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[metalslimer]

I'm really not a fan of money-hats for original content, but there is at least an argument to be made for it. But please, please, please let's not start suggesting that any of the Big 3 should ever start paying for ports. That just strikes me wrong on so many levels, and would just set a horrible precedent for future relations with 3rd-parties.

I'm not saying they should directly hand them checks for those ports. Just offer to publish/market the games when they come out to give some incentive. That's not a bad precedent at all. That's how you build better 3rd party relations and base of support on your platform. The alternative is hoping those games coming just based on the fact your system is out there and it could be months before they would come out and by then apathy has already started to set in.

 

[Takao]

I'm really not a fan of money-hats for original content, but there is at least an argument to be made for it. But please, please, please let's not start suggesting that any of the Big 3 should ever start paying for ports. That just strikes me wrong on so many levels, and would just set a horrible precedent for future relations with 3rd-parties.

There are a handful of third parties who expect just that from Sony. I laugh at it too, because it's offensively stupid.

 

[metalslimer]

There are a handful of third parties who expect just that from Sony. I laugh at it too, because it's offensively stupid.

Why is it really stupid? 3rd parties don't have unlimited bankrolls to do these things. It makes financial sense to have some incentive to do these things like Sony currently with the Vita and Nintendo with 3rd parties on Wii U.

 

[Takao]

Why is it really stupid? 3rd parties don't have unlimited bankrolls to do these things. It makes financial sense to have some incentive to do these things like Sony currently with the Vita and Nintendo with 3rd parties on Wii U.

It makes sense to money hat exclusive titles. It does not make sense to money hat ports of games that will absolutely do nothing for your platform. Sony's provided a large variety of tools to make porting to Vita easier, and to then expect them to pay for that to happen is a joke.

 

[metalslimer]

It makes sense to money hat exclusive titles. It does not make sense to money hat ports of games that will absolutely do nothing for your platform. Sony's provided a large variety of tools to make porting to Vita easier, and to then expect them to pay for that to happen is a joke.

I wouldn't say that ports have no effect on a system at all? You think if Sony managed to moneyhat the biggest 3DS 3rd party titles it would have no effect? By the way I don't think ports is really the right word there. More like multiplatform titles as I wasn't suggesting waiting like 6 months for the game to come out.

 

[Takao]

I wouldn't say that ports have no effect on a system at all? You think if Sony managed to moneyhat the biggest 3DS 3rd party titles it would have no effect? By the way I don't think ports is really the right word there. More like multiplatform titles as I wasn't suggesting waiting like 6 months for the game to come out.

The 360 shares a large library of titles with the PS3, that clearly helped it out. For what it's worth if Sony had the opportunity to pay to get MH4, KH: Dream Drop Distance, and RE: Revelations they probably would have. But those are not the games being offered, stuff like Borderlands 2 is.

 

[electroplankton]

Yep. Hino said he wanted 500k. I will be impressed he manages 150k. Level 5 just doesn't know how to make an appealing new IP anymore. I wonder when we'll start to see layoffs over there or if Layton and Inazuma is enough to keep funding flops.

I hope Fantasy Life will succeed. An Animal Crossing clone (though more... Fantasy and RPG) on a Nintendo handheld...

 

[Aostia]

I figured that when you said "third parties are able to obtain great results with their own classic games (such as rpg and mosou games) on PS3" that you really meant "third parties are able to obtain great results with their own classic games (such as Xillia and I can't spellOne Piece: Musou games) on PS3." Dragon's Dogma was an absolute bomb from what went into the game. MHP3rd is a great example of an RPG doing gangbusters on PS3? :lol



Yes, your opinion that was that RE6 would set records for the brand yesterday. You seem to not really be thinking of numbers here but relative performance. Relative to the deep craphole Japan has become for most third-parties, PS3 is the shallowest craphole currently on the market, yes. That's not really a good place to be in for third-parties, though.



This.

The topic was: Wii U will be planned by Nintendo to aim at both Wii and PS3 target demographic, as the 3DS could be considered planned to reach both DS ans PSP targets.
I said: I don't think so. There is no actual game announced for the Wii U that can prove that Nintendo is working in this direction, unlike the 3ds that announced a lot of important Japanese third party games back in the days and I think that the main reason is that it's not so easy to convince third parties to shift their focus from PS3 to Wii U as it was for the 3DS (due to many reasons already described)

So: PS3 is not as hot as PS2, or something like that? Ok, no problem. But it doesn't matter, imho. Third parties are looking at the actual situation to decide where to put their efforts and, in the actual Japanese market (and with actual I mean this cross-generation moment, considering Wii, PS3, 3DS, PSP, Vita and Wii U) I really think that PS3 is a very solid solution for some kind of production

 

[cw_sasuke]

When Hino says he wants to sell 500k months/years before the actual release of the title doesnt mean he or Level 5 expect it to sell that much a week before release.

 

[Dalthien]

When Hino says he wants to sell 500k months/years before the actual release of the title doesnt mean he or Level 5 expect it to sell that much a week before release.

Does it really matter what he expects it to sell a week before release? At that point, the development is already finished, the marketing contracts are in place, and the budget has been spent.

Lowering expectations as a game gets nearer to release can help the company adjust their marketing strategy - but a game is often greenlit with a development budget based on the initial sales targets for the game. Lowering those expectations once the game is well into development doesn't change anything about the returns that are necessary to make the game a success.

 

[Zevenberge]

So today is the new load of Japanase sales numbers. Can't wait to see if Pokémon manages to uphold its momentum.

 

[Aostia]

So today is the new load of Japanase sales numbers. Can't wait to see if Pokémon manages to uphold its momentum.

Can't wait to see if Famitsu is really back at its old glorious days! HAHA!

 

[electroplankton]

So: PS3 is not as hot as PS2, or something like that? Ok, no problem. But it doesn't matter, imho. Third parties are looking at the actual situation to decide where to put their efforts and, in the actual Japanese market (and with actual I mean this cross-generation moment, considering Wii, PS3, 3DS, PSP, Vita and Wii U) I really think that PS3 is a very solid solution for some kind of production

Problem is: too few kinds of production.
PS3 is an healthy system for just few brands, and genres, and it's nowhere near PS2 levels, not even PSP and actual 3DS.

Companies should see that in a year and a half, there will be a new home console in the market, while PS3 will obviously decline other than Yakuza 6, Tales of Xillia 3 and XXX Musou.

 

[cw_sasuke]

Does it really matter what he expects it to sell a week before release? At that point, the development is already finished, the marketing contracts are in place, and the budget has been spent.

Lowering expectations as a game gets nearer to release can help the company adjust their marketing strategy - but a game is often greenlit with a development budget based on the initial sales targets for the game. Lowering those expectations once the game is well into development doesn't change anything about the returns that are necessary to make the game a success.

If he said he wanted to sell 500k it doesn't mean the title needs to sell at least as much to be considered a success or profitable. People shouldn't put too much in these expressions, of course any producer aims high and want the game to sell as well as possible; same as the Dragons Dogma Producer where people clearly misinterpret what he meant by revealing their goals.

No publisher would greenlight a new Visual Novel Adventure which needed to sell a half million just to be profitable, especially when it was a 3DS exclusive at the time. Though 250k could be considered a success, but even this number sounds unlikely now.

 

[Aostia]

Problem is: too few kinds of production.
PS3 is an healthy system for just few brands, and genres, and it's nowhere near PS2 levels, not even PSP and actual 3DS.

Companies should see that in a year and a half, there will be a new home console in the market, while PS3 will obviously decline other than Yakuza 6, Tales of Xillia 3 and XXX Musou.

Once again: what does this have to do with the "Wii U = Wii + PS3 target" plan discussion?
3ds clearly had a lot of games that showed both the intention of Nintendo to aim the new console also at the PSP target and, on the other hand, the intention of third parties to follow them in this way.
Wii U at the moment doesn't have anything that can prove that Nintendo is trying to replicate this strategy neither that third parties are following them in this plan.
The "PS3 strong and safe choice for Mosou, RPG and action games" part was just my opinion in trying to explain the difference between 3DS and Wii U.
I've never said that PS3 is the "Eldorado" of the Japanes third party market at all, neither that it's as strong as PS2, DS, 3DS and so on...

 

[electroplankton]

I agree.
Time Travelers will probably need something like 150k to be profitable (just my guess).

 

[Takao]

The more Level-5 fails the likelier it is that I receive a new Dark Cloud.

All is well in the cosmos.

 

[test_account]

Oh, I thought you said Wii sales dropped to 30k because of supply issues (as opposed to a natural drop). Nvm then lol, sorry about that

No problem

No, as that would be a lie.

I also mean sales potential titles. Getting a lot of titles that are expected to sell less than 100k would affect the overall sales.

The better word there would be "some" individual titles sell decently to very good.

Are there any recent PS3 bombas? The last one i can think of is FFXIII-2. Other than that i cant think of any titles that severely underpreformed compared to expectations.

EDIT: And Ni No Kuni as pointed out below here.

Here's an example.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f64/donny2112/Sales Numbers/JPNSoftware_YTD_Sep.png

True, but this graph doesnt tell anything about how many games that were released and which titles that were released. I think that this is important to take into concideration when talking about overall sales.

The market was stronger before. But what bar should be used for the next generation?

 

[Takao]

Nino Kuni is a bigger bomba than FFXIII-2. Like bomba gigant.

 

[electroplankton]

Nino Kuni is a bigger bomba than FFXIII-2. Like bomba gigant.

Yeah, Ni no Kuni really bombed on PS3.

 

[test_account]

Ah yes, i forgot about Ni No Kuni. That are two titles, any more than these?

 

[electroplankton]

Ah yes, i forgot about Ni No Kuni. That are two titles, any more than these?

Girl's RPG, Guild 01.

 

[Takao]

Girl's RPG, Guild 01.

These are 3DS games, not PS3 games.

 

[cw_sasuke]

I won't say that many titles underperformed, but some users seem really quick with the bomba verdict and seem to think that Level 5 expects and needs every game to sell as much as Layton and Inazuma 11 did on DS in their prime. I really doubt that.

 

[Takao]

I won't say that many titles underperformed, but some users seem really quick with the bomba verdict and seem to think that Level 5 expects and needs every game to sell as much as Layton and Inazuma 11 did on DS in their prime. I really doubt that.

Girls RPG and Time Travelers have been in development for years. I have to imagine they had a nice budget.

 

[electroplankton]

I won't say that many titles underperformed, but some users seem really quick with the bomba verdict and seem to think that Level 5 expects and needs every game to sell as much as Layton and Inazuma 11 did on DS in their prime. I really doubt that.

Imo, Guild 01 did not underperform, given its really niche production (and the possibility to sell its games via eShop). Girl's RPG, though, bombed, given the shipment and actual units sold.

 

[Zevenberge]

Can't wait to see if Famitsu is really back at its old glorious days! HAHA!

Although I'm from the post-Famitsu days, I like to be able to compare the sales figures. Does anyone know why the two are different? Do they both count different sale methods (like digital sales, pack-ins, bundles, etc)?

 

[cw_sasuke]

Girls RPG and Time Travelers have been in development for years. I have to imagine they had a nice budget.

There are many niche titles developed bu smaller teams for longer time periods without resulting in massive development costs. Especially since those are handheld titles and L5 has been reusing their core base engine for most of their titles.

If a titles as Girl RPG really had this massive budget then L5 and Hino are really loosing it - their profit margin on their better selling handheld titles like Layton and IE is probably quite high also.

 

[flawfuls]

Girls RPG and Time Travelers have been in development for years. I have to imagine they had a nice budget.

Girls RPG looked pretty low budget to me. Just because something has a long dev cycle doesn't mean it is big budget. I mean they could have had a really small team or something.

 

[Aostia]

Although I'm from the post-Famitsu days, I like to be able to compare the sales figures. Does anyone know why the two are different? Do they both count different sale methods (like digital sales, pack-ins, bundles, etc)?

They are different basically because they both track their own shops "partners", and probably they also use different formula in extrapolating the numbers.
It's like Nielsen VS Gfk in Europe: they base their calculations on different portfolio of partners (shops that share numbers with them) and formula

 

[Takao]

How big a bomba is Gundam Age gonna be? The TV show's a failure, and from what I've heard every aspect of it is. At least this Level-5 failure was done with Scamco's money.

 

[hongcha]

It amazes me that level 5 is not only still in business, but they seem to spend tons of time and money on games that few people buy. DQVIII is still the best thing they ever did, I wish they made more games like that these days.

 

[slaughterking]

I won't say that many titles underperformed, but some users seem really quick with the bomba verdict and seem to think that Level 5 expects and needs every game to sell as much as Layton and Inazuma 11 did on DS in their prime. I really doubt that.

The problem is that Level 5 was perceived to be the next big thing in Japan. Everything they touched turned to gold and many people (half-jokingly) called them the next SquareEnix. They were the only 3rd party publisher to not only launch one, but two new million-selling IPs and they read the market like no one else.
But now, over the past two years, Level 5 seems almost creatively bankrupt and not only did they fail to create another Layton-like phenomenon, they also let Layton and Inazuma slowly but surely loss relevance to the point where they are not selling even half as well as they used to. All they were doing recently was selling low-tier stuff (that arguably bombed even for as low-tier as it was) and create what I consider to be the biggest failure of recent years (Ninokuni PS3).

And their future outlook is not all that bright either. Gundam Age and Youkai Watch only highlight their creative bankruptcy (from what we know so far) as they are once again just trying to exploit kids through shitty cross-media franchises.
Of course they can still sell more Layton games and Inazumas and crappy plastic toys, but that's a far cry from the rising star of the NDS generation.

 

[electroplankton]

It amazes me that level 5 is not only still in business, but they seem to spend tons of time and money on games that few people buy. DQVIII is still the best thing they ever did, I wish they made more games like that these days.

Joke post?
Layton and Inazuma, though declining, are still a big deal for them, and the latter is growing in Europer, while the former is still pretty successful in the West. DQIX sold more than VIII, then.

 

[Zevenberge]

They are different basically because they both track their own shops "partners", and probably they also use different formula in extrapolating the numbers.
It's like Nielsen VS Gfk in Europe: they base their calculations on different portfolio of partners (shops that share numbers with them) and formula

Great, thanks. It was foolish of me to assume they actually gathered the data from (almost) all shops.

 

[Captain Smoker]

Great, thanks. It was foolish of me to assume they actually gathered the data from (almost) all shops.

Well, it depends.

Chart-Track covers almost the complete UK-market.

NPD, with the new Wal-Mart-data, should cover 80% of the US market, that's big.


I made this post back in 2008 ( http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9678180&postcount=594 )

Company			Retailers 	Coverage

GfK (Aus)				96%
ChartTrack		7.000 - 8.000 	90% - 95%
GfK (It)				90%
Media Control (DE)	2.000 		70%
NPD Group (US)		 		65%
Media Control (CH)		 	59% (Soft.) / 53% (Hard.)
Media Create	 	 
Famitsu			34.200

Quote from the 2008 post:
And I´m not sure, but MC coverage could be only 57%, but it´s just Google Translate. ^^

"2 cover features a high data rate and rich source of information

Retail POS data is based on. Data provided by the cover rate is about 57 percent, to cover a variety of business. In addition, prior reservation status, shipping status and digestive conditions, such as nearby secondhand trends data, qualitative information by listening to the stores and used as a complementary materials."

"データの特徴2　高いカバー率と豊富な情報源

データは小売店のPOSをベースにしております。データ提供元のカバー率は、およそ57％、多様な業態をカバーしております。さらに、事前の予約状況、出荷状況や消化状況、中古動向といった周辺データ、店舗へのヒアリングによる定性情報等を補完資料として用いています。"

http://www.m-create.com/biz/data.html

 

[test_account]

Girl's RPG, Guild 01.

I was thinking of PS3 games, but speaking of Girl's RPG, what is the LTD for that game now?


As for if Girl's RPG was a big budget game, i guess it can be some small indication looking at the credits in the game. If that list is short, then it is probably not a big budget game.

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

GirlsRPG was outsourced to h.a.n.d., I doubt Level 5 broke the bank over it. Production values look more like a DS game than a 3DS game.

 

[test_account]

How much money is that?

 

[electroplankton]

According to Andrisang: "Girl's RPG Cinderella Life debuted with just 9,519 sales in its first week. Level-5 may have been expecting much more, as this represented a low 31.03% sell-through.". Surely it was overshipped.

 

[test_account]

Thanks. I wonder if the game would have sold more being a DS game.

 

[cw_sasuke]

I doubt it, maybe there target group didnt exists and people just dont want to play a game as a hostess serving anime characters.

 

[electroplankton]

I doubt it, maybe there target group didnt exists and people just dont want to play a game as a hostess serving anime characters.

Wasn't Girl's RPG a mobile phone game originally?

 

[Takao]

I do not have a good feeling about LBX W's performance either. Vita version's probably going to get eaten alive given it's launching with like 4 other games.

 

[Road]

https://twitter.com/chiyomaru5pb/status/221250765577129984

100k copies of Robotics;Notes shipped.

 

[Mpl90]

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201207/11017826.html

Confirmed. OLD AGE IS BACK!!! EVERYONE REJOICE!

 

[grimshawish]

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201207/11017826.html

Confirmed. OLD AGE IS BACK!!! EVERYONE REJOICE!

Goodbye Media Create graphs!

 

[electroplankton]

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201207/11017826.html

Confirmed. OLD AGE IS BACK!!! EVERYONE REJOICE!

wow @ EOIV!
wow @ LBX 3DS!

 

[Erethian]

wow @ EOIV!
wow @ LBX 3DS!

Doing as well as LBX Boost isn't what I was expecting.

 

[Takao]

lol at Persona 4 having better legs than MGS HD

not so lol at Vita already dropping to like 10k

sigh at Japanese children buying Level-5 double releases