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Nintendo too focused on Japan, MS too focused on N.America, Sony win by default?

Sony has managed to convince Europe that they're the most important even though I don't really see Europe getting any preferential treatment, they usually get treated a bit worse than the US. Euro-gamers eat it up though so there's no real incentive for Sony to change.

MS focusing on the US made sense for the 360, now with the One they should focus more on Europe although the One's launch was bungled so badly I'm not sure they will ever get that momentum back over-seas
 
Where'd you get the Halo figures? There's a lot of bullshit vgchartzzz figures floating around but I couldn't find anything from Microsoft.

Anecdotal guesstimate gathered from various releases.

Prior to Halo 4 release : franchise sales : 46 mil
Post Halo 4 release franchise sales: 50+ mil
Halo 3 did at least 8.1 million within the fiscal year of launch.
Halo 4 was announced to have outperformed Halo 3's fiscal year sales.

So there's at least 16.2 mil sold between Halo 3 & 4.

And then there's been holiday bundles with Halo 3 quite a few times, that should move a decent amount.

Some unrealiable stats put Halo 4 at 12 million sold to date... but meh, but I'd guess that 20 mil is a safe guesstimate.
 

Ironjam

Member
At the time Gears sold more than Uncharted and GOW.
Fable 2+3 sold each 4 Million compared to 5 of Uncharted and 4 of God of War.
And Fable sold also more than the Last of Us, although there arent any released numbers of 'TLOU other than the 1 Million in the first month.

Also Kinect Sports and Adventures.

What is this garbage?
GOW III sold 5.2 million by June 2012.
Unch. 2 sold more than 5 mill. by Dec. 2011.
Unch. 3 sold as much as 2.
Metal Gear solid IV sold 5+ millions by Dec. 2009.
Gran Turismo sold 11 mill or so.
The 2 LBP games sold 6 mil combined.
Heavy Rain did 3 million.
The last of us is probably at 4-5 million right now.

Its a myth that sony games are not selling.

GT3 is a Playstation 2 Game, this adds nothing.

Its part of the franchise. Just because the best selling Halo game outsold the 3rd best selling GT game doesnt mean the Halo franchise sells more, contrary to that GT is a bigger franchise than Halo.
 

Bundy

Banned
Maybe i am not right in all arguments, but i didnt really get the feeling that you guys really wanted to discuss, instead of focus on minor sub arguments and twisting the facts or simply not accepting them at all?
lol...
This is gettin' better and better.
 
What is this garbage?
GOW III sold 5.2 million by June 2012.
Unch. 2 sold more than 5 mill. by Dec. 2011.
Unch. 3 sold as much as 2.
Metal Gear solid IV sold 5+ millions by Dec. 2009.
Gran Turismo sold 11 mill or so.
The 2 LBP games sold 6 mil combined.
Heavy Rain did 3 million.
The last of us is probably at 4-5 million right now.

Its a myth that sony games are not selling.

Its part of the franchise. Just because the best selling Halo game outsold the 3rd best selling GT game doesnt mean the Halo franchise sells more, contrary to that GT is a bigger franchise than Halo.

Uncharted 3 sold 3.8 million on day one. Pretty sure it's over 5 million total. Franchise is 17M +
 
Uncharted trilogy broke 17 million units sold prior to the announcement of Uncharted 3 GOTY edition. UC3 is almost surely more than 5 mil at this point.
 

Riposte

Member
For those who like Japanese games (the Gundams, Yakuzas, Nippon Icchi games, and hundreds of others), PS4 is unavoidable.
And given that most US/western games will also be available on it, the PS4 will likely end up with a higher variety of games than the X1 (like current gen).
So yes, there is definitely an advantage for Sony.

The Xbone will likely end up with quite a few important exclusives (important meaning "better than Nippon Ichi stuff"), like the Xbox and 360 before it. I don't know if anyone who doesn't recall that should be speaking for me and other people who like Japanese games.
 

Shahed

Member
GT3 is a Playstation 2 Game, this adds nothing.
It's still an important point though. Even if they still sold above 10m, GT sales declined on PS3 compared to PS2. Who's to say Halo won't decline on XB1 compared to 360?

The point is that due to a new generation, there'll be userbase fluctuations across both platforms. 360 3rd party software had the edge on PS3, but it seems like it will be the otherway around this time with PS4 leading XB1. A new set of consoles leads to new results and just like GT declined at the last transition, Halo could do the same if there is a userbase deficit.

Not saying it will, just saying that you shouldn't assume everything will be par for the course with new hardware
 
The Xbone will likely end up with quite a few important exclusives (important meaning "better than Nippon Ichi stuff"), like the Xbox and 360 before it. I don't know if anyone who doesn't recall that should be speaking for me and other people who like Japanese games.

We'd need to know what those 'few important ones' are first.

At this point, the list looks like this:

XB1:
- Crimson Dragon
- D4

Whereas for the PS4...

PS4:
- EDF
- IDOLM@STER
- Gundam
- Lily Bergamo
- Deep Down
- Yakuza Ishin
- Natural Doctrine
- unannounced Falcom PS4 game ( Ys?)

Everyone's waiting for the Japan megatons from both side. ( next-gen equivalents of Valkyria Chronicles, Demon Souls, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, White Knight Chronicles.)
 

iMerc

Member
sony definitely seems to be the most focused of the 3.
they created a great piece of hardware, and all the moves they've made so far with ps4 seem to be calculated, concise, and careful.

i wouldn't mind at all if their console ended up being the console market leader. they make great games themselves, and they have great relations with publishers from all geographic areas.

it also helps that shuei yoshida seems to know what the fuck he's talking about. i always listen to anything this guys says; his expertise seems to genuinely come from experience and humility as opposed to deluded over-confidence like kutaragi, but that's just my opinion.

EDIT. oh geez. this is going to devolve into list wars, isn't it?
 

Shahed

Member
The Xbone will likely end up with quite a few important exclusives (important meaning "better than Nippon Ichi stuff"), like the Xbox and 360 before it. I don't know if anyone who doesn't recall that should be speaking for me and other people who like Japanese games.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. XB1 will end up with several worthwhile exclusives, just as the PS4 will. In fact XB1's line up is currently quite superior to PS4's in my eyes (even if both are still lacking). Depending on your tastes, you could go with either and be happy

But the person you quoted was basically saying that if you like Japanese games and gave specific examples, then PS4 is pretty much necessary. How is that wrong?
 
But the person you quoted was basically saying that if you like Japanese games and gave specific examples, then PS4 is pretty much necessary. How is that wrong?

Well, for quite a while on the PS3 vs 360 Japanese exclusivess narrative, there was the argument of quality over quantity.

In that while 360 had less Japanese exclusives, they were better than PS3's. ( then were Disgaea 3, WKC, etc vs Vesperia, Blue Dragon, Lost Oddysey, etc )

Of course, that narrative has changed significantly over the past several years. It's pretty much impossible at this point to argue that PS3's line-up of Japanese exclusives dwarf what the 360 is offering, and will continue to do so for a good amount of time.
 

Shahed

Member
Well, for quite a while on the PS3 vs 360 Japanese exclusivess narrative, there was the argument of quality over quantity.

In that while 360 had less Japanese exclusives, they were better than PS3's. ( then were Disgaea 3, WKC, etc vs Vesperia, Blue Dragon, Lost Oddysey, etc )

Of course, that narrative has changed significantly over the past several years. It's pretty much impossible at this point to argue that PS3's line-up of Japanese exclusives dwarf what the 360 is offering, and will continue to do so for a good amount of time.
I get that. I mean the reason I got a 360 before a PS3 was because of the likes of Lost Odyssey, Vesperia, Blue Dragon and the rest.

But times have changed and Japanese devs publishers seem to have had their experiments with the 360, and then all moved onto PS3. I doubt we'll get the same happen again and while XB1 will potentially have really good exclusive games from Japan, by the end of the generation it will likely swing back in PS4's favour, assuming it doesn't start there anyway.

But I was more referencing the specific games the first user mentioned. Gundam, Yakuza, NIS and other randoms. They used those games as the criteria for choosing a PS4 over XB1, games that the 360 never got. Sure the XB1 will probably get exclusive J games (and IMO likely better than those games), but based on the series' the user mentioned I doubt XB1 will get them. That's what I meant :p
 

Riposte

Member
Basically what I said is that the reverse is true too, if you look at the previous consoles. I thought he was implying otherwise.

In that while 360 had less Japanese exclusives, they were better than PS3's. ( then were Disgaea 3, WKC, etc vs Vesperia, Blue Dragon, Lost Oddysey, etc )

Couldn't help but roll my eyes at your examples. Maybe what I actually have a problem with is how JRPG fans dominate these kind of conversations. Same thing with "Japan was best on portables this gen", which I'll be making a thread about eventually.
 

Shahed

Member
Couldn't help but roll my eyes at your examples. Maybe what I actually have a problem with is how JRPG fans dominate these kind of conversations. Same thing with "Japan was best on portables this gen", which I'll be making a thread about eventually.

As a person who doesn't like handhelds, but kind of feels forced into buying them to play certain games, I'd like to see that thread!
 
Couldn't help but roll my eyes at your examples. Maybe what I actually have a problem with is how JRPG fans dominate these kind of conversations. Same thing with "Japan was best on portables this gen", which I'll be making a thread about eventually.

Japan best on portables = no-brainer. But I was making console comparisons, so meh.

As for JRPGs dominating these kind of conversations... it's only natural.

Every major non-JRPG franchise from Japan has become multi-platform (RE, MGS, DMC, Souls, AC, fighters), migrated entirely to portables. ( monster hunting genre, rhythm games ) or have always belonged to Nintendo in the first place. ( Zelda, Mario, Animal Crossing, etc )

Yakuza is pretty much the only one in it's genre when it comes to exclusives ...'kinda open world' games from Japan.

At least on the JRPG front, there's still a least games like Tales, Persona, and the occasional exclusive here and there, but the big names are almost always JRPGs more often than not.
 
I don't know how much the rest of you know about Japanese culture (I'm an expert), but honor and shame are huge parts of it. It's not like it is in America where you can launch a console successfully without launch games. If you screw the launch line-up up in Japan, you bring shame to yourself, and the only way to get rid of that shame is repentance.
I know this is a tribute post, but when Cerny called out Japanese devs for not having any games ready, I was like dayyyyyyyummm.gif
 

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
Yup. Japan is what? 10-15% of the pie? If you had to choose one over the other, why would any console manufacturer make Japan their primary focus?

If you're like me and don't play western games it's 100% of the pie. And I'm selfish and want the gaming industry to cater to me :p

Couldn't help but roll my eyes at your examples. Maybe what I actually have a problem with is how JRPG fans dominate these kind of conversations. Same thing with "Japan was best on portables this gen", which I'll be making a thread about eventually.

If you're gonna mention the 360 shmup exclusives as evidence that there was a sizable amount of Japanese exclusives outside the moneyhatted RPGs, you have to keep in mind most of them didn't even get US releases.
 
While I agree there is some truth in the OP. Let it be said that MS's razor focus on NA has served them quite well. Second(?) place in hardware sales when you only have one dominant region is not bad at all. For as long as the Wii was crushing hardware sales, MS has had a pretty good run up to November. A know we like to pick at them, but they are a smart group of lads. Their 180 last year, built in kinect, and 100 dollar premium didn't seem to have any noticeable affect on their ability to move consoles.

I think this generation will be far more intriguing than people are giving it credit for. Even with the Big N seemingly out of the running.
 

m@cross

Member
Some good points here;

I have felt for a while now that the XB1 is sort of making the same mistake Sony did with PS3. Costs more, more non game features, reduced power compared to its competitor. It is like they had a meeting and just said "no problem, we are putting the XBOX name on it, it will sell no matter what".

Not sure if they are pushing all their stock into USA also, seems so when I went to Walmart this weekend and they had it in stock with 6 racks of controllers while they had no PS4s and only 5 controllers total.

Will be fascinating to see the next generation of systems as I think MS will learn like Sony did last gen, Sony will see what they learned come to fruition, and Nintendo will finally get a clue.
 
Sony gives us the PS4 and then people seem to forget the PS3s problem (and the many versions of that system), the PSP (the many versions of that) the PSP GO and the Vita.
All hail Kaz? No. One step forward doesn't mean the past is forgotten just because of the PS4.

Europe is always shafted. Sony may not have a crap attitude towards us in Europe as Nintendo but it's still completely unacceptable. Same goes for the Xbone.
 
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