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[Spiegel]

What are Famitsu totals? I remember in the "2008 Top 100" thread there were numbers for 2007 and 2008, but I didn't see lifetime values.

I don't remember where exactly they were. I think it was in a Media Create/Famitsu topic two/three weeks ago.

But Wii was about to pass psp in total software sales (psp was leading by ~500k or something like that)

EDIT

What donny said

 

[John Harker]

And since retailers don"t have tons of excess stock there will not be a price collapse. If Namco dosen't do a second shipment and this gets good word of mouth, the price could actually increase.

It happened with the GBA version of Rhythm Tengoku. For a while used copes were selling for more than retail price.

It would be nice if it gets a second shipment but Namco might figure that it's too front loaded and not bother. Hard to say at this point.

It's just so crazy when you think about an industry and segment where an entire products lifetime sales are only sold in one week. That's only 7 days in the marketplace and then... poof

 

[ThatObviousUser]

P.S is Crystal Bearers making it out this year?

Answer us Dragona.

The new trailer did have a HUD, so I suppose it's possible.

 

[Eteric Rice]

Pretty decent for Fragile, though I think it could have done a lot better with an advertising campaign.

Still a pretty good sell through.

 

[donny2112]

It's just so crazy when you think about an industry and segment where an entire products lifetime sales are only sold in one week. That's only 7 days in the marketplace and then... poof

And you then have other games where the lifetime sales are sold over the lifetime of the system (e.g. Brain Training). I would think developers would want to get away from the "poof" model, personally. I've always heard that 3M requires that something like 30% of their revenue every year has to be from new products. Apply that to the video game world, and you get

1) Create lots of franchises with your best internal developers.
2) The top ones get definite sequels, the mid ones get a budget re-imagining to further test the concept, and the low ones get dropped.
3) For the franchises that make it out of step 2, maybe do one more iteration in-house a couple of years later, and then farm out development thereafter.
4) Once your best internal developers are freed up again, have them work on a new batch of ideas to try out while consulting on the farmed out development of the existing franchises.

In other words, keep your best people working on expanding your company's portfolio, while the maintaining of franchises is outsourced.

Just some random thoughts. :lol

 

[Cosmonaut X]

In other words, keep your best people working on expanding your company's portfolio, while the maintaining of franchises is outsourced.

Oh, that does sound familiar, doesn't it? ;-)

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Left 4 Dead has performed well. Valve's titles have gotten a fair share of exposure for Japan, I mean the Half-Life 2 arcade game was so successful a sequel was developed. I've always thought that Valve should take the plunge in Japan and push the shooter genre with strong marketing similar to what Square-Enix did to North America in the late 90's.

Fallout 3 isn't doing too shabby either. It really does seem that Western publishers as well as niche publishers like Spike are starting to truly build a fanbase for foreign games in Japan. Hopefully they can learn from their Japanese to North American publishing counterparts.

Those aren't great numbers. They're better than expected given the Wii's recent performance with new 3rd party IP's, but let's not get carried away. If Fragile did 23K on any other system I doubt anyone would be impressed.

For an IP that wasn't really a highlight as well as dramatically undershipped 26k out of 30 is nothing to sneeze at. It's not like White Knight Chronicles or anything like that the game was fairly low key despite forum goers constantly praising it.

Much better than I thought. That's good then. 300k seems like a more reasonable estimate.

While I found the game ridiculously underwhelming I am glad that it performed well enough to the point where Nintendo can see that there is a market for traditional looking 2D.

 

[jarrod]

I think the surprise response to Fragile is mostly that it followed The Six-K Crawlers and got a similar "sent to die" handling.

I think if Namco had given a similar track record on any system (6k bomba, 26k less-bomba), the response here would've been the same... though likely from different posters. :lol

 

[schuelma]

For an IP that wasn't really a highlight as well as dramatically undershipped 26k out of 30 is nothing to sneeze at. It's not like White Knight Chronicles or anything like that the game was fairly low key despite forum goers constantly praising it.

.

Not to be too anal, but I believe the leaked numbers are early Famitsu, so its really 23K out of 35K first week.

And I'm not saying its a complete bomb, just that it isn't selling "great".

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Not to be too anal, but I believe the leaked numbers are early Famitsu, so its really 23K out of 35K first week.

And I'm not saying its a complete bomb, just that it isn't selling "great".

I'm looking at Media Create's 26k. As for 35 or 30 well let's both wait for more solid numbers. Either way I admit that it isn't as much of a success story as Tales of Symphonia 2 or that Drum game but it has performed over expectations.

 

[Spiegel]

I'm looking at Media Create's 26k. As for 35 or 30 well let's both wait for more solid numbers. Either way I admit that it isn't as much of a success story as Tales of Symphonia 2 or that Drum game but it has performed over expectations.

Over what expectations?
N-B expectations? We don't know
Retail expectations? 23k sold/35k shipped
65% sold the first week is not that far of what the retailers usually expect

 

[schuelma]

I'm looking at Media Create's 26k. As for 35 or 30 well let's both wait for more solid numbers. Either way I admit that it isn't as much of a success story as Tales of Symphonia 2 or that Drum game but it has performed over expectations.

Well, the 16K first day was a 45% shipment. That makes the shipment about 35K. And probably selling out a low initial shipment doesn't necessarily make something a success.

 

[donny2112]

The game met retailer expectations (~70% first week shipment sell-through). Usually that means a second shipment will be coming. The game was a bomb when the assumed budget for the game is considered, but it is also an expected bomb based on the lack of advertising from Namco-Bandai (lack of faith from the publisher) and retailer orders (lack of faith from the retailers).

Good:
* Retailers aren't left with a bunch of unsellable stock, so no price collapse and they are probably willing to take another shipment.

Bad:
* The game will likely top out around 40-50K, if it's lucky, likely due to the lack of faith shown by the publisher and consequently the retailers.

This is neither an unqualified success nor an unqualified bomb. It is likely unprofitable, though.

 

[schuelma]

The game met retailer expectations (~70% first week shipment sell-through). Usually that means a second shipment will be coming. The game was a bomb when the assumed budget for the game is considered, but it is also an expected bomb based on the lack of advertising from Namco-Bandai (lack of faith from the publisher) and retailer orders (lack of faith from the retailers).

Good:
* Retailers aren't left with a bunch of unsellable stock, so no price collapse and they are probably willing to take another shipment.

Bad:
* The game will likely top out around 40-50K, if it's lucky, likely due to the lack of faith shown by the publisher and consequently the retailers.

This is neither an unqualified success nor an unqualified bomb. It is likely unprofitable, though.

Nice summary donny. The truth is there are games that don't fall easily into a "bomb" or "hit" category.

 

[jarrod]

The game was a bomb when the assumed budget for the game is considered,

That's assuming a JP only release though. I know Scamco's been terrible on the localization front, but I'd be shocked if Fragile wasn't planned for worldwide release. We know at least that European trends were considered during the R&D cycle, so that implies a launch beyond just the national market already...

 

[Sage00]

That's assuming a JP only release though. I know Scamco's been terrible on the localization front, but I'd be shocked if Fragile wasn't planned for worldwide release. We know at least that European trends were considered during the R&D cycle, so that implies a launch beyond just the national market already...

The game apparently has a lot of Japanese characters in textures, such as in walls etc, which would need to all be redone for a localization. I think it's unlikely.

 

[Kurosaki Ichigo]

The game apparently has a lot of Japanese characters in textures, such as in walls etc, which would need to all be redone for a localization. I think it's unlikely.

With Hometek I wouldn't worry about that, those textures would be swapped by blank, transparent ones.

I'd say bye to the sideboobs in advance though.

 

[d+pad]

The game apparently has a lot of Japanese characters in textures, such as in walls etc, which would need to all be redone for a localization. I think it's unlikely.

Why not just leave them in place, unless they're used to give players clues, etc.?

 

[Parl]

I'm really disappointed with the Japanese gaming market recently, after the huge hardware and software sales of DS Lite's first couple of years.

I'd like to see Wii perform better in Japan to secure future third party support and to validate the future of the home console market there, and it would be nice if DSi had legs, but DS hardware sell-through is so high, with years left to continue selling, relatively low hardware sales aren't too much of a disappointment.

 

[jarrod]

The game apparently has a lot of Japanese characters in textures, such as in walls etc, which would need to all be redone for a localization. I think it's unlikely.

Unless it's progression-imperative text, I expect they'd just leave it. The game takes place in Japan, it's easy to see how the targeted western market would wrap it's head around that. It's not the 80s anymore.

And considering what they planned to do to Klonoa (an even more limited market localization), I doubt Scamco would be adverse to switching out textures if it really came down to it.

 

[charlequin]

I would think developers would want to get away from the "poof" model, personally.

They'd like purchasers to give new IPs more of a chance, too, but what someone wants is not actually particularly relevant compared to what they can have.

The "poof" model exists for a bunch of reasons: because many games are focused around a single-player model, because the used game market exists, because a platform-centric model and the length of individual games pushes people away from dipping into older titles, because games as a whole are more homogenous than other media, and others I'm not thinking of at the moment.

There's only so much room in the Brain Training market, and the kind of traditional games that exemplify the "poof" model are profitable enough that someone will fill the niche even if existing players start moving out of it, so it's not really within the power of any given developer to meaningfully escape the negatives of this model on their own.

 

[cw_sasuke]

Any information on the EoT DSi Bundle ? Is it limited ?

 

[donny2112]

There's only so much room in the Brain Training market, and the kind of traditional games that exemplify the "poof" model are profitable enough that someone will fill the niche even if existing players start moving out of it, so it's not really within the power of any given developer to meaningfully escape the negatives of this model on their own.

Just to be clear, the "poof" model is where a game sells all (or more realistically just a huge percentage) of its lifetime sales in the first week of release. These types of games are either ones that don't sell or ones that have been around so long that those who buy it have likely bought all of those games, and the game's not attracting a new market (e.g. Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XII). Obviously, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XII sold "well," but they also pretty much only sold to those who had bought previous games in the series. This kind of "first week creep" is expected the longer a core/hardcore series stays around and isn't unusual. It is, however, indicative of why a developer should want to move on to something else rather than stay in that singular pattern: static or decreasing ROI.

In reality, there is a large gulf of models between a "poof" model and a Brain Training model, and I wasn't trying to say that those are the only two possibilities. I still think that developers would want to stay away from the "poof" end of the spectrum, though. As with most things, moderation is probably a better policy.

 

[markatisu]

Why not just leave them in place, unless they're used to give players clues, etc.?

They give players clues but its the pop up text that explains them, they could easily just put symbols on the wall so that the player knew to investigate that portion then in English translate what it said in JP

There is nothing in this game (from what I have played) that cannot be translated fairly quickly. If anything its just would be a cumbersome project that may not yield a return on investment because of all the menu and in game text

 

[charlequin]

Just to be clear, the "poof" model is where a game sells all (or more realistically just a huge percentage) of its lifetime sales in the first week of release.

I'm clear on what you meant, thanks, although I do think you coming back and limiting it to late franchise entries in successful series is unnecessarily specific as there are plenty of games with a halflife of 2-3 weeks, many of which probably sell as much lifetime as the games you cite are doing on week 2-3 anyway.

It is, however, indicative of why a developer should want to move on to something else rather than stay in that singular pattern: static or decreasing ROI.

The reason that ROI is static or decreasing for games like FFXIII or MGS4 is that their return (i.e. sales) is largely static while their investment (i.e. dev and promotion costs) are going up. It really has very little to do with the percentage of sales which occur in the first week, and much more to do with other development factors.

The reason that no one will (or should want to) move away from developing sequels to successful products with a large (but static) audience (i.e. your overly narrow definition of "poof") is that while these products may not present an opportunity for a growing ROI, the static ROI they do provide is still likely to be much higher than many other possible investments of the same money. A main-series FF game might cost $60 million to make and rake in 6 million sales worldwide; that's still a better investment than spending that money to make 3 $20 million budgeted games that do 750k worldwide each.

More generally (getting back to my original point) obviously it's not good for developers when week one sales make up even as much as 1/3 of the total sales; the more front-loaded a title is, the more the vagaries of retail ordering and unit production can result in lost sales or dead inventory. But "well just move away from games that have frontloaded sales" is not a strategy, for two reasons. The first is that many of the factors that lead to frontloaded sales are outside a publisher's direct control and are instead either because of industrywide habits that need to be changed collectively, or the actions of agents who publishers can't control (the law, retailers, purchasers, etc.)

The second is that only certain kinds of games generally are immune to this upfronting -- games with specific replay value, strong multiplayer component, or "casual" orientation, mostly -- and the demand for products in those fields is not infinite. If the major publishers move away from action games and RPGs for kart racing and brain training, someone else will move in to fill that niche and gladly accept the risks of upfronted sales in order to hit up an underserved market.

If what you really mean is that industry stakeholders should figure out ways to move away from the upfronting model because it doesn't really benefit anybody, then sure, I'll agree with that, but that's a very different recommendation than that publishers should unilaterally just stop putting out games that sell in a 1 (or 2, or 3) week window.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Well, the 16K first day was a 45% shipment. That makes the shipment about 35K. And probably selling out a low initial shipment doesn't necessarily make something a success.

Success is defined by the expectations they had for the game. Being that they shipped so few I'd say the game met expectations.

EDIT - donny summed it up.

 

[charlequin]

Success is defined by the expectations they had for the game. Being that they shipped so few I'd say the game met expectations.

It's just important to distinguish between green-light expectations, late-development expectations, and shipment expectations. All that a game needs in order to not get cancelled is for the overall return on letting it stay around to be marginally better than the return from cancelling it outright; it doesn't necessarily mean that the game will meet the expectations that it had at the time it was first approved or that determine whether the company is happy with its performance.

 

[jarrod]

Since Namco never gave expectations for Fragile, we'll never really know if it's hit them.

 

[markatisu]

Since Namco never gave expectations for Fragile, we'll never really know if it's hit them.

That also shines a light on where they view the game, we got expecations for Symphonia Wii, we got expectations for Soul Calibur IV, etc. It might just be a game that in the end was released to recoup what was spent on it and if it did well great, if it did not there are other games to release.

 

[donny2112]

The reason that no one will (or should want to) move away from developing sequels to successful products with a large (but static) audience (i.e. your overly narrow definition of "poof")

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that the sequels would be better off being farmed out to outside developers and the higher quality internal developers should be put in a consulting role while they are allowed to explore other/new games/concepts. You definitely want to milk a series, but why does that need to be done with your top-tier talent? Put your top guys on bringing in new sources of revenue instead of having them captain a spiraling ship of lowering ROI.

When I said "developer," I was referring to the original developer of the game. There's no reason Kojima should be intricately involved in a series that is resulting in lowering ROI for Konami. Oversight? Consultant? Sure. Keep his name involved. It shouldn't be sucking away the majority of his time when Konami might be better off with him creating other new revenue streams for them. It could be spinoffs of MGS, an MGS-type game with a new IP, or a totally different game. If you have a good developer, you want them to try to create as many franchises as they can that will make money for the company.

If the major publishers move away from action games and RPGs for kart racing and brain training, someone else will move in to fill that niche and gladly accept the risks of upfronted sales in order to hit up an underserved market.

MGS has gotten more and more frontloaded as the series has progressed. Would it be better for Kojima to devote the majority of his time to an MGS5 with an expected lower ROI or to devote his time to starting a new series that can eventually get to the point that MGS is now? I'm not saying move to Brain Training and Kart games. I'm saying that publishers are likely to be better off if they keep the biggest talent working creating new sources of income for the company.

If what you really mean is that industry stakeholders should figure out ways to move away from the upfronting model because it doesn't really benefit anybody, then sure, I'll agree with that,

I don't agree with that. Frontloaded games have their place, but as the series progresses the work of the main developers would probably be better spent exploring other avenues for the company.

but that's a very different recommendation than that publishers should unilaterally just stop putting out games that sell in a 1 (or 2, or 3) week window.

Which I never made.

 

[Stumpokapow]

It's just important to distinguish between green-light expectations, late-development expectations, and shipment expectations. All that a game needs in order to not get cancelled is for the overall return on letting it stay around to be marginally better than the return from cancelling it outright; it doesn't necessarily mean that the game will meet the expectations that it had at the time it was first approved or that determine whether the company is happy with its performance.

ding ding

a company generates a half-dozen p&l sheets. retailers weigh in as well. when we DO get stated projections, it's not like that's the only number they've been kicking around, it's just the one they happened to kick to us.

 

[Spiegel]

I thought success was usually defined when your game made money for you.

Let's take the example of the Afrika game on ps3.
They also sold something like 70% of the shipments the first week (35k iirc).

Was the game succesful? Hell no
Did the game make any money for them? I seriously doubt that.
Did the game sell the first shipment? Yeah
Selling the first shipment meant something for the game? No

It wasn't a complete bomb, but it wasn't a successful game either. It was a disappoiting game (in term of sales) that sold the first shipment. And that's all.

I don't think SCE is going to greenlight another "Afrika" anytime soon.

That also shines a light on where they view the game, we got expecations for Symphonia Wii, we got expectations for Soul Calibur IV, etc. It might just be a game that in the end was released to recoup what was spent on it and if it did well great, if it did not there are other games to release.

Namco releases a lot of games in one year. They only give expectations for the ~10 highest selling games. Yeah, you know they weren't expecting Fragile to sell 400k in Japan.

 

[Link]

Yeah, you know they weren't expecting Fragile to sell 400k in Japan.

I dunno, this is Namco we're talking about.

 

[Stumpokapow]

I thought success was usually defined when your game made money for you.

(... Afrika example...)

It wasn't a complete bomb, but it wasn't a successful game either. It was a disappoiting game (in term of sales) that sold the first shipment. And that's all.

You've got it mostly right in my opinion, but I'd add a few things. These aren't necessarily in response to your post, more in addition to your post.

There's a bomba chain.

greenlight -> production -> retail -> consumers

brisk sellthrough means there's no bomba on retail -> consumers. That's a good thing, although as you mention it certainly doesn't mean you're profitable. Just the same, it's also the most common discussion we have in these threads because it's a step that we're totally aware of and totally able to discuss.

Changes in game scope or budget or budget overruns (greenlight -> production step) are virtually impossible to determine except in cases where games receive public reboots or major delays. Even then, how the pre-reboot/delay sunk cost is booked / perceived internally / the causes of these things are sufficiently mystical that we generally don't talk about them.

In the middle is the production -> retail step. That's the tough one, because it's obviously quite pertinent but we don't have access to figures very often. I can say that it's trivially obvious that 45k sales is not enough for any team except maybe one known for their extreme budget measures (Suda's crew, for example) to turn a significant profit on a console game. But beyond that, it's very tough to tell.

I don't think SCE is going to greenlight another "Afrika" anytime soon.

Here's the tough part--plenty of sequels are greenlit to unprofitable games. Maybe because it hits an audience other titles don't. Maybe to reuse assets and spread risk over a two-game basis. Maybe to build a brand. Maybe for prestige. Maybe all four.

This is what makes success hard to define. A sequel being greenlit does not mean the first game was financially successful. It means it was successful in any number of ways, some tangible, some intangible. It's also an area where sales-age becomes more subjective, because we're simultaneously talking about retail success, financial success for the company, and the intangible successes.

(Again, not in direct response to you--more for the benefit of anyone reading)

 

[donny2112]

Famitsu Jan 12-18

01./00. [NDS] Megami Ibunroku: Devil Survivor (Atlus Co.) - 56,689 / NEW
02./00. [WII] Play on Wii: Mario Tennis GC (Nintendo) - 55,391 / NEW
03./00. [PS3] Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm (Namco Bandai Games) - 45,959 / NEW
04./01. [PSP] Dissidia: Final Fantasy (Square Enix) - 28,964 / 829,674
05./00. [PS3] Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks) - 28,499 / NEW
06./02. [NDS] Wagamama Fashion: Girls Mode (Nintendo) - 27,206 / 687,258
07./04. [PSP] Monster Hunter Portable 2 G (BEST) (Capcom) - 25,711 / 317,866
08./03. [NDS] Rhythm Tengoku Gold (Nintendo) - 25,689 / 1,500,242
09./06. [WII] Wii Fit (Nintendo) - 22,527 / 3,092,012
10./25. [WII] Taiko Drum Master Wii (Namco Bandai Games) - 18,830 / 316,417
11./00. [NDS] DS Uranai Seikatsu (DS Fortune Telling) (Nintendo) - 18,718 / NEW
12./05. [WII] Animal Crossing: City Folk (Nintendo) - 16,289 / 1,033,195
13./08. [NDS] Pokemon Platinum (Nintendo/Pokemon Co.) - 15,962 / 2,294,240
14./11. [WII] Wii Sports (Nintendo) - 15,528 / 3,400,118
15./10. [WII] Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo) - 15,331 / 2,111,719
16./07. [NDS] Kirby Super Star Ultra Deluxe (Nintendo) - 14,716 / 992,341
17./14. [NDS] Momotarou Dentetsu 20th Anniversary (Hudson) - 10,826 / 196,647
18./17. [NDS] Prof. Layton and the Last Time Travel (Level 5) - 10,425 / 696,794
19./12. [NDS] Phantasy Star Zero (SEGA) - 10,321 / 170,225
20./09. [PS3] White Knight Chronicles (SCEI) - 10,279 / 310,891
21./00. [PS3] Race Driver: GRID (Codemasters) - 9,654 / NEW
22./13. [PS2] Gundam Musou 2 (Namco Bandai Games) - 9,648 / 189,082
23./00. [NDS] Tongari Boushi to Mahou no 365 Nichi (Little Magician's Magic Adventure) (Konami) - 9,048 / 267,038
24./00. [NDS] Penguin no Mondai: Saikyou Penguin Densetsu! (A Penguin's Troubles: Strongest Penguin Legend) (Konami) - 8,654 / 187,045
25./16. [PS3] Gundam Musou 2 (Namco Bandai Games) - 8,223 / 264,451
26./19. [NDS] Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo) - 7,996 / 4,901,934
27./18. [NDS] Power Pro Kun Pocket 11 (Konami) - 7,876 / 152,185
28./15. [WII] Play on Wii: Pikmin (Nintendo) - 7,856 / 124,648
29./23. [PSP] Musou Orochi: Maou Sairin (Koei) - 7,351 / 149,959
30./20. [PS3] World Soccer Winning Eleven 12: PES 2009 (Konami) - 7,270 / 342,433

*. [360] Race Driver: GRID (Codemasters) - 3,900 / NEW
*. [WII] Castlevania Judgment (Konami) - 3,700 / NEW
*. [360] Virtua Fighter 5 Live Arena (BEST) (SEGA) - 1,300 / NEW
*. [PS2] Shinkyouku Soukai Polyphonica: The Black (Prototype) - 1,300 / NEW
*. [PS3] Disgaea 3 (BEST) (Nippon Ichi Software) - 1,100 / NEW


Bar Chart Jan 12-18 (thanks to JoshuaJSlone/garaph.info)

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


Recent Famitsu Top 30s

Dec 15-21, 2008
Dec 22, 2008-Jan 4, 2009
Jan 5-11, 2009

 

[Aeon712]

Why is no one buying White Knight anymore >_<.

 

[schuelma]

Why is no one buying White Knight anymore >_<.

Because its like almost every other RPG in that sales quickly decline?

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

Why is no one buying White Knight anymore >_<.

Because the kind of people who buy RPGs like it in Japan are the kind of people who play alone in a darkened room and absolutely, positively must have the game on day one. After that, casual RPG fans will buy the used copies that these guys have beaten at a fifth of the original price.

/Yamauchi

 

[Kagari]

Why is no one buying White Knight anymore >_<.

I'm surprised it hung around as long as it did.

 

[donny2112]

I'm surprised it hung around as long as it did.

The holiday probably helped keep it higher longer than it would've otherwise. It's still #7 on the PS3 in Japan, at the moment, and is pretty much guaranteed to make the Top 5 (< 7K to go in Famitsu). I wouldn't be surprised to see it cross 350K by the time it stops selling, as well.

 

[schuelma]

DSi 51,618
PSP 38,280
Wii 26,770
PS3 17,708
DS Lite 13,686
Xbox 360 7,663
PS2 5,077



Timberrr


Edit..well everything is down, not just Wii :lol

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

DSi 51,618
PSP 38,280
Wii 26,770
PS3 17,708
DS Lite 13,686
Xbox 360 7,663
PS2 5,077



Timberrr

New colours coming soon.

 

[bttb]

.

 

[Tmac]

I'm surprised it hung around as long as it did.

Im not surprised. Its a cultural thing. For the same reason crap hollywood movies games, sells pretty well in north america.

 

[kswiston]

New colours coming soon.

I always see this quoted, but do new colors have as much of an effect on console sales as they do on handheld sales?

 

[charlequin]

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that the sequels would be better off being farmed out to outside developers and the higher quality internal developers should be put in a consulting role while they are allowed to explore other/new games/concepts. You definitely want to milk a series, but why does that need to be done with your top-tier talent?

Er... the reason you put your top-tier talent on your huge, frontloaded AAA title is that it is the presence of top talent that made that game a success. History is littered with the corpses of franchises that went from great success to historical irrelevance after getting handed off to a B-team who couldn't maintain what made the games good in the first place.

You can keep talent working effectively by having expert producers train successors who take over future projects (something any well-managed studio should do anyway), but that just means you're creating more top-tier talent to handle your franchises; you still need equally skilled people working in these positions.

There's no reason Kojima should be intricately involved in a series that is resulting in lowering ROI for Konami.

Metal Gear Solid is not "resulting in lowering ROI for Konami"; the rising industry graphical standard, its the attendant increase in development cost, and the current scattered platform identity in Japan are lowering ROI on MGS along with the ROI of many other things, like the average ROI on a new IP project in any given tier.

This kind of brings me to what seems like a weird part your argument here: a title being frontloaded isn't a problem because it necessarily reduces ROI, but because it increases risk. For small or new games frontloaded genres, this is a problem because a mistake in shipment amounts can drastically screw up the profitability of a title -- but that doesn't really apply to huge AAA blockbusters.

The kind of franchises you're talking about don't become frontloaded by having all those trailing sales disappear; they become frontloaded by having all those people change from week 2 or 3 or 4 sales to day 1 sales. (See everything from Etrian Odyssey to Monster Hunter for franchises with sequels that became more frontloaded and bettered their predecessors in total sales.) The ROI on these games isn't going down, it's going up (at first, when the sequel is benefitting from the first game's buzz) and then, generally speaking, holding steady until something causes the games' dev costs to go way up -- and, again, this ROI is usually significantly better than random investment in new games that may or may not prove successful.

Again, I guess you could eventually drill down to a statement I'd agree with like "it's good to mix up your staff utilization and develop major new IPs," but that has nothing to do with frontloadedness whatsoever.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

I always see this quoted, but do new colors have as much of an effect on console sales as they do on handheld sales?

The white PS3 gave its sales a little bit of a bump. I don't see why the Wii wouldn't benefit from the same effect.

Mark my words though, Nintendo will do everything in their power to avoid cutting the price.

 

[FINALFANTASYDOG]

Really Really vague first day numbers from a blog that has been reliable in the past:

Tales Of the world takes first place, with the possibility of over 100,000.

Winning eleven 2009/ Echoes of Time with a poor showing of possibly around 50,000 each(version numbers aren't specified).

Soul Eater PSP did better then expected and is sold out at many places. more in line with the ds version compared to wii and ps2 versions. With the blogger making the rather late observation that Portable versions of games in general are doing better then console versions.


http://ameblo.jp/get6-2

 

[Jonnyram]

With the blogger making the rather late observation that Portable versions of games in general are doing better then console versions.

Tell that to Mistwalker.

 

[donny2112]

Er... the reason you put your top-tier talent on your huge, frontloaded AAA title is that it is the presence of top talent that made that game a success. History is littered with the corpses of franchises that went from great success to historical irrelevance after getting handed off to a B-team who couldn't maintain what made the games good in the first place.

The top talent makes the game a success at the beginning, but then the game title is what carries most of the weight following, unless the farmed out team screws it up as you said. That's why the original team/developer would stay around for oversight, but without having to devote all their time to the game.

You can keep talent working effectively by having expert producers train successors who take over future projects (something any well-managed studio should do anyway), but that just means you're creating more top-tier talent to handle your franchises; you still need equally skilled people working in these positions.

Increase the games that your top talent can get involved in or increase your amount of top talent. If you can recruit and train future top talent, that works fine. If you can't or don't want to risk it, the method I mentioned would work instead. Essentially, how valuable is your top talent and is what they're working on the best use of the resource?

Metal Gear Solid is not "resulting in lowering ROI for Konami"; the rising industry graphical standard, its the attendant increase in development cost, and the current scattered platform identity in Japan are lowering ROI on MGS along with the ROI of many other things, like the average ROI on a new IP project in any given tier.

The progression of the franchise and the requisite increase in the fanbase's expectations, unless accompanied by an increase in the size of that fanbase, result in the lowered ROI. As such, if time is money and top talent time is worth top dollar money, it's more cost efficient to put your top talent on projects that might bring in new revenue to the company than simply using them to satisfy the existing fanbase, I would think.

This kind of brings me to what seems like a weird part your argument here:

Yeah, it's sort of a causality problem. What is probably better stated is that games on the high-end of sales that are the most frontloaded are the ones that the original developers probably shouldn't be spending the most time on. That type of game is usually a part of a long-running series, and its fanbase is probably pretty static. The frontloaded-ness is not the cause but rather a symptom of the series that doesn't need to have the top talent devoted to it to get it to sell.

a title being frontloaded isn't a problem because it necessarily reduces ROI, but because it increases risk. For small or new games frontloaded genres, this is a problem because a mistake in shipment amounts can drastically screw up the profitability of a title -- but that doesn't really apply to huge AAA blockbusters.

That wasn't exactly what I was talking about, but that's still a very good point.

The kind of franchises you're talking about don't become frontloaded by having all those trailing sales disappear; they become frontloaded by having all those people change from week 2 or 3 or 4 sales to day 1 sales. (See everything from Etrian Odyssey to Monster Hunter for franchises with sequels that became more frontloaded and bettered their predecessors in total sales.) The ROI on these games isn't going down, it's going up (at first, when the sequel is benefitting from the first game's buzz) and then, generally speaking, holding steady until something causes the games' dev costs to go way up -- and, again, this ROI is usually significantly better than random investment in new games that may or may not prove successful.

I've been thinking 70%+ first week sales compared to LTD as "hugely frontloaded" in my mind. Sorry for not mentioning it earlier. The second Etrian Odyssey was < 60%. The most frontloaded Monster Hunter has been Monster Hunter 2 at ~65%. The titles I have that sold over 500K and sold 70% of the LTD in week one are games like FF8-12 (minus 11), Chocobo's Dungeon 1 and 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3, RE3, FFXII:RW, and (surprisingly to me) Kingdom Hearts II. MGS4 just squeaked under at 69.4%. Are these games better due to having some of the main staff doing work on them (for those that did have some of the main staff doing work on them)? Probably. Would the titles have sold as well if it was a secondary/outsourced staff working on it under the supervision of the main staff? Possibly. Is the difference in sales worth the time spent by the respective companies top teams on those games? That's the question I'm posing.

Again, I guess you could eventually drill down to a statement I'd agree with like "it's good to mix up your staff utilization and develop major new IPs," but that has nothing to do with frontloadedness whatsoever.

Yeah. Frontloaded-ness is more a symptom of what I was talking about than a cause. Sorry about that.