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Media Create Sales: Week 6, 2013 (Feb 04 - Feb 10)

Nintendo chose the wrong platform to name the Wii's successor after. Should have called it Nintendo DS Home or something, a name which would have been equally as applicable considering the two screens (TV and Gamepad).
 

nickcv

Member
pacman week confirmed

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Vita sales need to pick up this year for the sake of competition in the dedicated handheld market. Sony really need to bring something over the next few months.

I actually don't feel we need competition.
It was consumer forces that brought the 3DS down in price; not the competition.

3DS is not just competing for a 'handheld' market but for the games market overall and more importantly - the entertainment market.
 

urfe

Member
DQVII is sold out around my house. I think it'll have better legs than the DS games.

Likewise with Fantasy Life. I wouldn't be surprised if it slowly doubled its sales.

I'm always thinking of buying another system, but after finishing Bravely Default this week, I still have to get to Fire Emblem, Dragon Quest VII, Layton Vs. AA, and then the new Layton at the end of the month... the 3DS should be all I need until the end of the year....

... which means I may just be picking up a Wii U (you know, when the games come out in the fall) before a Vita.
 

serplux

Member
Vita sales need to pick up this year for the sake of competition in the dedicated handheld market. Sony really need to bring something over the next few months.

Nintendo's got plenty of handheld titles to release. I mean, we're getting Fire Emblem: Awakening, Brain Age: Concentration Training, Etrian Odyssey 4, Castlevania: Lord of Shadow - Mirror of Fate, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner - Soul Hackers, and Lego City Undercover within the span of two months in America. And Japan's getting the trinity (plus SMT IV and a whole bunch of B-tier titles) of killer apps in Pokemon, Monster Hunter, and Dragon Quest, along with an absurd DS seller sequel in Tomodachi Collection.
 
I think the combination of PSO2 and Soul Sacrifice will give the Vita a much needed injection of confidence, but those alone won't bring a vast turn around. Sony will NEED to try to build momentum going from the upcoming Meeting/Destination Playstation and roll that through conference season.
Probability of this happening is up for debate...
 

SmokyDave

Member
Let's hope Soul Sacrifice does decently well.

It won't. I'm pretty certain of that. At best, it'll be a 2 week bump and an extra 10k hardware units.

Competition? They abandoned the competition ship quite a few million 3DS sales ago. All Sony can do now about Vita is damage control. Its supposed competitor sells 10 times more, there's no contest and there won't be any until next year to say the least, when 3DS will probably be at 17/18 millions.
By 'competition', I don't mean a neck & neck race. I just mean it'd be bad for gamers if the dedicated handheld market only had one entrant.

I don't think it would do much in terms of competition tho, at least in the handheld space, Nintendo will always be Nintendo. I guess things like the PSP and the (at the time) upcoming Vita, meant that Nintendo have Monster Hunter on lock down? But that only benefited Nintendo.

I mean with home consoles its 2 against one, so Nintendo are forced to improve, it looks bad if they don't. But with handhelds? Nintendo can just keep to their laurels, for better or worse
(better for me)
. I'd like to see your response cos I'm, sure I'm missing something that you could enlighten me on (not joking!)
Resting on their laurels isn't good for you or me. Sure, you're getting what you want but they have no impetus to give you any more than that. There's no need to innovate or step their game up if they're the only players in town.

On a personal and selfish note, it'd suck for me because I far prefer the Sony approach to handhelds. If they dropped out of things altogether that'd be the end of dedicated handhelds for me.
 
Lot's of people pinning their hopes on this.

What if Soul Sacrifice isn't the saviour in March? What's notable after that?

If something drastic in terms of support or change in hardware business plan doesn't happen before/shortly after, I would assume the Vita would have really nothing left for it.
 
On a personal and selfish note, it'd suck for me because I far prefer the Sony approach to handhelds. If they dropped out of things altogether that'd be the end of dedicated handhelds for me.

I think its clear they can't compete where they are.
If they return next gen - they should match the Nintendo power and gain third party benefits and have another go on the first party side.

Sony skipped a generation. It worked in the PSP gen because they could do things the DS couldn't even come close to. The added functionality of the Vita is weakened in comparison to the 3DS; sure there are things - but not software selling things; especially not handheld stuff.

They are unable to create a system of software entirely removed from the Nintendo platform.
This is not a 3D vs 2D gen. Its 3D vs 3D and its cheaper and easier just to push the 3DS; especially when one is capable of producing something the other can't; duel screen gaming and 3D.
 

urfe

Member
The next underperforming Level 5 title is coming up in just 2 weeks.

It's coming out way too soon to Layton vs AA, and while I haven't finished it yet, it's leaving a really bad taste in my mouth about Layton gameplay (and I'm a big Layton fan).

They should've made the last game's upgrade bigger, and released this in the fall.
 
Is Fantasy Life Level 5's first big success in a while? They seemed to have disappointing results throughout the last year.

In Japan?(Inazuma eleven games have been successful in Europe afaik)
Yes, I think so; some anticipated releases in past months have performed below expectations overall, so I suppose they should be happy about Fantasy life's sales so far.
 
On a personal and selfish note, it'd suck for me because I far prefer the Sony approach to handhelds. If they dropped out of things altogether that'd be the end of dedicated handhelds for me.

Welp since apparently you'd just ignore any good games that came out on the Nintendo handheld I have no sympathy. Sucks for you. Sony can barely be called a competitor at this point. Nintendo is fighting for their life with Apple right now. If there was a territory where they would rest on their laurels it would be Japan, but since neither of us live there I don't think that is the concern.

Anyway, looking at the Wii U it's going to be a slow fall below 10k just like it was for Vita.
 

AOC83

Banned
On a personal and selfish note, it'd suck for me because I far prefer the Sony approach to handhelds. If they dropped out of things altogether that'd be the end of dedicated handhelds for me.

Then better prepare for the end, Sony is done in the handheld business.
 
Resting on their laurels isn't good for you or me. Sure, you're getting what you want but they have no impetus to give you any more than that. There's no need to innovate or step their game up if they're the only players in town.

I agree to an extent, but I'm not exactly convinced that Nintendo ever rests on their laurels with respect to their handhelds (outside of pricing, of course). The GBA, for example, had no real competition and, to me, it was one of the best Nintendo platforms to ever exist. I think that is where Nintendo's real passion and energy is focused on, and I have yet to see evidence of them stepping off the gas with regard to their software production in that market. Nintendo has and never will sleep when it comes to their pocket gadgets.
 

MrT-Tar

Member
On a personal and selfish note, it'd suck for me because I far prefer the Sony approach to handhelds. If they dropped out of things altogether that'd be the end of dedicated handhelds for me.

Surely the 3rd party games that have defined Sony portables would likely shift to Nintendo ones instead? Hence you would still likely get the Personas, Metal Gear Solids, Falcom stuff, God Eaters that made the PSP so awesome; MH has done it, and I can't see why in the event of Sony pulling out of the handheld market those couldn't either.
 

Alrus

Member
Huge number for DQ VII as expected, would have been nice if it opened higher than DQ VI but it was going to be really hard anyway. And the fact that it opened so close is still pretty impressive.
AC won't die either, it's doing so much better than the DS one and there's no sign of sales slowing down anytime soon.

In the West? Killzone. Maybe.

Killzone really isn't big enough to become a savior. It's a rather low selling franchise all in all (I don't think a single game in the franchise broke 2 mil).
 
Dragon Quest VII... For those who were worried about the 50% sell-through in the first day, and those who were saying that yes, stores are full of copies, so implying a partial failure.

Is Fantasy Life Level 5's first big success in a while? They seemed to have disappointing results throughout the last year.

Nope.
Last year, also the second Inazuma Eleven Go and the second expansion of Little Battlers eXperience (both for 3DS) succeeded. Fantasy Life is the first successful IP for the company after Little Battlers eXperience on PSP, that was released in 2011.

It's a kind of urban legend that Level-5 was having only disappointing results. The reason, I think, was because Professor Layton saw declining sales, and some of their new IPs did not succeed. But when you look at them, they were all small budget projects, like Guild 01 and Girl's RPG.

The main failure were Ni no Kuni on PS3 (though it is having a good reception in the West) and Gundam Age on PSP (which was published by Namco though). Nothing worrying; probably Level-5 will not see the heights it had on DS with Layton and Inazuma, but it is adapting fast to the changing market, and it seems it is having some good ideas lately. Fantasy Life was able to grasp some of the Animal Crossing craziness and it has eventually overcome the 200k mark (pretty unusual for a new IP) and Youkai Watch might have a chance to sell nicely as well.

Vita sales need to pick up this year for the sake of competition in the dedicated handheld market. Sony really need to bring something over the next few months.

Actually, the dedicated handheld market is hit by an heavy competition from mobile and browser game, hence it is not really necessary to have another platform in the market; if Vita were like PSP, then it would have been different, but it's not able to offer a fraction of its line-up. Also, with GBA and GB we still had a huge amount of quality titles without having direct competitors.
 

zroid

Banned
Surely the 3rd party games that have defined Sony portables would likely shift to Nintendo ones instead? Hence you would still likely get the Personas, Metal Gear Solids, Falcom stuff, God Eaters that mad the PSP so awesome; MH has done it, and I can't see why in the event of Sony pulling out of the handheld market those couldn't either.

You must not have met Dave before :p

he's that guy who doesn't care about games, only hardware


Also, I wonder if Falcom stuff would actually make the transition...
 

SmokyDave

Member
I think its clear they can't compete where they are.
If they return next gen - they should match the Nintendo power and gain third party benefits and have another go on the first party side.

Sony skipped a generation. It worked in the PSP gen because they could do things the DS couldn't even come close to. The added functionality of the Vita is weakened in comparison to the 3DS; sure there are things - but not software selling things; especially not handheld stuff.

They are unable to create a system of software entirely removed from the Nintendo platform.
This is not a 3D vs 2D gen. Its 3D vs 3D and its cheaper and easier just to push the 3DS; especially when one is capable of producing something the other can't; duel screen gaming and 3D.
I don't know what they can do, to be honest. The only region where handhelds matter is Japan and Nintendo already have 100% of the 'essential' handheld titles locked down. Their install base makes it far likelier than any 'breakout' hits will occur on the 3DS too, perpetuating the cycle. The PSP wasn't successful because it could do things the DS couldn't, it was successful because of Monster Hunter (or, GTA & GoW in the west). Without that title (or an equivalent) to push a Sony handheld, I can't see any solution for them.

Surely the 3rd party games that have defined Sony portables would likely shift to Nintendo ones instead? Hence you would still likely get the Personas, Metal Gear Solids, Falcom stuff, God Eaters that made the PSP so awesome; MH has done it, and I can't see why in the event of Sony pulling out of the handheld market those couldn't either.
I can't dig Nintendo handheld hardware. It diminishes the experience to the point where I'd just rather play iOS & console games instead. Just as some people cannot abide smartphones, I cannot abide Nintendo clamshells. That's before we get into the fact that I ain't getting a portable Gran Turismo or God of War on a Nintendo system.

Then better prepare for the end, Sony is done in the handheld business.
I reckon so. I think the Vita will have another 2 or 3 years left but I don't think for one minute it'll see a successor.
 

Kerub

Banned
Lot's of people pinning their hopes on this.

What if Soul Sacrifice isn't the saviour in March? What's notable after that?

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't there more or less nothing?

God eater 2 maybe..but as somebody mentioned, PSP version will probably eat up a lot of Vita sales. FFX maybe? Ehhh..
 
On a personal and selfish note, it'd suck for me because I far prefer the Sony approach to handhelds. If they dropped out of things altogether that'd be the end of dedicated handhelds for me.
I'm pretty much the same way. After Sony is done, the iPhone and iPad will be my go to mobile gaming devices. They already get most of my attention anyways. As much as I like the Vita, there just isn't a strong market for it, and launching a successor of any kind would be beyond stupid.
 

BadWolf

Member
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't there more or less nothing?

God eater 2 maybe..but as somebody mentioned, PSP version will probably eat up a lot of Vita sales.

There has been a rumour of big impending announcements though, maybe as soon as the 20th (Vita's 1 year anniversary in NA?).

Regardless, considering how important handhelds are in Japan I think Sony will continue pushing Vita as much as they can.
 

Cheebo

Banned
Vita sales need to pick up this year for the sake of competition in the dedicated handheld market. Sony really need to bring something over the next few months.

PSP got where it was on the back of Monster Hunter, they lost Monster Hunter. I don't think it is possible for Vita to recover enough to be a real competitor. And with how contracted the handheld market has become in USA/Europe it is starting to get back to the more 90's model where there is only room for one dedicated handheld on the market.
 

test_account

XP-39C²
Vita keeps getting new games and it keeps going down. Incredible.
Not that surprising/incredible in my opinion concidering the types of games that have come out recently. Same thing with Hokuto Musou 2 WiiU that was released last week. A new release after some weeks with no new stuff, yet the WiiU hardware sales went down, but not much of a surprise in my opinion. There is always the question how much the hardware sales would sell even without those releases as well, but that will only be pure speculation though.
 
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