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Media Create Sales: Week 23, 2012 (Jun 04 - Jun 10)

Yeshua

Member
Full-fledged graphic adventures tend to sell better than novel games. They also need to to make back cost.

And Layton and Inazuma still do well, as did Ninokuni on DS. All these are anime heavy, another thing that differentiates TT from 428.

I have no idea how well TT will sell but comparing it to 428 makes no sense at all. They aren't even the same category of game, neither genre, visual style nor publisher. Chunsoft as a publisher is decidedly more niche than L5.

428 was published by Sega on WII and Spike on PSP/PS3, Chunsoft have reopened their publishing branch 2010. While Spike is definitely a small publisher it's not the case of Sega which have some good success in Japan.
 

extralite

Member
Or, let's put it this way. If full-fledged graphic adventures sell so well, why are they virtually nonexistent in the market?

They're not virtually nonexistent. The shelf space for DS adventures is as big as the one for RPGs in Japanese stores, bigger than any other genre. Layton especially, and to a lesser degree Phoenix Wright, are quite big sellers. Then you have lots of smaller ones like Tingle or that suicide adventure by SNK.

They're also more numerous on mobile phones and PC.

On consoles, the action types like Resident Evil and Zelda tend to be more popular though. Ico and Shadow of Memories also belong to this genre.

Edit:

VN is a niche genre, and Chunsoft had carved a nice place in it with their series of games.

They didn't need to carve their place in it, they founded the genre. VN was coined by Leaf to avoid using Chunsoft's copyrighted term Soundnovel.

Edit2:

It is also suposeldy in the same world, timeline(very loosely) has cameos from428 characters in it. 428 fans are pretty core, they know the connection.

Okay, now I see where the comparison is coming from. Still if L5 really hope to sell 500 000 (which seems unrealistic to me as well), they would have to do it on behalf of its appeal as a graphic adventure, since novel games, even successful ones like 428 just don't get anywhere near that number.

428 was published by Sega on WII and Spike on PSP/PS3, Chunsoft have reopened their publishing branch 2010. While Spike is definitely a small publisher it's not the case of Sega which have some good success in Japan.

Same as Shiren the Wanderer, yes. But they already were like a sublabel, all the other Chunsoft releases are advertised with 428 in its packaging materials, but no other Sega games. And sales were as niche as afterwards with Spike.
 
428 was published by Sega on WII and Spike on PSP/PS3, Chunsoft have reopened their publishing branch 2010. While Spike is definitely a small publisher it's not the case of Sega which have some good success in Japan.

How much did Spike and Chunsoft work with each other prior to the merger?
 

muu

Member
They're not virtually nonexistent. The shelf space for DS adventures is as big as the one for RPGs in Japanese stores, bigger than any other genre. Layton especially, and to a lesser degree Phoenix Wright, are quite big sellers. Then you have lots of smaller ones like Tingle or that suicide adventure by SNK.

They're also more numerous on mobile phones and PC.

On consoles, the action types like Resident Evil and Zelda tend to be more popular though. Ico and Shadow of Memories also belong to this genre.

If you're going to go by that logic, then JRPGs are adventure games with filler battles.

So sure, filler battle-enhanced adventures sell. Action game-enhanced adventures sell. Adventures with mini-puzzles sell. Users want to control the experience, and these games add that element to what is otherwise an electronic choose-your-own-adventure book. If that's what you meant, sure, you are 100% correct. Action-adventures sell shittons and every action game with a story is at its core an action adventure.

The discussion at hand was Time Travelers though, and it's a graphically enhanced presentation of the same kind of game Chunsoft had made with some QTE added for good measure. Similar titles have existed -- Yaru Dora series was a reasonable success, for example, though discontinued after successive releases faltered -- but they're not something we see today.
 

extralite

Member
If you're going to go by that logic, then JRPGs are adventure games with filler battles.

So sure, filler battle-enhanced adventures sell. Action game-enhanced adventures sell. Adventures with mini-puzzles sell. Users want to control the experience, and these games add that element to what is otherwise an electronic choose-your-own-adventure book. If that's what you meant, sure, you are 100% correct. Action-adventures sell shittons and every action game with a story is at its core an action adventure.

The discussion at hand was Time Travelers though, and it's a graphically enhanced presentation of the same kind of game Chunsoft had made with some QTE added for good measure. Similar titles have existed -- Yaru Dora series was a reasonable success, for example, though discontinued after successive releases faltered -- but they're not something we see today.

I'm just using the term adventure as Japanese store clerks use it to put the games into the same shelf.

And RPGs constitute their own genre and are well defined, no need to mix them up. No one expecting a level raising game will buy an adventure anyway.

You can leave out the action oriented ones if you want too, just compare it to Layton and Phoenix Wright and you'll see that you can sell a lot more in the genre.

And adding story to an action game doesn't make it an action adventure. Adding adventure elements to it, does though (like collecting items and using them to solve puzzles in other places as in Zelda).

Is it really the same kind of game Chunsoft made? Can you define what kind of game TT is?

The trailer says it's a playing cinema, sounds and looks akin to something like Heavy Rain, probably the most modern type of Western adventure. QTEs also indicate this influence.

428 on the other hand is a playable book. You spend 80 % of the time reading and advancing pages. 10 % with looking up hypertext links, similar to text browsing on the internet. 1 % watching animated clips, 3 % with selecting multiple choice options and the rest with navigating the time chart and selecting characters.

Basically, you're reading a book with next to no animation and zero voice work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXNXZhA2Nak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZKc1b4FnXM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OfPT_gE6CI

Comparing book sales and movie ticket sales, don't you think that the 'gameplay', or let's better call it experience, is appealing to a much broader audience on video game consoles in the case of TT?

It's no surprise either that many VNs add graphic adventure touches to their gameplay core, to raise their appeal. But even something like the new Kamai-tachi game for Vita, with its gyro room exploring, still is 80 % novel text with background stills. Although they added voice acting as well, not really new to VNs in general though.

TT uses the same kind of engine as a full-fledged graphic adventure for presenting its story. A polygonal one too, great looking and with detailed animated character models. Doesn't get much more costly for an adventure than this.

Edit:
Okay, now this looks a lot like 428:

time02.jpg

So they're keeping the multiple characters and the interdependent storyline. Maybe it really is like a movie version of 428 gameplay-wise. Anyway, looks fantastic, my interest in this game has greatly increased.
 
In light of that Conception thread, I have a question for Sales-Age.

Why don't these obscure Japanese PSP games get a Western PSN release? Since you're not dealing with retailers and disks and what not, wouldn't there be absolutely no risk in releasing these games for PSN? Besides paying the cost for translation, what else would prevent them from being released?
 

Yeshua

Member
In light of that Conception thread, I have a question for Sales-Age.

Why don't these obscure Japanese PSP games get a Western PSN release? Since you're not dealing with retailers and disks and what not, wouldn't there be absolutely no risk in releasing these games for PSN? Besides paying the cost for translation, what else would prevent them from being released?

Translation cost aren't cheap to begin with, second Sony has to accept those games to be localized (they have refused some of them in the past), then the original publisher must be willing to sell licence right and the developer need to be available to do all programming to put the translation in the game (GKH say hi).
 
Translation cost aren't cheap to begin with, second Sony has to accept those games to be localized (they have refused some of them in the past), then the original publisher must be willing to sell licence right and the developer need to be available to do all programming to put the translation in the game (GKH say hi).
So the bulk of it is the translation? I don't see why Sony would be against it, I mean if its allowed in Japan, there shouldn't be a reason why they wouldn't allow a western release. Since its all digital, wouldn't they be able to recoup the cost easily? Regarding the original publisher, why wouldn't they want to sell the license? Its just profit for them.
 

Yeshua

Member
So the bulk of it is the translation? I don't see why Sony would be against it, I mean if its allowed in Japan, there shouldn't be a reason why they wouldn't allow a western release. Since its all digital, wouldn't they be able to recoup the cost easily? Regarding the original publisher, why wouldn't they want to sell the license? Its just profit for them.

Sony America, in the past, has refused the localization of some game like Soul Hacker on PSone, on PSP they refused Sakura Taisen I&II (those are visual novel not game for them), Tales of Eternia, Breath of Fire III, the original Devil Summoner. I think one reason Working Design went down was because of Sony America. There is probably more games that have been refused by Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft that we haven't heard of.

Marvelous Interactive refused to sell to Rising Star Game the licence right for an European release of Arc Rise Fantasia or the WII version of Rune Factory Ocean for some unknown reason.
 
We're saying that despite being less successful as Final Fantasy overseas, Dragon Quest X could still achieve a moderate success, given the fact that IX did "only" one million units, and the decrease from such figures may put the game around 500k, which would not be bad at all.

Where the heck are you getting 1 million for IX from? I've never seen anything even close to that. Are you including Europe in that stat?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=403891

IX did somewhere south of 140k (Possibly 100k or lower) its opening month in North America. Meanwhile XIII-2 did at minimum 330k, probably 350k+.
 

test_account

XP-39C²
Where the heck are you getting 1 million for IX from? I've never seen anything even close to that. Are you including Europe in that stat?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=403891

IX did somewhere south of 140k (Possibly 100k or lower) its opening month in North America. Meanwhile XIII-2 did at minimum 330k, probably 350k+.
It is from one of Nintendo's earning reports. I cant find a link to it now unfortunately. 1.02 million is the exact known number. And yep, Europe is included in this number.
 
Nibel said:
This week's most wanted list from Famitsu readers

07/07. [PS3] Final Fantasy Versus XIII (Square Enix, TBA) – 429 votes
I don't pay much attention to the most wanted list, but has it stayed in there most/all of the last 6 years?
20/26. [PS3] The Last Remnant (Square Enix, TBA) – 297 votes
Ahahahahahahahaha!
Joshua,
I just realized that TitleEnglish filter in the Game Search section is case sensitive (and I suppose that is true for the other filters).
Wouldn't be more user-friendly to make it case insensitive ?
Can you give an example of what's not working? I just tried %mario% and and the more specific super mario 64 and they seem to work.
 
Where the heck are you getting 1 million for IX from? I've never seen anything even close to that. Are you including Europe in that stat?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=403891

IX did somewhere south of 140k (Possibly 100k or lower) its opening month in North America. Meanwhile XIII-2 did at minimum 330k, probably 350k+.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2011/110426e.pdf (page 6)

Dragon Quest IX: 1.050.000 shipped units (without Japan)


As of March 2011
 

watershed

Banned
I'm glad DQ IX did so well in Japan and in the west. Its nice when Nintendo flexes its marketing and advertising muscles to help a 3rd party game. Too bad DQ XI is years and years away...
 

Road

Member
US = the world.

Japan doesn't exist either. We discuss imaginary sales because NPD doesn't give us any numbers anymore.
 
Where the heck are you getting 1 million for IX from? I've never seen anything even close to that. Are you including Europe in that stat?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=403891

IX did somewhere south of 140k (Possibly 100k or lower) its opening month in North America. Meanwhile XIII-2 did at minimum 330k, probably 350k+.
DQIX did 132,000 it's first NPD.

http://nintendoeverything.com/47165/


That was also with 2 weeks less versus FFXIII-2 (which did 350,000 across consoles combined) for the reporting period.
 
Gran Turismo

gran turismo

or try "resident evil" vs "Resident Evil"

EDIT:
Seems related to Search Type LIKE.
With BOOLEAN it works.

Short answer: Problem fixed, but you'll get fewer results in some cases.

Longer answer: Just a search for "Gran Turismo" shouldn't get any matches. Without any wildcards, it should look for a match with exactly that title (capitalization not a matter). What seems to have been happening is that when saving the cache files wildcards weren't being taken into account, so multiple searches could match to the same file. However, it seems case DID matter to the file name. So the search for "Gran Turismo" was matching up to the results for "Gran Turismo%" and the search for "gran turismo" was matching up to the results for "%gran turismo". One looking for games starting with the words and finding results, the other looking for games ending with the words and finding none.

With corrected behavior,
Gran Turismo, no matches
gran turismo%, many matches
 

Celine

Member
Short answer: Problem fixed, but you'll get fewer results in some cases.

Longer answer: Just a search for "Gran Turismo" shouldn't get any matches. Without any wildcards, it should look for a match with exactly that title (capitalization not a matter). What seems to have been happening is that when saving the cache files wildcards weren't being taken into account, so multiple searches could match to the same file. However, it seems case DID matter to the file name. So the search for "Gran Turismo" was matching up to the results for "Gran Turismo%" and the search for "gran turismo" was matching up to the results for "%gran turismo". One looking for games starting with the words and finding results, the other looking for games ending with the words and finding none.

With corrected behavior,
Gran Turismo, no matches
gran turismo%, many matches
Well, when I used it I put the "%" at the end and resulted the incorrect behaviour I described but was too lazy to do it in the post above ;-)

Now works, great.
 

Takao

Banned
Sony America, in the past, has refused the localization of some game like Soul Hacker on PSone, on PSP they refused Sakura Taisen I&II (those are visual novel not game for them), Tales of Eternia, Breath of Fire III, the original Devil Summoner. I think one reason Working Design went down was because of Sony America. There is probably more games that have been refused by Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft that we haven't heard of.

Marvelous Interactive refused to sell to Rising Star Game the licence right for an European release of Arc Rise Fantasia or the WII version of Rune Factory Ocean for some unknown reason.

SCEA doesn't give a shit anymore. They'll pretty much allow anything on PSP at this point. There are even rumors that they're no longer asking for royalties, which is why games like Hakukoi, and Corpse Party got localized when they wouldn't have 4 years ago.
 

Bruno MB

Member
Comgnet has finally updated its charts, and it seems that according to them Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland 3D will have a nice third week.

Hmm, YSO's predictions put B/W 2 opening weekend very far from 2 miliions, even lower from 1,5.

That would be a huge decline from the previous entry that sold over 2.5 million units.

On the other hand it would be on par with the rest of mainline titles (around 1.5 million), the problem is that it will be more front-loaded.
 

NeonZ

Member
What about third version titles? B/W 2 is basically replacing a Gray, after all. I think as long as it performs signficantly better than those, it'll be seen as a success.
 

Road

Member
I doubt they go only by Comgnet. I think there are retailers among them.

Usually =/= only. =P

They're probably more informed than us, but their predictions are still predictions. (For instance, the highest Tokyo Jungle prediction was 84k.)
 

matmanx1

Member
The only way I could see B/W 2 opening much lower than the originals is if some of the fans decide they'd rather wait for the next "real" game for 3DS instead of this sequel to a DS game. It's possible even that some are seeing this as a cash in by Nintendo and not a real effort. I'm just speculating here, obviously.

I've never been under the impression that Pokemon fans were picky about where they got their Pokemon fix but if we see an opening that's a million or so less than the originals then something is definitely up.
 

Aostia

El Capitan Todd
The only way I could see B/W 2 opening much lower than the originals is if some of the fans decide they'd rather wait for the next "real" game for 3DS instead of this sequel to a DS game. It's possible even that some are seeing this as a cash in by Nintendo and not a real effort. I'm just speculating here, obviously.

I've never been under the impression that Pokemon fans were picky about where they got their Pokemon fix but if we see an opening that's a million or so less than the originals then something is definitely up.

This could also be seen as a "Grey" placeholder, let's say. It's something rather new in terms of mainline entries, so I'm opened to surprises.
 
Is there anyway that Nintendo are going to regret not making Pokeman a 3DS release?
No because they can still make a Pokemon 3DS.

The only way I could see B/W 2 opening much lower than the originals is if some of the fans decide they'd rather wait for the next "real" game for 3DS instead of this sequel to a DS game. It's possible even that some are seeing this as a cash in by Nintendo and not a real effort. I'm just speculating here, obviously.

I've never been under the impression that Pokemon fans were picky about where they got their Pokemon fix but if we see an opening that's a million or so less than the originals then something is definitely up.
I think this is gonna happen, but that once Pokemon fans see B&W2 in action through their friends and find out that its actually a brand new game rather than a cash-in "3rd version" they'll jump in. So a lower opening should happen, but its legs will be fine and should make up for some of that lost initial sales in the end.
 

Chunky

Member
Is there anyway that Nintendo are going to regret not making Pokeman a 3DS release?
Considering how cheap this will be to make over the first 6 gen pokemon game, I think they'll be content.
I'd assume the reason they're making a BW2 instead of Grey is because they know gen 6 will take a bit longer than usual to develop, so they want something meatier to fill the gap.
 

Road

Member
What about third version titles? B/W 2 is basically replacing a Gray, after all. I think as long as it performs signficantly better than those, it'll be seen as a success.

Media Create:

[NDS] Pokemon Black (Pokemon Co.) {2010-09-18} - 1,323,423 / 2,828,257
[NDS] Pokemon White (Pokemon Co.) {2010-09-18} - 1,234,356 / 2,572,356

[NDS] Pokemon Diamond (Pokemon Co.) {2006.09.28} - 820,047 / 3,185,215
[NDS] Pokemon Pearl (Pokemon Co.) {2006.09.28} - 768,687 / 2,629,036
[NDS] Pokemon Platinum (Pokemon Co.) {2008.09.13} - 963,273 / 2,616,600

[GBA] Pokemon Sapphire (Pokemon Co.) {2002.11.21} - 549,337 / 2,610,744
[GBA] Pokemon Ruby (Pokemon Co.) {2002.11.21} - 543,962 / 2,550,021
[GBA] Pokemon Emerald (Pokemon Co.) {2004.09.16} - 790,527 / 1,916,505
 

Aostia

El Capitan Todd
Media Create:

[NDS] Pokemon Black (Pokemon Co.) {2010-09-18} - 1,323,423 / 2,828,257
[NDS] Pokemon White (Pokemon Co.) {2010-09-18} - 1,234,356 / 2,572,356

[NDS] Pokemon Diamond (Pokemon Co.) {2006.09.28} - 820,047 / 3,185,215
[NDS] Pokemon Pearl (Pokemon Co.) {2006.09.28} - 768,687 / 2,629,036
[NDS] Pokemon Platinum (Pokemon Co.) {2008.09.13} - 963,273 / 2,616,600

[GBA] Pokemon Sapphire (Pokemon Co.) {2002.11.21} - 549,337 / 2,610,744
[GBA] Pokemon Ruby (Pokemon Co.) {2002.11.21} - 543,962 / 2,550,021
[GBA] Pokemon Emerald (Pokemon Co.) {2004.09.16} - 790,527 / 1,916,505

Oh my...looking at those numbers we could also say that was BW to be outstanding, more thatn hypotetical BW2 numbers disappointing :\
never realized tht BW did so well.
 

watershed

Banned
What are people's expectations for B&W2? I don't think it will match B&W but I don't think Nintendo expects it too either. To me it seems like B&W2 is getting another mainline pokemon game out for fairly cheap development costs to make what's basically easy money and to fill the gap for what will be a more expensive to make pokemon 3ds debut title.
 
What are people's expectations for B&W2? I don't think it will match B&W but I don't think Nintendo expects it too either. To me it seems like B&W2 is getting another mainline pokemon game out for fairly cheap development costs to make what's basically easy money and to fill the gap for what will be a more expensive to make pokemon 3ds debut title.

Imo, more than a third version but less than a mainline entry; I'd say around 3-3.5 million units.
 

Chris1964

Sales-Age Genius
Low predictions for Pokemon may have to do something with limited supply from Nintendo, but this was supposed to be the case too with B/W and it didn't happen.

Big hardware bump for 3DS is expected from retailers.
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Low predictions for Pokemon may have to do something with limited supply from Nintendo, but this was supposed to be the case too with B/W and it didn't happen.

Big hardware bump for 3DS is expected from retailers.

We all know are expecting a bump due to Pokèmon, but still it amazes me Nintendo could obtain to give its brand new platform a substantial rise thanks to a release for its older console. It's never happened, right? XD
 
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