I don't know, last week they said they were gonna have 10 reveals this week.
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It wasn't my argument, though; and I explained better later on.
Of course there are: ease to port to PC; long-term investment (sooner or later, they must jump to HD graphics); global audience. I just don't think that it works for every franchise out there. This might work for mid-sized releases, because they sell well in Japan on PS4 (as their sales targets are not that high, like Persona or Tales of), and they are big success at 1.5-2m units worldwide. But if you must forgo 1.5-3m units in the domestic market, you must carefully think whether it is a smart decision, otherwise you can try to grow on mobile, where surely there are profits to be made, and you have versatility in development.
BrokenJohnCena
Member
how did those two DQH games sell on pc though?did they sell good or both bombed big time?
Kresnik258
Member
I'm sure there won't be many people interested, but it seems Attack on Titan 2 (Koei-Tecmo game) is still hitting Vita - listed on the PlayStation Japan TGS site as PS4/Vita (could well be Switch too, they wouldn't list that here though):
http://www.jp.playstation.com/events/tgs/title-all/
http://www.jp.playstation.com/events/tgs/title-all/
Gotdatmoney
Member
As far as MH and DQ go pretty much they had to move to HD with this release or the next games release. While for DQ the series relevancy is mostly a Japan thing and mainline games dont release often with MH they only really had 2 choices since they released like 5 games on the 3DS. Switch or PS4. Switch wasn't out and PS4 was but with a low userbase. They pretty much were not going to be able to avoid losing 1.5m+ domestic sales regardless.
DQ already moved over to mobile. MH isn't suited to it. I don't really think DQ11's final ltd is going to be as dire as you do. The ROI will be lower but that's what happens when you have to balance a handheld that's shit in the West with a console that is shit in Japan but dominant in the West. Shrug.
Strategy is weird but everyone in Japan is trying to get away from Vita and 3DS is on its last legs. Now or never basically.
The first sold below expectations but it had good legs (below 300k across all versions). I wonder how low this can go. Same for the second proper Attack on Titan on 3DS.
Platforms are supposed to be fully confirmed this fall IIRC.
3DS has pushed other similarly well-selling franchises to 3+ million.
I think it is pretty reasonable to assume that a 3DS only DQ could've done those numbers at 3DS prime.
Meanwhile, I honestly don't think PS4 DQXI could've done much better than it ended up doing. Maybe 2 million, to be (imo insanely) generous.
And those numbers are great for PS4. They are bad for DQ.
So yes, 3DS numbers as are are disappointing, imo. We don't have anything to go on wrt multiplatform Dragon Quest released across similar platforms, but 3DS isn't close to its perceived individual potential (of 3 million plus).
That said, 3DS was absolutely essential to pulling the numbers overall above an acceptable threshold for DQ in light of its history and potential. Square obviously saw that.
And yes perhaps they also see Asian sales or think PS4 is the best place to approach the west at this time.
And yes they have the Switch version to (probably) get more out of the more expensive of the two versions they found themselves making.
Etc.
But it is sleight of hand via distorted expectations to crow about how great PS4 sales are and look at 3DS as underwhelming and unnecessary.
I think it is pretty reasonable to assume that a 3DS only DQ could've done those numbers at 3DS prime.
Meanwhile, I honestly don't think PS4 DQXI could've done much better than it ended up doing. Maybe 2 million, to be (imo insanely) generous.
And those numbers are great for PS4. They are bad for DQ.
So yes, 3DS numbers as are are disappointing, imo. We don't have anything to go on wrt multiplatform Dragon Quest released across similar platforms, but 3DS isn't close to its perceived individual potential (of 3 million plus).
That said, 3DS was absolutely essential to pulling the numbers overall above an acceptable threshold for DQ in light of its history and potential. Square obviously saw that.
And yes perhaps they also see Asian sales or think PS4 is the best place to approach the west at this time.
And yes they have the Switch version to (probably) get more out of the more expensive of the two versions they found themselves making.
Etc.
But it is sleight of hand via distorted expectations to crow about how great PS4 sales are and look at 3DS as underwhelming and unnecessary.
Sooner or later, some franchises must jump to HD graphics. I do not disagree on that. DQ, though, seems less dependent on graphics, given its wide appeal. Remember that this was released in 2000, and is the second best-selling entry to date:
That's why I said that Square Enix should have jumped to PS4 from a safer position, as a late version after the 3DS one maximized sales. Well, Japanese software houses are late to adapt, therefore this is expected. It's just sad to see for such big franchises.
kuroneko0509
Member
Laplasakos
Member
This doesn't prove what you said at all (that they decided to make a 3DS version because the PS4 one wouldn't sell).
Wait, so there's no console bundle for MHW in the West? What, why?
M&R has a nice early January launch, will be curious to see how it does in Japan.
Kirby is a bit nebulous, though, somewhere between January and April:
Robobot: April 28, 2016
Triple Deluxe: January 11, 2014
But since its Spring-release, I'd lean towards the later release date.
M&R has a nice early January launch, will be curious to see how it does in Japan.
Kirby is a bit nebulous, though, somewhere between January and April:
Robobot: April 28, 2016
Triple Deluxe: January 11, 2014
But since its Spring-release, I'd lean towards the later release date.
"3DS production began later due to its increase in userbase and Square Enix wanting more fans to experience the game."
If they were confident PS4 could have reached the right amount of gamers they would not have bothered in developing the 3DS version. This sentence imply that a PS4-only game would have not been able to reach many fans.
LOL
It does but I see you don't speak PR.
It's plain weird so many Japanese publishers are so eager to neglect/kill their home market/core audience over it though. To bite the hand that feeds you and all that.
BrokenJohnCena
Member
January launch will be awesome for kirby actually
It's doubly weird since Japanese 3rd parties have done relatively well on 3DS in the west anyway, even compared to PS4.
Its Spring, can't be January (still Winter quarter). As I said, lean towards April or later.
Yep. And those successful performances were achieved without much effort in terms of advertising, promotion, and development budget. In many cases, Nintendo took care of distribution and promotion. Bravely Default sold 1m+ worldwide, for example.
Yeah, but all the talk about not knowing whenever is technically feasible to run the game on the Switch would fall flat in face of a Vita version.
It's above 300k retail+digital with its 3 versions, 200k in its first month, 250k after 2 months (Famitsu) and the Vita SKU alone went on to sell 50k retail (it appeared a few times not so long ago on Dengeki top 50 thanks to the 2nd TV series), ps4 sales probably didn't stop either and with leftover digital and PS3 it's probably above 350k.
Or a look a Media Create CY 2016 tells you it's 300k retail only in 2016, with digital and 2017 additional sales easily above 350k too.
Sorry, I meant around 300k.
thestopsign
Member
Kirby is late-March at the earliest if the said Spring. I wonder what they will have for the first quarter besides Mario + Rabbids in January. I doubt they leave February blank.
Gotdatmoney
Member
To me it's only weird that they all planned on Switch bombing. But then again I think this industry as a whole has a problem with supporting new hardware. Of course hardware dies if you dont ever want to release good efforts on it. Maybe just release good products?
Cost of making HD games for the domestic market is too high. The publishers mostly dont have a choice. In a sense I think it's good because I think spending money producing games that are only viable in Japan is stupid and it pushes publishers to stop doing that.
Skyrim!?
Yeah Skyrim is early 2018 but I doubt that release plays into Nintendo's overall strategy too much.
If not a listing mistake, then Switch version is indeed confirmed.
They didn't even have a single project to announce?
It doesn't make sense to me to have a big reveal in famitsu and the teaser site without Switch, only to announce another platform a few weeks later. But what do I know!
You think MHW will be one of the top 10 non-Nintendo console games in history? (would come in 8th or 9th) Beating all but 3 PS2 games in sales?
For reference only 1 PS4 game is currently over 1 million and only FFXIII on the PS3 did more than a million.
It's a bold prediction. I will give you that.
Also, MH is well past its peak.
Vita and not Switch would make the not sure if powerful enough talk they have given so far pretty irrelevant.
Godzilla's Left Toe
Member
Umm...
That makes logical sense but I don't think we can assume much of anything.
Reminds me of K drama--chasing that Chinese audience all the while looking the other way as their shows increasingly fail to capture the interest of their domestic audience. It'll be interesting there because China has declared a little war on Korean cultural imports, so they're having to remonetize for making the domestic audience viable again.
I don't have much faith in the vision of that system though. It tends to ostracize quality or beat it out of people in pursuit of some ideal commercial product that hasn't actually been ideal for a while now. (They're also trying to remonetize western streaming).
...
The thing is with games though is that although chasing the west has been going on since the NES, and has led to some of the greatest successes of these companies, they came to a point last generation where it was pretty much an either-or. DS/PSP held up a domestic market for the games that had either a) never made it out of Japan or b) never made it too big outside of Japan. PS360 held up a market where traditionally there would've been a market and where most big console developers wanted to be. Wii was sort of an in-between and also different.
A couple issues emerge:
-It used to be you had the PSP/DS games and PS3 games in ~one place and there was more movement between the categories. Just look at JRPG. You could go from releasing every-other game only in Japan to being a huge thing in the west (Final Fantasy).
(Switch/PS4 could recreate this environment so far as it is currently possible)
-HD development and the ascendency of western console games from developers who managed that better really hurt developers attempting to chase the west. At the same time, lackluster PS3 sales prevented the domestic market from greatly buoying these efforts.
(This generation, Japan both has a healthier place in the west and has grown in its ability to develop effectively in HD)
-But, on the other hand, after PSP/DS the domestic console market that was doing well took a hit as well. Turning inward became turning to mobile, not turning to portables. The reasons companies stayed on 3DS/Vita were because they were comfortable in their niche, big fish in a shrinking pond, having difficulty transitioning, and/or uninterested in transition.
Moreover, it doesn't seem uncommon to think that this is a sinking ship. GAF is replete with the assumption that the Japanese market will be gone at some undisclosed point. We've heard comments from, say, the Pokemon president that suggested the same. The speculation here is that Capcom thinks so. Etc.
I think Switch will prove that at least the market isn't dead yet and I hope Japanese third parties do see that as opportunity to fight for the future of their market.
But...why should they exactly? They don't have the same interest in it that we do. Why not go mobile? Why not chase the west, seemingly on refreshed legs?
(Again here I think the break down of either/or helps Switch and helps incentivize what I want them to do
)(Of course though mobile isn't just this thing growing over there with a stagnant shape for games. That's why I think Nirolak's posts are so interesting. What would this fabled "collapse into mobile" look like? Where would mobile be?)
How does Japan feel about the Rabbids? I know they aren't exactly popular in the US, but the game seems to have done well enough there.
Yeah. Unfortunately logic and Switch ports rarely go hand in hand.
I don't think its necessarily unlikely given KT's public comments on Switch support and announced stuff so far, but I definitely don't think anything should be considered a lock.
I wonder why Capcom opted to release MHW in January from a sales standpoint. This also seems to be the first MH released in January. Do titles tend to sell strongly after December, or does an after-Christmas lull exist? Maybe it has to do with them trying to find a period that won't be contesting for sales with other end-of-year software, but not wanting to entirely miss out on the holiday season.
How does new software sales tend to fare in January traditionally?
How does new software sales tend to fare in January traditionally?
That's why I'm confused too. It really doesn't make sense for them to announce another version now when they revealed platforms last week. But judging by Famitsu scan that seems like the case. Waa there an instance where Famitsu misprinted/labeled platforms for a game?
I would say that in general Japan has no opinion on the Rabbids.
The Rabbid games released here were massive flops.
The games and characters are almost completely unknown here. That might actually play to their advantage. Could be a total relaunch. Their antics are not as over the top on M+R and they might tap into that "minions" market.
Laplasakos
Member
Only thing i am seeing is you trying to make the black white. From official sources, we know that SE always considered two versions for the game. They started with PS4 first and later with 3DS after seeing many people expecting the next one to be on a portable device/3DS. The fact that 3DS got so many DQ games before XI is a clue for this. Everything else you say is speculation from your mind.
I'm actually not the one looking at this in a binary literal sense. I'm reading between the lines and keeping some real world awareness in mind. And it's not exactly rocket science here.
This game could come to Switch, even as a later release. KT has stuffed the system with Musou titles and there is the AoT sequel coming to 3DS too. Everything plays a role.
With only a Pro bundle this holiday to boost sales on wider audiences (ie. not do such a thing in any capacity), all sales potential will come from the physical release in the post-Holiday "holiday" that the Sony ecosystem enjoys when kids/teenagers get money as gifts to spend on things they want.
I am very surprised they didn't do a regular Slim bundle, and I don't understand the logic behind a Pro bundle unless their expectations are to only court very core-oriented players and that a Slim wouldn't be expected to do much more than a Pro.
That said, without a Slim bundle, my expectations would probably be more in the 500-600k FW but we will have to see if that forecast will change once pre-order movement becomes more clear/documented and we have data to reference. It is well and possible pre-orders skyrocket and we see a more DQXI-like opening but for now I am skeptical and especially so without a Slim bundle to try and drive broader sales.
I am very surprised they didn't do a regular Slim bundle, and I don't understand the logic behind a Pro bundle unless their expectations are to only court very core-oriented players and that a Slim wouldn't be expected to do much more than a Pro.
That said, without a Slim bundle, my expectations would probably be more in the 500-600k FW but we will have to see if that forecast will change once pre-order movement becomes more clear/documented and we have data to reference. It is well and possible pre-orders skyrocket and we see a more DQXI-like opening but for now I am skeptical and especially so without a Slim bundle to try and drive broader sales.
Gotdatmoney
Member
I mean I agree they haven't come out and said that. But like, who would say that about their own product? Some level of reading between the lines is necessary. If DQ11 on PS4 could support 4m units (or even 3m units) in Japan why would they also develop a separate 3DS version?
I dunno, I kinda feel like it's buryimg your head in the sand to think the 3DS version doesn't exist to augment a weak PS4 performance in Japan.