lunchwithyuzo
Banned
I think LBX PSN probably depends on whatever deal's worked out with Bandai. I wouldn't count on it though.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Youkai Watch [LEVEL5] is a 3DS game now!
- Thread starter king zell
- Start date
What happened?
Magicpaint
Member
Lotsa bombas
electroplankton
Banned
But some titles succeeded as well, in particular the growing sales of Inazuma Eleven in the West.
metalslimer
Member
Multiple high profile flops the biggest being ninokuni ps3. Of course with all the merchandising they are probably still doing well
Biggest flopa Level-5 was involved in this past year is Gundam Age. Level-5 was just lucky they weren't footing the bill there. Nino Kuni PS3 is their biggest self-financed bomba.
Not exactly a hard feat to accomplish. The PS3 version pushed 121k in Japan last yea.
sublimit
Banned
I think it was a big mistake they released the DS version first.
Bigger mistake making bad WKC games on PS3, and releasing children RPGs on PS3.
sublimit
Banned
Ni no kuni is "a children's RPG"?
Magicpaint
Member
I think it's more to do with the audience on PS3 than a DS version. Level-5 developed quite the fanbase on the DS.
GhaleonQ
Member
Wait, hold on.
I may be an imbecile (*allows time for people to think, "Yep"*), but there are no gameplay details yet AND the sole trailer made it seem less like spirits fighting each other (I mean, they have 2 franchises already doing that, soccer and toys) and more like a puzzle-adventure game using spirits as your tools.
Surely, they wouldn't have 3 multimedia franchises devoted to the same thing. Plus, with Layton out, they'd use this as a headscratcher substitute.
Anyway, I'm buying it. If it's the thing I'm imagining, it's 1 of the games for which I'm the most excited.
Hot Coldman
Banned
Child-friendly. It's Ghibli and Level 5, pretty clear what kind of audience they had in mind.
Possibly an even bigger mistake was making NNK PS3 edition
sublimit
Banned
But it's also a Studio Ghibli game and i'm willing to bet that lots of older PS3 users are Studio Ghibli fans.
IMO the problem with Ni no kuni was that the DS version watered down the excitement for the game and by the time the PS3 version came no one really cared anymore.
Studio Ghibli has lots of fans in their 30's and older.
Child friendly RPG is not a demeaning term. It just shows NNK's target audience ranges from kids to adults, just like Ghibli movies.
Yeah, but it's Level 5 as well. Also the marketing made it seem like it was aimed specifically for very young children.
StreetsAhead
Member
Designs look reasonably cool in the larger scan. Nice to see the main character has a name, too.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
Remember when Level 5 was going to be the new Square Enix? :[
Now Layton and Inazuma sell about half what they used to, and none of their new crossmedia efforts seem able to crack 400k.
slaughterking
Member
Not fully committing to Nintendo platforms and not pushing for timely western releases were their biggest mistakes. After Layton and Inazuma it seemed like Hino made a deal with the devil, but since then it's been nothing but bombas and moderate successes at best.
Kinda sucks, but maybe they can still be the next SE seeing how the latter is pretty poorly managed, too!
Kinda sucks, but maybe they can still be the next SE seeing how the latter is pretty poorly managed, too!
Why would they have to fully commit to nintendo systems?
slaughterking
Member
Appealing to the Nintendo audience is what they were extremely successful at and it was the sole reason why Level 5 became the rising star that some people (half-jokingly) expected to be the next SE. In Japan, Inazuma Eleven 2 alone sold more or less just as much as all Level 5 games on PSP and PS3 combined (that's including WKC).
You're also missing out on Nintendo's marketing support in western markets which turned out to be extremely valuable for the Layton series.
You're also missing out on Nintendo's marketing support in western markets which turned out to be extremely valuable for the Layton series.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
I think the annual (and in some cases semi-annual) milking hurts them more than anything, as well as grouping their franchises into trilogies (which have done nothing in effect but giving fans a good jumping off point). Though yes, stuff like LBX and console NNK likely would've done somewhat better had they been given to Nintendo platform audiences (as they were basically built for that audience anyway).
electroplankton
Banned
Nope, that was the most reasonable strategy in the whole project.
sublimit
Banned
If they had released the DS version after the PS3 one it would have sold just as badly as the PS3 one.And the PS3 would have sold much more than it actually did if it was the first one to come out.
The fact is that the second version was destined to flop no matter on which platform it would've been.Especially since both versions from what i heard shared more or less 50% of the same content.
I think that's the reason they didn't release the DS version over here.
slaughterking
Member
It's most assuredly the book that didn't allow a western release. And it also made the Japanese release a pretty ill conceived product for that matter.
sublimit
Banned
I would agree if the DS version hadn't sold fairly well,book or no book.
Hot Coldman
Banned
True. Doesn't mean their output isn't obviously skewed towards a younger audience. Just because something is of a high quality and doesn't patronise doesn't mean it's not a kid's game. See: Mario, Pixar films.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
PS3 just didn't have the audience for this game, it really is that simple. And had the PS3 version come first, it would've had forced use/bundling of the Magic Master, it would've had 50% less story, it probably wouldn't be getting a western release (thnx book!) and would've for sure still sold significantly less than the ~600k the DS version managed. It also probably would've pushed the DS version too far out for a release on that platform being viable yet.
It's less about "kids audience" and more about "all ages audience". PS3 isn't really strong in either, which is why you also see games like Minna no Golf 5 or Boku no Natsuyasumi 3 selling so much less than their predecessors used to and 3rd parties in general are avoiding these sorts releases on the system.
lol that's anime that's cheap pocket change to hino, sunrise is probably still star struck a wealthy man like hino came to visit there anime sweat shop, nino kuni is big hd ps3 rpg that came with a real book and was a collab with an outside entity studio Ghibli.
Nintendo's marketing muscle didn't really help Inazuma, did it? It's successful in the territories where the anime airs, and LBX would likely have been exactly the same. SCEA planned on localized LBX and releasing it themselves, but something happened. I'm assuming it was the fact Level-5 took 3 years to release a PSP game.
LBX was going to hit 400k easily. They just clipped the game's legs by releasing LBX Boost so soon. At the end of 2011 the original release did 350k.
And yeah, anyone who stated Level-5 was the next Square Enix in a serious manner obviously did not play those two company's games during their "golden" era.
That's not "just" anime. Gundam AGE failed on TV, in video games (which Level-5 developed), and most importantly, in the toy market. Hino was given the chance to work on one of the most well known Japanese franchises of all time, and created one of the bigger failures in that series' history. If there ever was something that showcased that everything he touched didn't turn to gold that would be it.
I also doubt Sunrise were star struck given Namco Bandai (their parent) is a much more successful company than Level-5.
Gundam as a franchise is easily bigger then anything Hino has ever worked on Ghibli included.
It wasn't just an anime either, AGE failed in every way possible. Games, Anime, Model, and toys. This will likely go down as not only Hino's biggest failures but large scale franchise failuresfor this entire decade.
slaughterking
Member
I addressed that earlier when I said that Level 5's western (non-)releases are hurting them. Inazuma had an extremely late and haphazardly executed launch. The UK didn't even get the game initially and the DS had already lost traction when the game came out while the 3DS was only weeks away. The anime already aired in some countries, while others wouldn't get it until many months later. Now I wont pretend to know how much it takes to align the launch of a game and anime in multiple countries, but I do know that they could not have done a much worse job in the two or three years it took them to get the game to Europe.
That being said, it's supposedly doing really well in France, Spain and Italy despite all that.
do you know if the captain tsubasa series was popular in those countries as well?
electroplankton
Banned
lol?
As far as we know, IE is a growing brand in many European countries. In Italy, it's a pretty big thing, and you can see by ads everywhere in shops. In France, the second one sold more than 200k units. I mean, come on.
slaughterking
Member
I don't know for sure, but I'm fairly certain Tsubasa was popular with kids all over Europe.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
It's hard to tell really. The only major region IE wasn't at all impressive is the UK, but then Nintendo in general is on the outs there and IE1 had a crazy delay and stealth release/zero promotion there too. It's done well in France, Germany, Spain and especially Italy though.
Nintendo has been really instrumental in Layton's western success though, to the point where it's a consistent multimillion seller overseas. Layton 1 alone sold more than all SCE's Level 5 published games have combined in the west.
The original release only did about 20k after it dropped out of the top 30, and it did that about 2 months before Boost. It was about 325k to the end of 2011, 400k would've been a big stretch and not at all easy.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
Gundam Vs Dragon Quest?
As an overall Franchise?
Gundam.
Char is a national Icon. Gundam Tokyo Front and 1 to 1 Gundam are things that even Dragon Quest doesn't have something to equal.
As far as a gaming franchise? Dragon Quest is bigger and easily more important, but very few things have the power and legacy that Gundam has.
Captain Tsubasa was huge in Spain in the late 80s or early 90s, that's for sure
KillerTravis
Banned
Has anyone seen the new Fantasy Life screenshots? This one reminds me of a Nintendo series lol:
The game is really looking good and it seems they are putting a lot of effort behind it.
Layton's not something I'd expect any Level-5 IP to replicate. It was the right game for the right time. It's like expecting Dragon Quest VII to have been a huge success in North America if SCE published it, and marketed it because they got Final Fantasy VII to be a gigantic success in the west. Inazuma, LBX, and this are not Layton.
For their future titles they'll probably be distributed by Bandai, and in their case Level-5 better be doing the marketing themselves or expect these games to go completely un-noticed, lol.
You can bet on that... in Itally you literally can't find a person in his 20's that doesn't know Holly & Benji (Italian name of Captain Tsubasa)
Yep... you even stole our initial song of Lupin the 3rd to use it on Oliver y Benji
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
I think Inazuma and LBX have way more built-in appeal than DQVII did though. For one they actually more closely align with games that Nintendo does well with (Pokémon) and indeed Nintendo's had some good success with Inazuma anyway, and other similar games in the past like Fossil Fighters. Not multimillion sellers, but still way above DQVII.
I do think Layton's success could maybe be replicated in like minded games though, ie: a new story driven logic puzzler versus a collect 'em up kids JRPG.
Oh I didn't know there was a psp game, it sold just above 43k that's not so terrible for a psp game compared to a big budget lavishly produced project like nino kuni that sold around 87k that came with high quality book with the game (imagine all the trees that went to waste).
Dragon quest 9 sold like 5million world wide and professor layton be staking more paper and getting more ladys then gundam.