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Famitsu and Media Create Sales: 12/22 - 12/28

test_account

XP-39C²
schuelma said:
No, the edit was in reference to ToH sales.
Ah ok, i didnt see what you wrote before you edited your post, so i thought the "nevermind, not that impressive :(" comment was reffering to your previous comment about the PS3 bump. And after reading your 2nd reply to me i though you maybe wrote the "nevermind" comment because you looked at the PS3 YTD from 08 and compared it 07, and then it didnt look so impressive with the 68k sales for 1 week afterall. But if you are reffering to the ToH sales, then i didnt need to comment on anything :) I am sorry for the missunderstanding!
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
Since Famitsu is behinder than normal this doesn't have Wii Music over 300K yet, but it's now outsold most things on the list; the exceptions being Rhythm Tengoku Gold, the original Donkey Konga, and Band Bros. DX.
It's doing decent, but the absolute numbers were never the issue with Wii Music. It was the presence of some very high expectations of any Wii [x] title, and how the game failed to meet that (very lofty) goal. Besting a couple of Gamecube sequels and a 2004 DS game should've been the work of a few weeks, in the eyes of some. More sober projections were around too, though, and it's chugging along nicely meeting those.

What Nintendo was expecting is anybody's guess.
 

starsky

Member
Joshua, it's my first time using Garaph and let me thank you, it's a great tool. I like how comprehensive it is. The only cc I could give you is to make the interface more user friendly, like sorting by clicking their respective column title in the result list? Anyway it's just a minor quibble, Garaph is really great.
 

Rpgmonkey

Member
Nibelung Valesti said:
Yay @ ToH over 200k :D

Yeah. Honestly I expected more of a struggle. :p

Nice that it passed that at least though, really nice game.

Wish the series had more focus in regards to development and the platform though. If I had my choice I'd have one game by each Tales Studio team per year, with spinoffs outsourced, and no more outsourced mainline games (which somehow feel like they managed to have worse design/direction than the original Phantasia in some ways). They haven't done differently yet, so keep Tales Studio to the remakes of their games or whatever (as I really don't think the current two remakes would be as good or as popular as they are if they outsourced it instead of having Wolteam/Team Destiny make it themselves). But eh, can't do anything about it. :p

namco really has NO idea what they're doing with the tales series. their logic seems to be that there has to be an "escort system" (which only receives ports and spinoffs) and a "mothership system" (which gets new entries in the series). but by doing this, they're putting the Tales market on one system (PSP) and alienating them by releasing new, mothership games on another system (DS). it's utterly retarded, their business division must be run by monkeys.

I don't think it's that, or rather, not the sole reason. Besides the Tales of Fandom games (both of which are on consoles), the mothership titles and escort titles have always been divided since the spinoffs first started with Narikiri Dungeon 1 on the Game Boy (Color), and the series was pretty much fine.

I think it's because they have more of a divide now, and even with this divide they decided not to designate just one or two systems to a certain type of game, and have given no noticeable order to releases or types of releases.

So far the Wii has an escort title, the DS has an escort title, the PSP has two, the Wii has a mothership title, the DS has two mothership titles, and the 360 has a mothership title.

Counting since Radiant Mythology 1 besides ports/rereleases, the order has been Handheld #1->Console# 1->Handheld #2->Console #2->Console #3->Handheld #2->Handheld #1->Console #2 (PSP, PS2, DS, Wii, 360, DS, PSP, Wii; escort, escort, mothership, escort, mothership, mothership, escort, mothership).

Putting games on the DS is (was?) fine really, I think the sales for that might have turned out a lot better if they did it right. That little issue might be that instead of starting off strong with something like Hearts to give people the impression that they're pretty serious even for a handheld, they decided to half-ass it and start us off with stuff like Tempest and Innocence instead which might just make people think they don't really care. Also, to be honest, unlike some people here I think a PSP switch might too late by now to really help anything much, and that the RM games might just have their own market that's a tad bit larger than those of the new games. It has somewhat of a better reason from the start to get more people interested anyway.
 

Rolf NB

Member
Johann said:
From what I've gathered and read, it feels like the development of the single-player mode was halted (relatively short,
only a couple of characters can HENSHIN!,
abrupt ending, and the gameplay is tailored with co-operative play in mind) in favor of a multiplayer mode in the vein of Monster Hunter. This was especially bewildering with the game's debut and marketing concentrating on the single-player portion of the game. I guess this alienated the traditional JRPG fanbase looking for a fully featured single-player.

Anyway, the top software sales are a bit disappointing but still nice to see great legs on some of the older titles.
This might have been the result of SCEJ cracking the whip.
 

icecream

Public Health Threat
RpgN said:
You've got some nerve...

When people say those numbers are disappointing or hardly inspiring, what did you honestly expect? I would love to know that.
Something that would show the PS3 is the console to carry JRPGs? That was pretty much why WKC was the litmus test for PS3 JRPGs in the first place, because no one would accept the data from earlier games. Now all we need are its US sales and then we can decide the answer. I suspect we will find the answer to be that both sides are comparable in sales, which would indicate that both are actually weak, which leads to the multiplatform notion for JRPGs again, which I've advocated before.

Ps. speaking about RPGs, last time you told me Valkyria Chronicles sold 120k, it turned out you were wrong. It sold 141k at least (see MCS 12/5-12/21). Just wanted to get that out.
Famitsu has it at 129K. I was not wrong.
 

donny2112

Member
Famitsu Dec 15-21

01./00. [PSP] Dissidia: Final Fantasy (Square Enix) - 503,723 / NEW
02./00. [PS3] Gundam Musou 2 (Namco Bandai Games) - 161,623 / NEW
03./02. [WII] Animal Crossing: City Folk (Nintendo) - 158,731 / 727,555
04./00. [NDS] Tales of Hearts: CG Movie/Anime Movie Editions (Namco Bandai Games) - 141,610 / NEW
05./03. [NDS] Kirby Super Star Ultra Deluxe (Nintendo) - 141,563 / 696,924
06./00. [PS2] Fate/Unlimited Codes (Capcom) - 95,046 / NEW
07./00. [PS2] Gundam Musou 2 (Namco Bandai Games) - 91,632 / NEW
08./07. [NDS] Pokemon Platinum (Nintendo/Pokemon Co.) - 90,878 / 2,093,454
09./06. [NDS] Wagamama Fashion: Girls Mode (Nintendo) - 90,867 / 429,222
10./01. [WII] Taiko Drum Master Wii (Namco Bandai Games) - 85,606 / 200,216
11./09. [WII] Wii Fit (Nintendo) - 69,546 / 2,887,357
12./05. [NDS] Penguin no Mondai: Saikyou Penguin Densetsu! (A Penguin's Troubles: Strongest Penguin Legend) (Konami) - 69,288 / 127,353
13./08. [NDS] Rhythm Tengoku Gold (Nintendo) - 64,415 / 1,257,912
14./00. [NDS] Momotarou Dentetsu 20th Anniversary (Hudson) - 63,797 / NEW
15./00. [NDS] Genso Suikoden Tierkreis (Konami) - 62,835 / NEW
16./00. [WII] Karaoke Joysound Wii (Hudson) - 62,738 / NEW
17./04. [NDS] Prof. Layton and the Last Time Travel (Level 5) - 55,285 / 571,293
18./00. [NDS] Power Pro Kun Pocket 11 (Konami) - 54,189 / NEW
19./14. [WII] Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo) - 52,021 / 1,929,596
20./17. [NDS] Tamagotchi Kira Kira Omisecchi (Namco Bandai Games) - 48,073 / 105,178
21./15. [NDS] Tongari Boushi to Mahou no 365 Nichi (Little Magician's Magic Adventure) (Konami) - 47,804 / 180,362
22./22. [WII] Wii Music (Nintendo) - 39,102 / 271,050
23./00. [360] Fable II (Microsoft Game Studios) - 36,085 / NEW
24./00. [NDS] Ragnarok Online DS (GungHo) - 33,219 / NEW
25./20. [WII] Wii Sports (Nintendo) - 31,740 / 3,254,707
26./18. [PSP] Monster Hunter Portable 2 G (BEST) (Capcom) - 31,554 / 145,271
27./16. [PS3] Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Spec III (SCEI) - 29,314 / 182,995
28./00. [NDS] Harvest Moon: Welcome to the Wind Bazaar (Marvelous) - 27,988 / NEW
29./00. [360] Gundam Musou 2 (Namco Bandai Games) - 27,074 / NEW
30./13. [WII] Play on Wii: Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat (Nintendo) - 26,803 / 52,019

*. [PS3] Need for Speed: Undercover (Electronic Arts Victor) - 19,000 / NEW
*. [PS2] BeatMania IIDX 15: DJ Troopers (Konami) - 17,000 / NEW
*. [PS2] Hisshou Pachinko*Pachi-Slot Kouryoku Series Vol. 13: Shinseiki Evangelion - Time of Promise (D3 Publisher) - 15,000 / NEW
*. [WII] Bleach: Versus Crusade (SEGA) - 15,000 / NEW
*. [360] Prince of Persia (Ubisoft) - 8,000 / NEW
*. [PS2] Need for Speed: Undercover (Electronic Arts Victor) - 6,100 / NEW
*. [NDS] Nakayoshi All-Stars: Mezase Gakuen Idol (Creative Core) - 5,800 / NEW
*. [WII] Sonic Unleashed (SEGA) - 5,800 / NEW
*. [WII] Let's Tap (SEGA) - 5,400 / NEW
*. [PSP] Need for Speed: Undercover (Electronic Arts Victor) - 4,800 / NEW
*. [NDS] Kirarin * Revolution: Atsumete Change! Kurukira Kode (Konami) - 4,600 / NEW
*. [PSP] Hiiro no Kakera Portable (Scarlet Fragments) (Idea Factory) - 4,400 / NEW
*. [NDS] Ochaken no Daibouken 2: Toy Box Full of Dreams (Ochaken's Big Adventure) (MTO) - 4,300 / NEW
*. [360] Need for Speed: Undercover (Electronic Arts Victor) - 4,100 / NEW
*. [PS2] FIFA 09: World Class Soccer (Electronic Arts Victor) - 2,200 / NEW
*. [PS2] ADK Tamashii (Soul) (SNK Playmore) - 2,100 / NEW
*. [WII] Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2 (Konami) - 2,100 / NEW
*. [PSP] Solfege: Sweet Harmony (GungHo) - 2,000 / NEW
*. [NDS] Rampo Edogawa's Kaijin Nijuu Mensou DS (Mysterious Person of 20 Faces) (Takara Tomy) - 1,800 / NEW
*. [WII] Disney TH!NK Fast (Disney Interactive Studios) - 1,600 / NEW
*. [WII] Need for Speed: Undercover (Electronic Arts Victor) - 1,500 / NEW
*. [PSP] Crimson Room Reverse (Success) - 1,400 / NEW
*. [NDS] Princess Ballerina: The 4 Primadonnas with Dreams (Spike) - 980 / NEW
*. [NDS] Detective Ryunosuke Toudou Journal: Kohakuiro no Yuigon Seiyou Kotsuhai Serial Killer Incident (fonfun) - 840 / NEW
*. [PS3] Armored Core: For Answer (BEST) (From Software) - 840 / NEW
*. [NDS] Space Puzzle Bobble (Taito) - 800 / NEW


Bar Chart Dec 15-21 (thanks to JoshuaJSlone/garaph.info)

2008-12-15

Note: Image may be delayed from the time of this post, but will automatically show once the data is ready.


Recent Famitsu Top 30s

Nov 17-23, 2008
Nov 24-30, 2008
Dec 1-7, 2008
Dec 8-14, 2008
 

Galactic Fork

A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
Rpgmonkey said:
Yeah. Honestly I expected more of a struggle. :p
Well, you also have to wonder how many of them are doubled up sales since Famitsu combines the anime and cg releases. Why did Namco do that?



Rpgmonkey said:
Putting games on the DS is (was?) fine really, I think the sales for that might have turned out a lot better if they did it right. That little issue might be that instead of starting off strong with something like Hearts to give people the impression that they're pretty serious even for a handheld, they decided to half-ass it and start us off with stuff like Tempest and Innocence instead which might just make people think they don't really care. Also, to be honest, unlike some people here I think a PSP switch might too late by now to really help anything much, and that the RM games might just have their own market that's a tad bit larger than those of the new games. It has somewhat of a better reason from the start to get more people interested anyway.

I think if they'd even put out innocence first, rather than tempest, it'd have done a lot better. I remember the week Tempest came out and there was already videos of the ending just a few hours later, and the instant price collapse. That had to also shake the stores too. I'm pretty sure Innocence sold out of its initial shipment without a price collapse even after Tempest. So if there was no tempest, stores probably would have purchased more initially.


Edit: Oh and huh, looks like kirby is going to have another million seller. Only 50k to go.
 

donny2112

Member
TJ Spyke said:
Amazon Japan has it listed at 3,534 Yen ($38.35 at the current conversion rate).

$30 is the U.S. price. I was smiling, because that's exactly what these GCN ports should be priced at. Just like RE4:Wii.

Regulus Tera said:
So no MC numbers for 12/29-1/4?

http://www.m-create.com/ranking/

Keep hitting F5. It should be up tonight.

Edit:
Liabe Brave said:
We can approach that question two ways. First, do games other than WKC also have inflated legs in these weeks? Final Fantasy IV released a calendar week earlier last year, at 308k.

Funny you should mention that as FFIV DS was the first game I thought of when thinking of titles with artificially higher legs at the New Year's mark than they actually ended up having. With last year's numbers, I was hopeful that the higher than expected weeks 2 and 3 for the game meant that FFIV would end up rivaling CC:FFVII or at least end up above 700K. It didn't, and the first sign of that was the first week after the New Year's when it dropped to 20K. As you are with WKC, I, too, was hopeful that its legs were a result of the game's ability to sustain sales and not just a byproduct of its release date. I was wrong. FFIV ended up ~2x its first week sales (i.e. the average for just about any game and not indicative of any unusual "legs"), which isn't bad, but is less than I was hoping. If WKC ends up with ~2x its first week sales, that'll be good for it, too.

Liabe Brave said:
But it certainly suggests that any link between calendar time and performance is fluid.

Obviously. That was never a question.

Liabe Brave said:
My point was bigger: no matter the reasons, the game itself is the concatenation of them all, and I think we should be careful not to fritter away that unity in plausible but arbitrary slivering of the factors.

Some factors are more important than others, though.

Liabe Brave said:
Basically, sales-age is still awaiting a good multivariate analysis of its data pool.

I really don't think it will ever happen. I guess it was you talking with liuelson some months ago trying to pin one down? I don't recall completely. I found the discussion interesting, but you're trying to put a mathematical representation on a very random function. General trends can be empirically determined, of course, but as long as people are involved, there won't be a really good, in my opinion, purely mathematical means of determining how games will do.

The_lascar said:
Mhhh... 63 481 more PSP compared to my data ??? I believe in Geimin, so I updated with these data. But I want understand what is this ? I made a mistake with the follow-up 2007 Media Create ?

Yea, the PSP was the only o_O difference from my numbers, too. The rest were single digits. I figure that if they were wrong, it'll be corrected with the 2008 Top 500, though. GEIMIN does make mistakes sometimes, but I believe they do try to get it right. :)
 

TJ Spyke

Member
donny2112 said:
$30 is the U.S. price. I was smiling, because that's exactly what these GCN ports should be priced at. Just like RE4:Wii.

Source? AFAIK, the only confirmed pricing info is that it will be budget priced (no exact price).
 

Jokeropia

Member
test_account said:
Price is not the only factor, which games the console(s) has and how much comepition the console(s) has are also some of the main factors to consider if it is impressive or not, at least in my opinion.

When the PS2 was launched, it didnt really have any "Wii-like" competitor like the PS3 did/has, at least not that i know about. The PS2 was also launched at about 40,000 yen, i think it is an interesting though to wonder how the PS3 would do at that launch price. When the PS3 got down to about 40,000 yen, maybe many people had already bought a Wii instead and maybe the general interest for a PS3 was lower then compared to how it would have been at launch. I am not sure how the PS2 games around the period around the launch were compared to the games for the PS3 were around the launch period. The PS2 was also launched almost 9 years ago, maybe the economy was alittle different then, but that is just guessing from my side.

I am not writing this as an attempt to put the PS3 sales in a better light, because the PS3 sales are relatively bad on a general basis, i just try to think of points that i think will make a most fair and correct comparison :)
The question was simple. "Is it impressive for a 40k yen system to sell ~70k in a holiday week"? None of the reasons for why the PS3 isn't doing so well changes the fact that the answer is no.

About the PS2 games though, I can mention that the PS2 didn't get many signficant releases for quite a while after launch. After the first full year the #1 game was Onimusha at 750k.
 
Liabe Brave said:
It's doing decent, but the absolute numbers were never the issue with Wii Music. It was the presence of some very high expectations of any Wii [x] title, and how the game failed to meet that (very lofty) goal. Besting a couple of Gamecube sequels and a 2004 DS game should've been the work of a few weeks, in the eyes of some. More sober projections were around too, though, and it's chugging along nicely meeting those.

What Nintendo was expecting is anybody's guess.
Slight correction: Band Bros. DX is the 2008 sequel to the 2004 DS game. Wii Music did match the original in three weeks, but its sequel has been much more successful.
bakemono said:
The only cc I could give you is to make the interface more user friendly, like sorting by clicking their respective column title in the result list? Anyway it's just a minor quibble, Garaph is really great.
That is definitely doable. It's possible to sort with text already; but the column titles could link to slightly modified URLs that order things by that column alone.
ivysaur12 said:
Wait, garaph has Radiant Mythology at 214,128. Where are people getting 300k from, unless I'm missing something...
I think he was getting mixed up with some worldwide shipment data.
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
Slight correction: Band Bros. DX is the 2008 sequel to the 2004 DS game. Wii Music did match the original in three weeks, but its sequel has been much more successful.
Yeah, I know. My point was that half of the titles it's beaten are the original Band Bros. and Donkey Konga 2 and 3. That isn't terribly impressive for a flagship title in the genre on the most popular home console of all time. I was simply making a distinction between the expectations of "it'll blow away all previous music games because it's Wii [x]" and "it'll do very well"--and pointing out that just because it didn't reach the first's levels doesn't make it a convincing disappointment.

donny2112 said:
Funny you should mention that as FFIV DS was the first game I thought of when thinking of titles with artificially higher legs at the New Year's mark than they actually ended up having.
But if that's the case, why does Pokemon Ranger: Batonnage have the exact same legs when released outside the holiday season? And why did Super Robot Wars OG Gaiden open to the same numbers as WKC in the same calendar week, yet its legs weren't even remotely as good?

I'm sure there are excellent answers to both questions, but I really don't see how "date of release" can be a part of them. So, while it's undoubtedly a factor in performance, I believe it's not a very reliably important one.

donny2112 said:
General trends can be empirically determined, of course, but as long as people are involved, there won't be a really good, in my opinion, purely mathematical means of determining how games will do.
I think there's more chance of finding a decent decay function once you know the first week (and other data). I agree that some sort of pre-release predictor of any meaningful accuracy is probably impossible.
 

donny2112

Member
Liabe Brave said:
But if that's the case, why does Pokemon Ranger: Batonnage have the exact same legs when released outside the holiday season?

Because it doesn't. I avoided discussing Pokemon Ranger: Batonnage before, because it's basically a non sequitur to the conversation. Oh, well. Let's look at it anyways.

FFIV


After the first three weeks of FFIV, if it weren't for the fact that it was launched in the New Year's season, I would say it was going to easily get above 650K and probably above 700K before it stopped selling. It didn't. Why? Because part of its sales were artificially pushed earlier due to the holiday season. i.e. Its apparent "legs" were due to the holiday season and not its innate ability to sustain sales.

After the first five weeks of Pokemon Ranger: Batonnage, I would guess that it was going to end up over 500K but definitely below 550K. It didn't. Why? Because Golden Week pushed its sales up at a time when it usually would've been flattening out.

In short, there's not really much to compare between these other than somewhat similar opening weeks and LTDs. How each game got to its final total is quite different, however.

Liabe Brave said:
And why did Super Robot Wars OG Gaiden open to the same numbers as WKC in the same calendar week, yet its legs weren't even remotely as good?

The Super Robot Wars series has been around for a long time. As has been discussed before, hardcore-targeted series tend to get more and more front-loaded the longer the series lasts. Also, my understanding is that part of the SRW series appeal is due to the well-endowed, scantily clad ladies who frequent the game. That sort of cuts down its appeal as a gift item, as well. :p

Liabe Brave said:
I'm sure there are excellent answers to both questions, but I really don't see how "date of release" can be a part of them.

Hopefully, you do now.

Liabe Brave said:
So, while it's undoubtedly a factor in performance, I believe it's not a very reliably important one.

By itself? Usually not, as almost any factor in regards to sales of a game. In context? Very much so.

Liabe Brave said:
I think there's more chance of finding a decent decay function once you know the first week (and other data). I agree that some sort of pre-release predictor of any meaningful accuracy is probably impossible.

With the first day sales and first week sales, some level of predictive accuracy becomes possible. If 70+% of the first week sales come in the first day and it's not supply constrained, it's second week will probably drop fast, and the game would probably be very lucky to reach twice its first week sales (the "norm" for games). If 40% or less of its first week sales are in the first day, that's a sign of good legs. Predicting its LTD at that point is pretty much a crapshoot, but we at least should expect a good second/third week sales from it. 50-60% of the first week sales in the first day is normal, though, so the safe prediction would be doubling the first week sales as a LTD.

However, the problem comes in with the human factors. e.g. Word of mouth, changes in the effectiveness of advertising (e.g. post-launch SMG adverts comparing it to NSMB). Those throw the mathematical representations for a loop, since there's no real way to quantify those values. Time of year release definitely has to factor in along with intended audience, as seen with Pokemon getting a boost with the Golden Week sales and SRW:OG: Gaiden being apparently oblivious to the holiday due to its very hardcore following.
 

RpgN

Junior Member
icecream said:
Something that would show the PS3 is the console to carry JRPGs? That was pretty much why WKC was the litmus test for PS3 JRPGs in the first place, because no one would accept the data from earlier games. Now all we need are its US sales and then we can decide the answer. I suspect we will find the answer to be that both sides are comparable in sales, which would indicate that both are actually weak, which leads to the multiplatform notion for JRPGs again, which I've advocated before.


Famitsu has it at 129K. I was not wrong.

So now WKC is supposed to carry RPGs and show a better example? Why are you looking at it from that perspective? It's like you're putting a huge weight on it and therefore are expecting a miracle. It is doing good in mainland which is fine, I agree that we have to see how it's going to perform overseas. And honestly, I'm not expecting much but I know others who do here. So I guess we'll have to wait?

Regarding VC, neither am I. I guess we're both right then.
 

jarrod

Banned
WKC did a lot better than I expected honestly, I'm genuinely surprised.

Shame about PS0... really a step down compared to PSP, but does anyone have data on PSO or PSU for comparison?
 
jarrod said:
WKC did a lot better than I expected honestly, I'm genuinely surprised.

Shame about PS0... really a step down compared to PSP, but does anyone have data on PSO or PSU for comparison?
The best DC PSO had an 81K first week for a 186K total.

The best post-DC PSO had a 71K first week for a 138K total.

The best PSU had a 129K first week for a 189K total.

It's pretty exclusively Phantasy Star Portable jacking up expectations. Its first week was bigger than any other PSO/PSU's lifetime total, and counting in some sales we won't see until a Top 100 list, has probably doubled that first week.
 

donny2112

Member
JoshuaJSlone said:
It's pretty exclusively Phantasy Star Portable jacking up expectations.

Show of hands that think PSP sold because it was a Phantasy Star title? *crickets*
Show of hands that think PSP sold because it was a Monster Hunter-style game on the Monster Hunter system? *blown back by the wave of air from quickly raised hands*
 

jj984jj

He's a pretty swell guy in my books anyway.
This proves that Sega's marketing worked, PSP really did ride MH success more than it created its own.

Edit: beaten by donny :lol
 
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