CrispyBoar
Banned
Star Ocean IV killed the franchise.
I'm not surprised by SO5, SO4 was the game that should have killed off the franchise. It was that bad.
These. It's all SO IV's fault.
Star Ocean IV killed the franchise.
I'm not surprised by SO5, SO4 was the game that should have killed off the franchise. It was that bad.
These. It's all SO IV's fault.
duckroll's example of Namco is quite good. Naruto and Dragon Ball console games aren't being made for the domestic market, but Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle on mobile certainly is (and is interestingly one of the only Japanese mobile games to succeed overseas, but that's a bit of a happenstance).
When are the Wii U stock issues expected to be resolved now?
And Suikoden IV killed Suikoden.
It seems it's always the previous title that determines the sales (to some extent) of the next. Suikoden V was actually a great game, but lots of people opted out because of the bad taste IV left in their mouth.
SOV LOOKS better than SOIV, on the surface. But it might face the same trouble.
I still don't quite get why JP publishers didn't bet more on the Wii. Or did they try and fail, and I just missed it? Well, either way that's the past, and now the remnants need to decide which markets are worth vying for. Mid-tier JRPGs sadly might not be one of them.
Sales used to be very strong in the region.
Here's a few example series from the PS2 era that did either quite well or absolutely great, yet have declined significantly or disappeared all together:
Ridge Racer V: 611,507
Virtua Fighter 4: 541,973
Suikoden III: 377,729
You're going to make me cry.
I never see anyone playing Tekken 7 at game centres either, I fear for that series' future.
I'm not sure if Disney in general is that more niche than the other two.04./00. [3DS] Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone <HOB> (Nintendo) {2012.09.13}
(¥3.800) - 35.910 / NEW
01./00. [3DS] Pokemon Art Academy <HOB> (Nintendo) {2014.06.19} (¥3.908) - 31.080 / NEW <70,11%>
04./00. [3DS] Disney Art Academy <HOB> (Nintendo) {2016.04.07} (¥3.700) - 17.717 / NEW
Really not a bad showing for Disney Art Academy at all. I think it represents a more niche product than either of its predecessors.
The legs are actually very close when it comes to both Dark Souls 1 and 2.The legs on DSIII are just awful.
02./00. [PS4] Dark Souls III <RPG> (From Software) {2016.03.24} (¥7.430) - 210.141 / NEW <82,51%>
04./02. [PS4] Dark Souls III <RPG> (From Software) {2016.03.24} (¥7.430) - 33.406 / 243.547 (-84%)
05./04. [PS4] Dark Souls III <RPG> (From Software) {2016.03.24} (¥7.430) - 15.274 / 258.821 (-54%)
ETA: Star Ocean makes it look a lot better in comparison though, lol.
Here's my thoughts on Japan:
- IIRC they actually have a shrinking economy AND a shrinking population, which is crazy. There are literally fewer children being born each year than in the past.
- Ever since the Tsunami that took out Fukushima, it feels like everyone there has been in hardship. They appear to work long hours and have little time to spare on pasttimes or raising families.
- I totally understand why mobile is attractive. They play for half hour chunks while on the train or whatever.
- The PS3 -era decline in Japanese titles was partially the developers fault. I think there was a very real drop in quality in an absolute sense. I'm not sure if this was talent leaving companies, or problems with the toolsets used for PS3, or what. But there seriously were a lot of mediocre or straight up bad RPGs from that era that damaged the reputations of some series (and some series are straight up dead now).
- With all your favorite game series either disappearing or releasing disappointing entries, and you are now strapped for time and cash, it's only natural their interests would change.
- I still think that there's an audience for ambitious console JRPGs etc, but it might not be in Japan itself. I hope that the Japanese developers look outside their own country when thinking about these things. Just because something fails in your own country doesn't mean it won't work.
- I personally have no interest in mobile games, now or in the future. So any game there is basically non-existent to me.
SOV is just crazy. I know the import thread was pretty positive, but was that a case of import bias? What's the sentiment in the Japanese market about the game?
No Vita version killed Star Ocean.
Considering a Vita version would have killed the scope...yeah no thanks. It's up to a miracle from the West to save SO5 and Tri-Ace from mobile doom now.
http://www.tri-ace.co.jp/en/company/sales.html
Killed the scope... of a game with a smaller scope than SO2? Lol.
That's an interesting suggestion. Do you think the current state of affairs would have been avoided in some fashion? Were the Japanese market not always destined to go completely mobile? How could publishers have revived the scene a long time ago?
This must make it really difficult for executives and decision-makers, I imagine. How do you balance two contradictory markets? Is there some sort of compromise between the two?
SOV is just crazy. I know the import thread was pretty positive, but was that a case of import bias? What's the sentiment in the Japanese market about the game?
The game is 27.2 GB on PS4 according to the Japanese PS Store. Compression or not that's not getting down a to a file size the Vita can handle. That's like all of the free room on a 32 GB card is it not?
SOV is just crazy. I know the import thread was pretty positive, but was that a case of import bias? What's the sentiment in the Japanese market about the game?
The game is 27.2 GB on PS4 according to the Japanese PS Store. Compression or not that's not getting down a to a file size the Vita can handle. That's like all of the free room on a 32 GB card is it not?
Source: https://store.playstation.com/#!/ja-jp/star-ocean5-integrity-and-faithlessness-/cid=JP0082-NPJB00727_00-FULLGAME00000000
This (file size) has nothing to do with scope. You can play Xenoblade on a 3DS.
Iwata It really is. We asked Monster Games to do the porting for us because Monolith Soft was already working on Xenoblade Chronicles X. We really would have loved to port it to the original Nintendo 3DS, but it would be difficult with a game like Xenoblade Chronicles.
I didn't think it necessary to stipulate *New* 3DS for Xenoblade... and to completely have my point missed.
GTAV is 17gig on PS3, 42gig on PS4, and 65gig on PC. It's the same game.
GTAV is 17gig on PS3, 42gig on PS4, and 65gig on PC. It's the same game.
The trick is to finding out what the real sizes of the games are, as most of the space on the disc could come from just installing the games onto the console or on PC.
I'd be surprised if Dragon Ball Project Fusions is being made for any market outside of Japan.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3D essentially proves my point.
So when did consoles start to mean things that are not smartphones?Sorry, by consoles I meant literally home consoles instead of dedicated devices. I should have been more specific.
bah. So disappointing.Its meh, at best, and depending on where you look it could be downright poor.
That's kind of what I often think about import threads but there's no tactful way to say, "hey guys is this actually shit?"The type of people who go out of there way to import this kind of game are obviously going to be more biased.
When are the Wii U stock issues expected to be resolved now?
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|System | This Week | Last Week | Last Year | YTD | Last YTD | LTD |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
| PS4 | 23.095 | 33.440 | 16.831 | 477.461 | 395.172 | 2.608.194 |
| 3DS # | 21.221 | 25.520 | 23.537 | 473.911 | 691.943 | 20.510.867 |
| PSV # | 12.860 | 17.741 | 16.056 | 392.538 | 339.519 | 4.774.955 |
| WIU | 5.229 | 2.678 | 5.208 | 159.898 | 137.995 | 3.103.485 |
| PS3 | 918 | 1.170 | 4.466 | 23.315 | 102.018 | 10.230.056 |
| XB1 | 144 | 87 | 625 | 2.298 | 6.998 | 66.349 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
| ALL | 63.467 | 80.636 | 66.723 | 1.529.421 | 1.673.645 | 41.293.906 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
bah. So disappointing.
Hopefully the west picks up the slack.
It's not happening without what made Ni no Kuni's appeal: $10 sales.
Well, this is depressing.
Bye bye, Valkyrie Profile. The dream was short-lived.
SOV is just crazy. I know the import thread was pretty positive, but was that a case of import bias? What's the sentiment in the Japanese market about the game?
I don't think the west ever cared about Star Ocean if we're talking about that.
I don't think the west ever cared about Star Ocean if we're talking about that.
Not necessarily true.
I agree that it's not likely to make a huge difference now, but this has been posted before:
http://www.tri-ace.co.jp/en/company/sales.html
Hell, Star Ocean's 2's 2nd (important to note) full month in the US it did 38k in a far more flooded JRPG market as a sequel to an unreleased Super Famicom game and in the Summer back in 1999, (credit to Gaffer Square2015) and that was just the first game released outside Japan. It kind of goes without saying that the market was smaller in July 1999 than it is now too, and again, the game was a virtual unknown, and in its 2nd full month. Could have been worse and the game's sales just grew from there.
Tri-Ace says it went on to sell 370k overseas on PS1, which pales to the 626k they attribute to SO3 on PS2 overseas, which is only 16k shy of the Japanese total for both versions of that game. The SO2 figure does not include the later PSP port, for which I guess we don't have reliable Western data, as that page hasn't been updated since September 2005. It doesn't account for a small amount of final re-release sales of SO3 either if there were any really late prints.
I think it's pretty obvious why Square Enix is happily releasing the game in just less than 3 months after the Japanese release, but it remains to be seen if the 1999-2004 overseas successes can be repeated. One thing seems guaranteed though, and that's for the rest of the world to sell more than 150k copies of Star Ocean 5 on PS4 alone. So in a way, yes the West may care more about Star Ocean. ¯\_(ツ_/¯
Here's my thoughts on Japan:
- IIRC they actually have a shrinking economy AND a shrinking population, which is crazy. There are literally fewer children being born each year than in the past.
- Ever since the Tsunami that took out Fukushima, it feels like everyone there has been in hardship. They appear to work long hours and have little time to spare on pasttimes or raising families.
- I totally understand why mobile is attractive. They play for half hour chunks while on the train or whatever.
- The PS3 -era decline in Japanese titles was partially the developers fault. I think there was a very real drop in quality in an absolute sense. I'm not sure if this was talent leaving companies, or problems with the toolsets used for PS3, or what. But there seriously were a lot of mediocre or straight up bad RPGs from that era that damaged the reputations of some series (and some series are straight up dead now).
- With all your favorite game series either disappearing or releasing disappointing entries, and you are now strapped for time and cash, it's only natural their interests would change.
- I still think that there's an audience for ambitious console JRPGs etc, but it might not be in Japan itself. I hope that the Japanese developers look outside their own country when thinking about these things. Just because something fails in your own country doesn't mean it won't work.
- I personally have no interest in mobile games, now or in the future. So any game there is basically non-existent to me.
bah. So disappointing.
That's kind of what I often think about import threads but there's no tactful way to say, "hey guys is this actually shit?"