Chinpoko_Master
Member
This thread was funny when it was first made. I guess I was the only one laughing.
-
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.
Any reason why the WiiU *won't* dominate Japan?
- Thread starter OldJadedGamer
- Start date
- Status
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
I think there's still a cloud over PS4's prospects. Vita utterly crashing and burning set an awful precedent, and it seems like 3rd parties only recently came to grips with PS3 scale development. Unless they're doing a AAA title targeting the west, I don't see a whole lot of incentive for 3rd parties to really consider Orbis, and if they're doing that they'll go Durango multi as a rule. I think crossgen PS3/Orbis could be a thing for some in the region though (like Musou or possibly Yakuza), sort of like how Sony's pushing it for PSP/Vita.
Wii U also now has a lot to prove to garner more support. Pretty much everything is resting on Nintendo's shoulders at this point, though I do think 3rd parties will be quicker to jump in if it takes off than they were on Wii.
I think 3DS is going to dominate Japan to a degree not seen since PS2 though. It's basically the perfect system for Japan (PS2 level performance, DS level audience) and virtually all 3rd parties are doing well on it (better than DS in fact). PS3 will still get good support for a little while, but Vita, Wii U and Orbis are really going to have to fight tooth and nail to get any scrap of support looking ahead.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
Had I thought that Japan just doesn't care about home consoles anymore and switched to handhelds I wouldn't have made the thread. I really though home consoles were more important in the region but looks like they aren't.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Nintendo has always dominated the handheld industry in Japan....the same cannot be said for the console industry in Japan can it. Thats what I was getting at. Was the PSP outselling the 3DS when the PSP was only selling as low as 18k two months after the 3DS's launch? No. The fact that ps3 outselling the WiiU is not the problem. I think what is the problem is that the WiiU is getting outsold by something that is selling a8k a week.
If the WiiU explodes during this holiday season and PS4 bombs then yes I will be eating crow. I don't mind. I know I make mistakes too and you have every right to tell me. I will admit to them
walking fiend
Member
Because Japanese centered games benefit from the increased processing power much less than games geared toward the western market; why should they not choose their lead platform to be PS3/Wii U, if considering the demand from the market and also their engines, even hasn't reached the potential of this generation consoles?
Like, for the same reason that it is getting DQ and MH.
Don't forget that the two main reasons Nextbox/PS4 are said to perform better than Wii U are graphical capabilities and online, both of which are more or less irrelevant in Japan.
Also, unlike west where there are multimillion sellers like CoD, GTA, ES, FIFA, etc. which can move the systems initially, in Japan there's only FF and MG, both franchises in decline, that may be able to move PS4 initially.
---
Though, of course, apparently the whole console market is not that important in Japan anymore; basically, apparently only 3DS is important in Japan for the moment.
Wrong; 3DS main competitor was also PSP when it was released; PSP has been outselling PSV quite often too.
It's gettin real 2006 up in here.
Wii U is struggling but PS4 doesn't have an easy road ahead of it. It's likely to take years to overcome Wii U if it ever does.
H_Prestige
Banned
If a dev can't handle ps3 scale development, then wii u is automatically disqualified because it is the same exact scale. I also don't think "ps3 scale development" is very specific either, since if you look at ps3 games you have stuff like FFXIII and MGS4 ranging all the way down to Disgaea. A ps3 game need not have a 40 million budget, and same will be true for ps4.
Regarding Vita, I don't think that's relevant for ps4. Third parties looking to make the next gen transition simply put all their eggs into the 3DS basket instead of the psp successor, and rightfully so. Of course Vita would struggle.
Wait, don't I have ps3/wii u as one of the options right there? Sony benefits way more in that situation than nintendo since they already have the huge lead in install base, and they also have way more flexibility in terms of pricing. They can severely undercut nintendo with the new 12gb super slim, while nintendo is still having major problems keeping production costs under control.
At the current home console market in Japan, there are a couple of popular third party franchise.
SE: Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts
SEGA: Yakuza series
Konami: MGS and PES series
Bamco: Tales series/media franchise (Gundam, One Piece and such)
Koei: Warriors series
If Ninty manages to moneyhat all of them at once then WiiU might have a chance. Otherwise it won't be console gamer's choice in Japan.
To be fair, my guess is that PS4 will struggle in Japan also, but who knows...
SE: Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts
SEGA: Yakuza series
Konami: MGS and PES series
Bamco: Tales series/media franchise (Gundam, One Piece and such)
Koei: Warriors series
If Ninty manages to moneyhat all of them at once then WiiU might have a chance. Otherwise it won't be console gamer's choice in Japan.
To be fair, my guess is that PS4 will struggle in Japan also, but who knows...
nope. The PS4 will be more expensive then WiiU and wont have Mario ect. But it will always have a market there to do many third party Japanese devs not making games for the WiiU.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
The PS4 still needs to compete with the 3DS.
SolidSnakex
Member
If it doesn't get those games, then what type of support are you expecting? Those are all titles that can really build a userbase (the PS3 was basically built on them). Monster Hunter is much more of a handheld series at this point, and i'd be shocked if DQ11 wasn't a handheld title. A cross release probably wouldn't do much on the Wii U for the same reason that they really don't work on the PS3/Vita. Far more people own one platform than the other, so they'll just buy it for the one that they own.
Right now the third party support for the Wii U in Japan isn't dramatically better than the western support. And that's what's most concerning about the third party situation on the Wii U. I fully expected Japanese devs to embrace the console, but that hasn't happened at all. Iwata kind of suggested that they may do a ND for third party devs in the future, but that seems like something that should come sooner rather than later.
H_Prestige
Banned
The current discussion is regarding home consoles.
That's been the case for years now.
I think they'll still handedly win Japan. They'll get a Dragon Quest, they'll get the next Monster Hunter, they have the SMT x FE game which will probably be huge over there, plus the Marios etc.
I also would wager they'll have a lot more mid tier japanese games, and Capcom still claims they have lots of next gen support coming, they obviously are close with Namco too, and Sega with Bayo and who knows what else is cooking.
so really, we're talking about them not getting support from Konami, which has been waning in popularity, and from some Square Enix games, which I still think they'll get some of those too. So I don't think Sony will take Japan at all.
I also would wager they'll have a lot more mid tier japanese games, and Capcom still claims they have lots of next gen support coming, they obviously are close with Namco too, and Sega with Bayo and who knows what else is cooking.
so really, we're talking about them not getting support from Konami, which has been waning in popularity, and from some Square Enix games, which I still think they'll get some of those too. So I don't think Sony will take Japan at all.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Sorry for my ambiguity. What I was getting at and you can see this in my previous post is that the WiiU is being outsold by something that is selling as low as 18k. I find that worrying. If ps3 was selling at 30k and WiiU was at 25k it is still being outsold but it is putting decent sales.
Japan does not care about the WiiU at the moment. Whether Japan cares about the ps4 is an entirely different story.
Nothing has changed. People are either going to buy Wii U or just ignore it and play their 3DSs. I still can't think of any way for Sony to make significant headway, they've lost all their big third party advantages (save for Final Fantasy which SE is hellbent on killing) and spent so much internal effort pandering to western audiences they have just about nothing for Japan. Unless we see a major shift on Feb 20, Wii U will likely still win by default.
H_Prestige
Banned
Wait, what japanese third parties on ps3 have they already lost? Weren't Dark Souls 2, MGS5, KH HD just announced recently?
When they actually appear, we can discuss it. But until then, vaporware means shit. And if history has anything to say about it, Vita-exclusive software doesn't rank much higher than vaporware.
I see people in this thread making the mistake of thinking that handhelds are all Japan cares about. No, it's just that there's less userbase fragmentation in it.
With the Wii and the PS3, there was an obvious difference in philosophy between the 2, and it divided the market. Given that Japan prefers to have one console be the dominant player, this fragmentation of the userbase could not be accepted. Pair that with 3rd-parties being so hard for the tech-obsessed Western dollar that nothing ended up on the market-dominant Wii, and it's pretty simple to see why consoles were disregarded this gen. But that does not indicate this pattern will necessarily follow into the WiiU/PS4 generation.
A weak start for WiiU is nothing new, consoles generally do have weak starts, even the PS2 did. So I'd sit tight before we proclaim Japan is handheld-land at the exclusion of everything else.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
I guess we have to wait for it to release to see if the home console is truly dead in Japan or not.
H_Prestige
Banned
Japan already has a home console of choice, it's the ps3. Why would ps3 devs move away from 9 million active ps3 users to the wii u instead? How does that make any financial sense?
I also disagree with the bolded. That's simply a result of previous systems being so different from another, from a development perspective. What you're seeing now with ps3 and wii u on the market together is kind of unprecedented. Similarly, if the 3ds hardware were more in line with the vita, there would be a lot of multiplatform handheld games.
So you are saying PS4 will never get any games?
lol
H_Prestige
Banned
No. It would take awhile, and it depends on how fast SE, Konami, Sega, and the other big global guys transition to ps4/720 (which they definitely will). Certainly the smaller ps3 devs won't just jump to ps4 unless they see their current ps3 audience making the transition. Too risky. And again, a lot of them would probably just go to the 3DS.
Lord Ghirahim
Member
PS4 might just be too new of a console for consumers. Even leaving aside the price, it's an unknown whether PS4's various features will even be accepted or not.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
When I created the thread I didn't consider handhelds. I can add it to the OP if you like. The discussion is not only about home consoles.
It was rather a symbolic moment when Bamco has actually outright stated that "PS3 has become a home console of choice in Japan" upon announcing a game in Japan about a year ago. Ever since media franchise titles supposed to cater rather younger audiences have been pouring into PS3, that Nintendo really should have secured.
My guess is Japanese third party devs will try to stick to PS3 as much as possible for console games.
H_Prestige
Banned
Whatever your intent originally, this is the discussion that's being had right now. 3DS has clearly won over Japan, that's not debatable.
There's no exclusivity on any of those, nor are they the type of games to push Sony ahead. MGS has the best shot but it's still multiplatform and the series has mattered less in recent years. But the other killer is those are PS3 games meaning those resources haven't jumped to newer hardware, PS4 is still without anything announced.
As for other devs, Nintendo scooped up Platinum and I wouldn't count on Atlus staying buddy-buddy either.
Shame that was discovered 4 years too late when there were zero fucks left to give about this generation of consoles in Japan.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
For it to be on topic, the discussion would include handhelds. I think you are I know what it means to stay on topic.
H_Prestige
Banned
Kind of pointless since a ps3/360 game is effectively ps3 exclusive in Japan.
And those games appearing on ps3 do push Sony ahead, simply by virtue of not being on the wii u.
I'll say it one more time, ps3/wii u situation helps Sony a lot more than nintendo. What the wii u would need to supersede the ps3 is to have the same exclusive support the ps3 has been getting.
LOL, ok dude. You can amend your OP or you can ask a mod to shut the thread down since it's no longer adhering to your rules. Your call. Not sure what you're trying to prove.
There was one million seller on ps3 and 14 on wii. Just saying
I don't think any home consoles are going to do particularly well in Japan this upcoming generation. Japan loves their portables and recently had a smartphone boom. It'll be an uphill battle for any company. I think the titles shown in the recent Nintendo direct have a chance to spike some sales over there though.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
For lower end stuff though, why bother moving from PS3? I dunno, I just don't see those sorts of games hitting Orbis in the first couple years fir the most part when there are other platforms with established markets far better at serving development on that scale.
That's a revisionist take. The real problem with Vita vs 3DS was one of outreach: Nintendo was greasing the wheels for about everyone behind the scenes to ensure support while Sony essentially just made the system and expected devs to line up. That's a strategy problem, and one that certainly could be repeated if Sony doesn't do some major soul searching and course correction with how they handle Japanese 3rd party relations. Nintendo and Sony have essentially ended up on opposite ends of the spectrum on this to where they were in the 90s.
PSP was orders of magnitude more successful and popular than PS3 or Wii, and if Sony couldn't make it's successor work, that casts a cloud over their capabilities in general imo. It's certainly something I'd consider relevant.
Yeah it will probably take Japan as far as consoles go, but winning the Japanese console race atm is like winning the Mixed Doubles @ Wimbledon. The 3DS is the real champ of Japan....
Well at least that means nintendo will not go third party
MDSLKTR
Member
The way things are going now: fat chance.
H_Prestige
Banned
Well, the DS was way more popular than the PSP, so perhaps it wasn't a tall task for nintendo to grease the wheels and capture the remaining handheld franchises. The PSP was essentially living off of MH after all.
The ps3 vs Wii situation was very different, from a software perspective. And there is nothing indicating that Nintendo has greased any wheels to get the big japanese console franchises that allowed the ps3 to get a foothold in the region.
This only makes sense if Wii U was never getting games and PS3 exists in a vacuum. One Mario Kart is worth more than all of those combined. Again, the fact that they scrap together some third party games isn't what's important, if you think MGS is going to make a definitive difference it's not. And again we're back in PS3 land. The system isn't going to last a couple more years, it's a good late-gen choice like PSP was but eventually people will transition to what exactly? It's an unknown but at best it sounds like PS4 might get up-ports of Versus and MGS5 and it certainly isn't getting MH or DQ. Nobody in Japan cares about Uncharted, Killzone, GoW, Motorstorm, Resistance or the rest of Sony's first party franchises. Third party support isn't looking up. They can invent the next big thing but at this point who's really thinks that's in anyway assured besides you?
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
I'm not saying the situations are identical, only that Sony proved completely incompetent with what should've been a relatively smooth system transition. And that could happen again, regardless of circumstances.
PSP was HUGE in 2010 and 2011, with far more dev support than DS even really (not just MH). It had a significant late term comeback, and even domineered over 3DS early on. Which actually, isn't all that different from PS3.
lwilliams3
Member
Technically, Sony is playing from behind because Nintendo released its next-gen console first. That gives Nintendo time to get their line-up together before the PS4 arrives. Due to the increase of development time for games, the PS4 may suffer from similar problems with game releases, especially with AAA/AAAA Japanese games. It may be years before the next-gen version of the games franchises you mentioned are released. As a reference, we can just look at how much time it is taking for current-gen games to come out. It will probably not going to get better when it comes to making next-gen games.
H_Prestige
Banned
How long did it take to realize that 3DS had the lions share of third party support? It didn't take long at all because Nintendo was shouting it from the rooftops, showing game logos left and right.
That's not happening with the Wii U, because the support isn't there. And there's been plenty of time, too. The system was announced way back at e3 2011. There have been more new japanese game announcements for the ps3 in the same timeframe.
it's more than that though. It's even being outsold by the PS3.
This thread was amusing in the past. It's even more amusing now. Seriously. Orbis will have two very big hitters for the Japanese market within the first year. The type that will move consoles and build market share. If Nintendo doesn't recover with the Wii U by this holiday, they really are screwed.
please tell me what potential 3 million seller the ps4 has. FF certainly is not it
Supermanisdead
Member
It'll still be the top selling console in Japan. I guess it could "dominate"
shinra-bansho
Member
Yes. I've done analysis of Wii Fit/Wii Fit Plus to weekly Wii sales in Japan a few years ago, and it was a fairly consistent percentage (30-50% weekly sales, IIRC). More convincingly, Nintendo put out stats from Club Nintendo showing that Wii Fit Plus was the largest % of games registered with the Wii in Fall 2009, even greatly more than New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Want to say it was like 50% compared to 25-30%. It's in the IR docs from around that time.
Sure, there was a lot of that, too. *raises hand* Wii Fit/Wii Fit Plus were still one of the highest (if not second behind Wii Sports) true system sellers on Wii, though.
Aren't you glad I responded before you did so?
Are you saying it increased system sales by 30-50% after its release?
My comment wasn't actually exclusive to the Wii; I think there's a tendency to overstate the 'system selling potential' of franchises based on past success - on large installed bases driven by many/other factors.
These would be??
The metric is that Nintendo looked at what games were registered along with a new system registration through Club Nintendo, and used that to determine what game the system was purchased for.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/100129/05.html
Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus are both at the link along with the other "big" sellers on Wii. Wii Fit/Plus were clearly the major "system sellers" in all regions as shown by this metric.
- Status