Mercenaries mudding the market and lack of advertising as to possible contributing factors. However, ultimately I think the west isn't interested in a portable RE. Even looking at GAF the community/official thread was fairly inactive and most people on this forum are aware of Revelations. Financially, I don't think Capcom is worried since Mercenaries was being developed at the same time by the same team and that did well given the nature of the title. I wouldn't expect to see another handheld RE for a while though given Revelation's sales. Unlike Revelations which had never received a mainline(sort of) title on a portable KH has received plenty of iterations on GBA, DS and PSP and this one had noticeable decline. As for Kid Icarus, it outperformed most expectations and given how long the franchise had been gone it sold pretty well. Given Nintendo's marketing, I'm not sure what their expectations were at whether they truly believe this could be a major new ip or if it was more to do with Iwata trying to please Sakurai. I wouldn't call it a major success but i do think it did fine given all the factors. Even before the final verdict on sales WW were in Sakurai stated he had no intention of doing another Kid Icarus game. Metroid and Star Fox's decline were Nintendo's own doing. Super Metroid was the best selling, or close to it if I recall correctly, in the franchise and then they took an 8 year hiatus never returning to the style again. Star Fox 64 was a break out hit and Nintendo followed it up with 3 lack luster outsourced titles. They either had no interest or no clue on what to do with the franchise.

Thank you for this insight. You eloquently made sense of things, that seemed hazy to me. Much appreciated!

I hope to see a sequel to Revelations, maybe starring Claire and zombies? When Revelations was first shown, there were zombies. Then they became water/slime people. Maybe it performed less because ooze were just uninteresting enemies to the RE fanbase. I'd hope campaign length could remain the same, I loved it. Raid mode wasn't interesting to me, whereas I loved Mercs 3D. Go figure.

Are 3DS sales lower right now because of the impending LL/XL? Will this larger iteration of the hardware prove successful in JP?

[AniHawk]

I feel financially, Kid Icarus likely did fine. The main failure with that game (along with RE:R at the same time) was that it didn't really establish a notable Western audience for core focused games on the 3DS, and thus is very unlikely to cause a flood of similar titles to follow from third parties.

well it was probably nintendo's most expensive project of the last decade, excluding maybe skyward sword. there's a ton of voice acting, the packaging is custom, they had to make a plastic thing for it (and something to house the plastic thing). they made those ar cards that they gave away for free at different events, and that's not including the anime projects associated with it, or the fact that it might have been in development longer than initially intended as it was moved from being a wii game to a 3ds game.

on a somewhat related note, i started playing it last night.

[Boney]

After seeing this its hard to feel sorry for Hino - its no game but still...i mean...really ? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96kMg...layer_embedded

wut

[Takao]

Thanks for the info :) On the topic of Dokuro, i hope that this game gets localized.

Dokuro's already in English. I suspect Gungho already has a western partner (interestingly Sony has published their games in English in Asian regions) or will release it on PSN themselves.

[Man God]

well it was probably nintendo's most expensive project of the last decade, excluding maybe skyward sword. there's a ton of voice acting, the packaging is custom, they had to make a plastic thing for it (and something to house the plastic thing). they made those ar cards that they gave away for free at different events, and that's not including the anime projects associated with it, or the fact that it might have been in development longer than initially intended as it was moved from being a wii game to a 3ds game. on a somewhat related note, i started playing it last night.

Brawl probably beat both of them.

[metalslimer]

I would think Metroid Other M was also more expensive. And the marketing Nintendo dropped on a bunch of games like Wii Fit also probably eclipse Kid Icarus's budget

[Lord_Byron28]

Considering Revelations did best in Japan where it actually sold a good amount of copies in the end, I'd say they could try with a remake of RE2. Why? Because RE2 is by far the best selling entry in Japan.

I've been waiting for REmake2 for a long time. I've been hoping perhaps a Remake style for RE2 with RE4 camera angle. However, I'm sure that'll never happen. With that said I'm not sure if the 3DS could do it justice and I'd prefer it on 360/PS3/Wii U or next gen but I'd take anything at this point.

That would be a slippery slope towards what happened with RE4 on Wii.

Wasn't RE4 Wii received well and sold fairly close to the PS2 iteration(outselling the GCN version)? I don't think RE4 Wii was a negative thing.

Thank you for this insight. You eloquently made sense of things, that seemed hazy to me. Much appreciated! I hope to see a sequel to Revelations, maybe starring Claire and zombies? When Revelations was first shown, there were zombies. Then they became water/slime people. Maybe it performed less because ooze were just uninteresting enemies to the RE fanbase. I'd hope campaign length could remain the same, I loved it. Raid mode wasn't interesting to me, whereas I loved Mercs 3D. Go figure. Are 3DS sales lower right now because of the impending LL/XL? Will this larger iteration of the hardware prove successful in JP?

Your welcome! I'd like for another RE 3DS title and Claire being playable would be awesome but we'll see. I personally got nearly as much enjoyment out of Raid Mode as I did with the campaign mode and actually prefered it to Mercenaries.

As for 3DS, the sales have been decreasing since the anouncement of the LL model and there have been a number of games released so I suspect that people are holding off for that model. However, I don't expect a DS Lite situation since it's meant to be an alternative not a replacement to the 3DS.

on a somewhat related note, i started playing it last night.

How do you like it? You can just post impressions I guess in the community thread if you haven't already so as not to go OT. The only real complaint I have of the title is that the Wii would've done better justice to it's control scheme.

[Boney]

We'll probably see Kid Icarus resurface with a new advertising campaigns this holiday. Maybe even more cross media.

Didn't Iwata talk about in the last stock holders conference how they're going to keep pushing it to become an evergreen success? Obviously it's so fast and frantic that it has a huge barrier it needs to overcome to achieve such a status, but I bet they'll put a lot more resources into it and try to brute force it this holiday.

[Dalthien]

08./00. [PSV] Time Travelers <ADV> (Level 5) {2012.07.12} (¥5.980) - 9.887 / NEW 09./00. [3DS] Time Travelers <ADV> (Level 5) {2012.07.12} (¥5.980) - 9.761 / NEW

Wait to see how the PSP version sells, but honestly, it looks like they would have been better off just keeping this exclusive to one system. Either the 3DS or PSP - doesn't really matter. But I have to imagine that an exclusive on either system could have sold 25-30k first week. Would have saved them the time and costs of having separate teams working on 3 different versions of the game.

[grimshawish]

We'll probably see Kid Icarus resurface with a new advertising campaigns this holiday. Maybe even more cross media. Didn't Iwata talk about in the last stock holders conference how they're going to keep pushing it to become an evergreen success? Obviously it's so fast and frantic that it has a huge barrier it needs to overcome to achieve such a status, but I bet they'll put a lot more resources into it and try to brute force it this holiday.

Digital Downloads becoming a thing could turn some games into a big hit; it'll be interesting to see if anything catches a 'second steam'. Revelations/Icarus seem the most likely to do this.

[Chris1964]

well it was probably nintendo's most expensive project of the last decade, excluding maybe skyward sword. there's a ton of voice acting, the packaging is custom, they had to make a plastic thing for it (and something to house the plastic thing). they made those ar cards that they gave away for free at different events, and that's not including the anime projects associated with it, or the fact that it might have been in development longer than initially intended as it was moved from being a wii game to a 3ds game.

Advertising budget alone for some of Nintendo's evergreen games eclipses all these.

[CottonBaller]

Um YES!! Super Mario 64 - 1,639,921 Super Mario Sunshine - 789,989 Super Mario 64 DS - 1,217,587 Super Mario Galaxy - 1,017,287 Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 1,003,763 Super Mario 3D Land - 1,654,602

Not even half the sales of SM64 worldwide.

[Alrus]

Not even half the sales of SM64 worldwide.

Ignoring the fact that this is a Japanese sales thread, Mario 64 sits at 11 mil copies (afaik) and SM3DL is at 6 mil, so it's already over half of Mario 64 worldwide. And it's not done selling either.

[metalslimer]

Not even half the sales of SM64 worldwide.

Forgot to look at the title of this thread?

[AniHawk]

smg2 wound up doing really well considering when it was released. if it was smg1 instead of smg2, it probably would have sold better than 3d land because smg2 is sooooooooo good.

[CottonBaller]

Forgot to look at the title of this thread?

Yeah but you never mentioned japan in your post. I got a little hasty my bad

[metalslimer]

The problem with SMG2 was worldwide sales. It did good, but it did a good bit less than the original. I'm not sure if this was the fault of the Wii itself, NSMBW taking away potential Mario customers, or what.

[AniHawk]

The problem with SMG2 was worldwide sales. It did good, but it did a good bit less than the original. I'm not sure if this was the fault of the Wii itself, NSMBW taking away potential Mario customers, or what.

i think a lot of it was time, plus smg going to budget pricing in the last year or so.

[Dalthien]

The problem with SMG2 was worldwide sales. It did good, but it did a good bit less than the original. I'm not sure if this was the fault of the Wii itself, NSMBW taking away potential Mario customers, or what.

SMG2 actually held it's own extremely well with SMG.

End of first fiscal year sales:

SMG2 - 6.36 M
SMG - 6.10 M

SMG2 had some extra summer months in the year that SMG didn't have - but still, it's a very respectable comparison.

The gap comes from SMG having an extra 2.5 years on the market for legs (and those extra 2.5 years coming during a mostly healthy, robust system - whereas the Wii was already fading fast by the time SMG2's first fiscal year was finished).

Plus, SMG received a discounted "Select Series" version shortly after SMG2's fiscal year was up. So SMG2 had its legs cut out by a cheaper version of SMG on the market. But I have no doubt that if SMG2 had an extra year or two of a healthy Wii userbase, plus a "Select Series" version released at the same time as SMG - then SMG2 would have finished up in the same ballpark as SMG.

Edit - Damn Ani! Beat me to it.

[squall23]

All of you that think that Inazuma Eleven Go and Danball Senki W crossover is ridiculous hasn't seen the crap that Level 5 is doing with normal Inazuma Eleven Go Chrono Stone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iglM7rQ888

I'm still holding on to the tiny amount of hope that IEG3 will be another (normal) world cup arc. I am SO THANKFUL Capcom is doing the story portion of Layton x Phoenix Wright.

[slaughterking]

All of you that think that Inazuma Eleven Go and Danball Senki W crossover is ridiculous hasn't seen the crap that Level 5 is doing with normal Inazuma Eleven Go Chrono Stone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iglM7rQ888

I kinda like that. Haha.

[Exterminieren]

All of you that think that Inazuma Eleven Go and Danball Senki W crossover is ridiculous hasn't seen the crap that Level 5 is doing with normal Inazuma Eleven Go Chrono Stone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iglM7rQ888

What the hell, that's amazing.

So... football is threatened by guys from the future and they have to recruit Joan of Arc and Nobunaga to save it. More Western shows need plots like this. :p

[Alrus]

Jeanne d'Arc wearing glasses...

[Takao]

All of you that think that Inazuma Eleven Go and Danball Senki W crossover is ridiculous hasn't seen the crap that Level 5 is doing with normal Inazuma Eleven Go Chrono Stone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iglM7rQ888 I'm still holding on to the tiny amount of hope that IEG3 will be another (normal) world cup arc. I am SO THANKFUL Capcom is doing the story portion of Layton x Phoenix Wright.

that is not hino's joan of arc what the heck she has glasses

[shinra-bansho]

Holy crap at the Time Travelers bomba.

Also, the actual sales data thread is less than half as long as the Vita sales fail thread...

[Man God]

Holy crap at the Time Travelers bomba. Also, the actual sales data thread is less than half as long as the Vita sales fail thread...

That thread devolved into how bad it was doing in the US thread with a side order of general Sony failure to make franchises stick on handhelds with an order of no Mon Hun, no other games for dessert.

[donny2112]

So when retail revenue is down 50% next year due to all the people going digital-only on 3DS, Vita, and Wii U, do we just stop bothering to track retail sales or what?

[Takao]

i don't get it why does inazuma eleven have time travelers but not level-5's time travelers that's a missed opportunity for marketing synergy 12 year olds would've bought this adventure game if their favourite characters like ban yamano and mark endou were alongside that overweight super hero guy and the kid who falls off a cliff or something

[hosannainexcelsis]

All of you that think that Inazuma Eleven Go and Danball Senki W crossover is ridiculous hasn't seen the crap that Level 5 is doing with normal Inazuma Eleven Go Chrono Stone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iglM7rQ888 I'm still holding on to the tiny amount of hope that IEG3 will be another (normal) world cup arc. I am SO THANKFUL Capcom is doing the story portion of Layton x Phoenix Wright.

I think the point of the Inazuma Eleven franchise is to see how much escalation of ridiculous nonsense they can do before they reach a maximum level of absurdity.

[Green Slime]

Wasn't RE4 Wii received well and sold fairly close to the PS2 iteration(outselling the GCN version)? I don't think RE4 Wii was a negative thing.

Indeed. The issue was, of course, instead of following that up with another proper RE game, they resorted to side projects (the Chronicles games) that no one asked for.

RE2make on 3DS would essentially be them trying to "satisfy" the audience they built with Mercs 3D and Rev without having to develop a proper new game.

[faridmon]

I think the point of the Inazuma Eleven franchise is to see how much escalation of ridiculous nonsense they can do before they reach a maximum level of absurdity.

At this point, the have gone beyond that level of absurdaity and gone into realm of WTFISISTHISSHITQTFBB5809XKJHX

Last Ep I have watched was them playing football in Space. In the Freaking Space...

[RyougaSaotome]

Doesn't surprise me that Time Travelers did those kinds of numbers. It's a great game with a really good story, but these sorts of games don't typically sell big numbers.

I was expecting numbers close to VLR. I'm really not sure what Level 5 was expecting with this. It's a super niche genre even here.