• 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.

Media Create Sales 12/10 - 12/16 2007

Final Fantasy IV 180,000
card hero DS 30,000

Whoa at the FFIV sales. Compared to FFIII, that's really pretty poor.

Then again, SE shipped less for this than they did for FFIII, so... I don't know anymore. Please don't let this sabotage chances of an FFVRemake...

Card Hero sales appear disappointing to me, but I don't know enough to properly judge.
 

jj984jj

He's a pretty swell guy in my books anyway.
Pureauthor said:
Whoa at the FFIV sales. Compared to FFIII, that's really pretty poor.

Then again, SE shipped less for this than they did for FFIII, so... I don't know anymore. Please don't let this sabotage chances of an FFVRemake...

Card Hero sales appear disappointing to me, but I don't know enough to properly judge.
Really, they did? How big was the shipment for FFIII? I don't remember.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Pureauthor said:
Whoa at the FFIV sales. Compared to FFIII, that's really pretty poor.

Then again, SE shipped less for this than they did for FFIII, so... I don't know anymore. Please don't let this sabotage chances of an FFVRemake...

Card Hero sales appear disappointing to me, but I don't know enough to properly judge.

Dont worry. It'll make its million easily WW even if it misses in Japan. SE doesnt leave money on the table (except when they go cellphone stupid) and its likely a FFV Remake, if it was even considered, is already in the works.

Gotta worry about releasing to much DQ and FF remakes too close together though.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Pureauthor said:
Approx. 500K, or at least that's what my memory tells me.

Hang on, I'll go check.

It was 500k then 50k shipments weekly cause SE is stupid about supply
 
Okay, I'm back. Ah, old sales threads are full of memories... not all of them good.

Anyway, 309K first day sales for FFIII, at 68% of shipment. That leaves us at approximately 450K for the first shipment. SE apparently rushed out another 50K copies for 501K first week. And that's all, folks.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Lobster said:
I don't get why developers and publishers bother with a Wii release when they're releasing it on Ps2 aswell..

This is one of the few times where based on userbase the Wii version has done proportionately better than the PS2 version. So, picked a bad example to bring up a generally very valid point.
 
Stumpokapow said:
This is one of the few times where based on userbase the Wii version has done proportionately better than the PS2 version. So, picked a bad example to bring up a generally very valid point.

'Based on userbase' isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

(Okay, so there's no paper involved here, but you know what I mean.)
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
We need some awesome discussion to keep me awake. I just pulled an all nighter finishing work for my last class of the semester.
 

Lobster

Banned
Stumpokapow said:
This is one of the few times where based on userbase the Wii version has done proportionately better than the PS2 version. So, picked a bad example to bring up a generally very valid point.

Publishers/developers don't care about that though..only us sales-age fans care.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Pureauthor said:
Whoa at the FFIV sales. Compared to FFIII, that's really pretty poor.

Then again, SE shipped less for this than they did for FFIII, so... I don't know anymore. Please don't let this sabotage chances of an FFVRemake...

I wouldn't worry. I think the reduced shipment versus FFIII despite no real "card crunch" / "plastic shortage" like Nintendo was experiencing last year is a pretty clear indication that Square-Enix expects lower sales. I have no idea if FFVR is coming, but I can't imagine that its chances to come are going to be much impacted by these numbers.

I've all along thought 700k life would be a good number for FF4R. I know ethel and some others have considered this to be a major heavy-hitter and figured the game would go platinum, but I don't really agree personally.

Card Hero sales appear disappointing to me, but I don't know enough to properly judge.

I wouldn't say so. If you think of it as Nintendo's ONLY holiday DS release, then yeah bomba total. But if you consider the game's profile, it's actually in line with every other "B-level" (in pedigree/profile, not in quality) Nintendo DS title:

Chibi-Robo: 135k on first week 50k
DK Jungle Climber: 131k on first week 38k
Planet Puzzle League: 117k on first week 33k
Custom Robo Arena: 110k on first week 39k
Trace Memory / Another Code: 106k on first week 17k
:lol: ASH :lol:: 101k on first week 50k
Project Hacker: 83k on first week 33k
Chou Soujuu Mecha MG: 77k on first week 14k
Kurukin Nano Island Story: 65+ (will gain a lot offchart) on first week 17k

Other than ASH, all of those are considered successes by Nintendo AFAIK... I think the overall potential of a non-major first-party DS game is around 70k-200k which incidentally is almost certainly guarantees profit for all DS games.

Pureauthor said:
'Based on userbase' isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
(Lobster, I quoted Pureauthor but this reply goes for you too)

You're right about that, in the sense that a developer who loses money loses money regardless of the userbase. My point in bringing it up is not to engage in spin, but to ask the question: "If you are trying to migrate your franchise userbase from one console to another, and you are not able or willing to accept financial losses in your first few installments, what is your best bet?"

I would say your best bet is to do a PS2/Wii dual release, relying on PS2 for income and Wii to foster franchise awareness on that platform. Now in cases where the PS2 version is outselling the Wii version 10:1 or 20:1 and I concede that this happens a LOT, it's clear Wii owners aren't fulfilling their end of that bargain and that's problematic. In cases where the Wii performs in proportion to its userbase size, while this might be irrelevant for income purposes, it's highly relevant for the purpose I propose here.

I believe that although it is impossible to fully study historical data on this subject (Japanese hybrid PSX/PS2 games are probably less common than PS2/Wii games, so there's not likely very many historical examples), it's at the very least a useful model.

Furthermore, there's a distinction from the US X360/PS3 comparison. Companies at this point have already migrated from PS2 to X360 for the most part in the US. Companies doing dual 360/PS3 releases are not trying to migrate users from the 360 to the PS3. They just want the sales. In this case, both platforms are about income and only one platform is delivering that income.

If you feel I'm wrong, I think this is a pretty good grounds for discussion, but I do want to make it clear that I'm not doing the fanboy "I want Wii sales to be good so I'll torture logic to make them good" dance. I'm legitimately theorizing about the purpose and direction of future console games and I freely admit that in many cases the Wii userbase is NOT satisfying the obligation I set out for them here.
 

ziran

Member
Decent start for Card Hero, around expectations. The original sold ~70K in its first week and went on to sell ~140K, the DS version could come close. Really though, ~100K LTD would okay, and I'd imagine enough to make a profit.

FF4, okay, maybe it will have a really good weekend.

Time Crisis 4 wasn't going to do much imo, it's around what you'd expect for that kind of game, like Ghost Squad on Wii. Although, that might outsell TC4 with PS3's installed base being what it is and the system being so hardcore orientated at the moment.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
ziran said:
Time Crisis 4 wasn't going to do much imo, it's around what you'd expect for that kind of game, like Ghost Squad on Wii. Although, that might outsell TC4 with PS3's installed base being what it is and the system being so hardcore orientated at the moment.

They better hope it outsells Ghost Squad. No GunCon4 userbase means no games to support it which kneecaps one of the game's main revenue streams. Comparing the breakeven point of the two, it's not even close.
 
Nice for Card Hero. FFIV, maybe I expected a bit more, but compared to FFIII, I never felt like it was going to be a sure-fire heavy hitter. FFIII had the advantage of being the first one since the FC days, FFIV on the other hand, has been available for a while and the last one was released only a couple of years ago, so that might have affected its impact. Should still crawl to 500k LTD though.

Maybe the FF franchise needs a break, as well, too many were released this year alone.
 

jj984jj

He's a pretty swell guy in my books anyway.
Pureauthor said:
Okay, I'm back. Ah, old sales threads are full of memories... not all of them good.

Anyway, 309K first day sales for FFIII, at 68% of shipment. That leaves us at approximately 450K for the first shipment. SE apparently rushed out another 50K copies for 501K first week. And that's all, folks.
It's always fun looking back, no? :lol Thanks. :)

That's kind of strange when this is one of the biggest weeks of the year (even knowing about their lower shipments after IaWW), they shipped more of DQIV than this a month ago and they shipped more of FFIII which came out at the end of August. Maybe S-E doesn't expect FFIV to perform as well as FFIII, although they'd obviously be more than happy if it did end up at the million mark as well. Instead they've plan to cash-in on remakes reusing the FFIII DS engine since they'd sell better than the GBA ports did and probably aren't too much of an expense. If S-E really wanted to take a risk with FF on the DS after the sales of FFIII, I think they would have had Matrix make a new game instead of remaking a game that was just rerelased 2 years ago. Feel free to disagree, but I doubt a remake of FFV is in any jeopardy unless FFIV really struggles to sell the next 200k of it's initial shipment (after price collapse and so forth).

Personally I don't mind since I haven't bought any of the FFIV ports, but this is likely what the Square side of S-E has planned for the DS and it certainly all makes sense from a business standpoint of view.
 

Link1110

Member
Eteric Rice said:
I'm pretty sure SE isn't crying over those numbers. :)
They sold 180k first day. They'll probably double that for the first week numbers, leaving 360k/400k sold. Sounds like they sold exactly what they expected, if you assume that they wanted a few copies around to be sold next week.
 

ziran

Member
Stumpokapow said:
They better hope it outsells Ghost Squad. No GunCon4 userbase means no games to support it which kneecaps one of the game's main revenue streams. Comparing the breakeven point of the two, it's not even close.
Oh yeah, the dev costs for TC4 must be in the millions, while Ghost Squad's looks like they were a packet of M&Ms and a couple cans of Coke! :lol

While not exactly lightgun, with the Wii remote, the on rails shooter's home is already Wii imo. In Japan alone, Ghost Squad must be ~50K if not more, REUC is likely to top 200K and Link's Crossbow Training has yet to launch and will probably manage over 100K. Add to this the sales outside Japan, and these games are already popular on the system. They also seem to suit a more casual audience, so again, Wii.

Also, there could be some great fun to be had with an option for the Balance Board as a duck pedal, and other uses in these games. Hopefully Namco, Sega and others are devoting good resources to future on rails shooters on Wii, they could do well.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
I hope there are more original rail shooters for the Wii. The supply of graphically viable arcade ports is starting to dry up.

Above Wii level:
System 256: None.
Lindbergh: 2Spicy, HOTD4, Ghost Squad Evolution

At Wii level or just below:
Chihiro: HOTD3, Ghost Squad, Virtua Cop 3
Triforce: None
Konami: Silent Hill Arcade, Lethal Enforcers 3
Others: Aliens: Extermination

Basically everything below this line will look like shit and be PS2-level quality or lower:
System 246: Time Crisis 3, Vampire Night, Gun Survivor 3 / Dino Stalker,
Naomi or Naomi2: Gun Survivor 2, HOTD2, Typing of the Dead,
Model3: The Ocean Hunter,
Model2: House of the Dead, Virtua Cop, Virtua Cop 2
Konami: Silent Scope, Silent Scope 2, Silent Scope 3, Police 911

So realistically after this port, we've got VC3 from SEGA and potentially Silent Hill: The Arcade from Konami, and that's pretty much it.
 

apujanata

Member
Stumpokapow said:
(Lobster, I quoted Pureauthor but this reply goes for you too)

You're right about that, in the sense that a developer who loses money loses money regardless of the userbase. My point in bringing it up is not to engage in spin, but to ask the question: "If you are trying to migrate your franchise userbase from one console to another, and you are not able or willing to accept financial losses in your first few installments, what is your best bet?"

I would say your best bet is to do a PS2/Wii dual release, relying on PS2 for income and Wii to foster franchise awareness on that platform. Now in cases where the PS2 version is outselling the Wii version 10:1 or 20:1 and I concede that this happens a LOT, it's clear Wii owners aren't fulfilling their end of that bargain and that's problematic. In cases where the Wii performs in proportion to its userbase size, while this might be irrelevant for income purposes, it's highly relevant for the purpose I propose here.

I believe that although it is impossible to fully study historical data on this subject (Japanese hybrid PSX/PS2 games are probably less common than PS2/Wii games, so there's not likely very many historical examples), it's at the very least a useful model.

Furthermore, there's a distinction from the US X360/PS3 comparison. Companies at this point have already migrated from PS2 to X360 for the most part in the US. Companies doing dual 360/PS3 releases are not trying to migrate users from the 360 to the PS3. They just want the sales. In this case, both platforms are about income and only one platform is delivering that income.

If you feel I'm wrong, I think this is a pretty good grounds for discussion, but I do want to make it clear that I'm not doing the fanboy "I want Wii sales to be good so I'll torture logic to make them good" dance. I'm legitimately theorizing about the purpose and direction of future console games and I freely admit that in many cases the Wii userbase is NOT satisfying the obligation I set out for them here.

Nice theory. It is reasonable, and makes sense. I think another factor why there are a lot of PS2/Wii combo game, is because of PS3's high development cost, and low install base (in Japan, compared to Wii).
 

Grecco

Member
In a perfect world we get Lupin the Third ported to the Wii


lus_1103.jpg
 

Yoboman

Member
AniHawk said:
Yeah, I'm sorta surprised it's actually that big. The system sells 184k in a week and only 3 games chart in the top 50. Most people stopped using it for games a long time ago.
Which is shitty cause it has some awesome games
 
Stumpokapow said:
I hope there are more original rail shooters for the Wii. The supply of graphically viable arcade ports is starting to dry up.

Above Wii level:
System 256: None.
Lindbergh: 2Spicy, HOTD4, Ghost Squad Evolution

Isn't System 256,basically, an upgrade PS2?....

I'm pretty sure Wii is capable of a very faithful port of Tekken 5 Arcade version...
 

fresquito

Member
Stumpokapow said:
You're right about that, in the sense that a developer who loses money loses money regardless of the userbase. My point in bringing it up is not to engage in spin, but to ask the question: "If you are trying to migrate your franchise userbase from one console to another, and you are not able or willing to accept financial losses in your first few installments, what is your best bet?"
The best bet is always doing a great sequel to that cnnsole that doesn't feel lik a dirty port.

There're other factors why some games might sell better on the PS2 than on the Wii beyond userbase. For istance, when there's little else new to buy, options get tigher and the flood of owners of a console tend to go the same route if they want new games. Now the market on the Wii is a different beast. There's some competition and you're battling against high profile games there.

On the other hand, when a game is being released on a lower console as well, it's istantly labelled as dirt port. Usually those will have a ugly death. You know, you don't buy a new console to play a game you can play on your old PS2. There're some exceptions like RE4, but that game deserves every damn copy it might sell and then some more.
 
No more pointless than the one I quoted. A system performing poorly on the market despite the fact that 'it has awesome games' is hardly new, and in fact occurs more frequently than a system succeeding.
 

Eteric Rice

Member
Stumpokapow said:
You're right about that, in the sense that a developer who loses money loses money regardless of the userbase. My point in bringing it up is not to engage in spin, but to ask the question: "If you are trying to migrate your franchise userbase from one console to another, and you are not able or willing to accept financial losses in your first few installments, what is your best bet?"

I would say your best bet is to do a PS2/Wii dual release, relying on PS2 for income and Wii to foster franchise awareness on that platform. Now in cases where the PS2 version is outselling the Wii version 10:1 or 20:1 and I concede that this happens a LOT, it's clear Wii owners aren't fulfilling their end of that bargain and that's problematic. In cases where the Wii performs in proportion to its userbase size, while this might be irrelevant for income purposes, it's highly relevant for the purpose I propose here.

I believe that although it is impossible to fully study historical data on this subject (Japanese hybrid PSX/PS2 games are probably less common than PS2/Wii games, so there's not likely very many historical examples), it's at the very least a useful model.

Furthermore, there's a distinction from the US X360/PS3 comparison. Companies at this point have already migrated from PS2 to X360 for the most part in the US. Companies doing dual 360/PS3 releases are not trying to migrate users from the 360 to the PS3. They just want the sales. In this case, both platforms are about income and only one platform is delivering that income.

If you feel I'm wrong, I think this is a pretty good grounds for discussion, but I do want to make it clear that I'm not doing the fanboy "I want Wii sales to be good so I'll torture logic to make them good" dance. I'm legitimately theorizing about the purpose and direction of future console games and I freely admit that in many cases the Wii userbase is NOT satisfying the obligation I set out for them here.

I think the problem at the moment is there's really no reason to buy the Wii version of a game if you already have a PS2. You can't really "move" a franchise over if you're still releasing it on the older console (which millions more own).

It's likely going to be exclusive games that do the best in terms of moving people over. Not many companies are willing to do exclusives though, which is something Nintendo will have to deal with.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Relaxed Muscle said:
Isn't System 256,basically, an upgrade PS2?....

I'm pretty sure Wii is capable of a very faithful port of Tekken 5 Arcade version...

I meant Super 256, which is what Time Crisis 4 runs on.
 

Yoboman

Member
Pureauthor said:
No more pointless than the one I quoted. A system performing poorly on the market despite the fact that 'it has awesome games' is hardly new, and in fact occurs more frequently than a system succeeding.
PSP isn't doing poorly, it's selling amazingly well. It's the software that is underperforming. And yes, that is a unique situation

In any case, what has happened to other systems doesn't stop the fact that good software not selling well is a shame.

Your post was pointless cause you made it into something fanboyish and adversarial.
 
Yoboman said:
PSP isn't doing poorly, it's selling amazingly well. It's the software that is underperforming. And yes, that is a unique situation

*shrugs* Success usually requires both hardware and software to perform at at least a decent clip.

In any case, what has happened to other systems doesn't stop the fact that good software not selling well is a shame.

Your post was pointless cause you made it into something fanboyish and adversarial.

You're right. It's a shame. It is also very, very common, to the point where reiterating it becomes pointless. The PSP has awesome software. The X360 has awesome software. The Gamecube had awesome software. The Saturn had awesome software. Awesome software not contributing to a system's success is something that's been acknowledged and understood for as long as... well, chart watching has been a hobby.

Was my post pointless? Perhaps. But so was yours.
 

Yoboman

Member
Pureauthor said:
*shrugs* Success usually requires both hardware and software to perform at at least a decent clip.
Which is why it's shitty that software isn't doing as well as it should. We've come full circle already! Pointless indeed.
 

jj984jj

He's a pretty swell guy in my books anyway.
The Experiment said:
Lost Odyssey went from 7 to 50 :lol

Blue Dragon didn't fall that hard. Its unfortunate nobody is buying the game.
At least it managed to chart?

...

:(
 
One has to worry that once the PS2 is no longer a viable platform (which could still take a year or two), neither will the PSP. With software sales so poor...the appeal to do anything PSP exclusive will continue to diminish, and when PS2 is no longer viable, ports to the PSP will dry up. Time will tell.
 
DanielJohnson said:
One has to worry that once the PS2 is no longer a viable platform (which could still take a year or two), neither will the PSP. With software sales so poor...the appeal to do anything PSP exclusive will continue to diminish, and when PS2 is no longer viable, ports to the PSP will dry up. Time will tell.

Why would you want more ports that are more often than not shoddily done affairs? Let the PSP stand (or not...) on the strength of its own, unique software.
 

koam

Member
Stumpokapow said:
I hope there are more original rail shooters for the Wii. The supply of graphically viable arcade ports is starting to dry up.

Above Wii level:
System 256: None.
Lindbergh: 2Spicy, HOTD4, Ghost Squad Evolution

Uhh, all of these games are very possible on the Wii. In fact, there are already games on the Wii that look better than those.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
wsippel said:
Super256 is a slightly upgraded PS2. I doubt it's more powerful than even Chihiro, let alone Wii...

System 246 is a PS2. System 256 is an upgrade on System 246. Super 256 is an upgrade on System 256.

The only game on Super 256 is Time Crisis 4, which was ported to PS3 and features slowdown. Yes, undoubtedly that's partially the fault of a shoddy port, but I expect that the Super 256 is pretty beefy inside. Admittedly I've never seen exact tech specs, but it seems to fit.

koam said:
Uhh, all of these games are very possible on the Wii. In fact, there are already games on the Wii that look better than those.

Sega Lindbergh, according to Wikipedia:
A SEGA Lindbergh is "basically" a Pentium 4 PC at 3.0 Ghz, running a Linux operating system inside, and a NVIDIA Geforce graphic card.
CPU: Pentium 4 3.0 GHz with 1 megabyte L2 Cache, Hyper Threading Compatible, 800MHz FSB
RAM: 184 pin DDR SDRAM PC3200(400 MHz) 512 MiB × 2(Dual)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 AGP (NV40), 256 Bit GDDR3 256 MiB, compatible with Vertex Shader 3.0 & Pixel Shader 3.0
Sound: 64 channel, 5.1 ch SP-DIF

It is possible that the games themselves could run on the Wii, but certainly I wouldn't count on Lindbergh as a platform being portable.
 
Pureauthor said:
Why would you want more ports that are more often than not shoddily done affairs? Let the PSP stand (or not...) on the strength of its own, unique software.
Well..that's what I'm saying. The ports populate its library. I agree most are really shoddy. How much more unique software is the PSP going to get if it doesn't sell?

In fact, does anyone have a list of unique, non-ports upcoming for PSP in 2008? I'd be interested to see whats (if anything is) in store.
 

ethelred

Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
Wow, soft opening for FFIV. I hope it has a better trajectory than FFIII or I doubt we'll see FFV and FFVI.

Yeah. Not looking too good. These are very poor numbers.

DanielJohnson said:
One has to worry that once the PS2 is no longer a viable platform (which could still take a year or two), neither will the PSP. With software sales so poor...the appeal to do anything PSP exclusive will continue to diminish, and when PS2 is no longer viable, ports to the PSP will dry up. Time will tell.

There's always the Wii.
 
Top Bottom