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[Stumpokapow]

If you want to show the overall software strength of a system, just use total sales. This is the closest to a pure measurement you can get.

The problem is that a developer or publisher who is looking into making a new title doesn't necessarily care about the number of units of software shifted; they care about their chances to shift a unit of software. In this case, the general health of the platform in terms of an average measurement is going to be more useful.

Median isn't. Multimodal distributions would result in distorted medians, and the exclusion of bombs and hits isn't a benefit for analysis as you imply, it's a loss. It's like overzealous JPEG compression. The one thing I think median would be good for is as an abstraction of the shape of sales distribution. Showing medians as well as total number of titles released for the period would indicate whether everything was selling well, or there were hits and bombs but no consistency, etc.

Well, yes and no. I mean, certainly console sales tend to be multi-modal in that we have several sort of distinct categories of sellers (ultra-bombs, low-profile, medium profile, high profile), but I've never seen anything approximately a pure bi-modal or multi-modal distribution.

The sort of multi-modal distribution we DO see is a bi-modal distribution with peaks at the very very bottom and the very very top, which are nicely smoothed out by the median. Also, our data is not complete and is more complete for our top end, so the median could be considered a more accurate measurement since it provides some "benefit of the doubt" to the lower end given that the relative incompleteness of the lower end of data versus the upper end is compensated for. Something like a bayesian weighting algorithm could probably be applied to smooth out all data points, but I think that's probably diminishing returns at that point.

For real interest, though, I think you'd want to forego the abstraction and head straight for the true data: a histogram of sales performance of all games for a system. The bonus here would be that total sales would also be included, as the area of the graph.

Again, total sales is pretty irrelevant, but I do think a histogram year-by-year would be interesting if only to see the growth in sales over the life of the system. I'd be happy to do one as well when I get the time. A histogram would show you a pretty even distribution for most consoles, though.

Since GAF by and large has no statistical background, readability and simplicity in the presentation of statistical concepts is key. I remember the old claim that Sony was "closing the gap" when they were closing the gap in weekly sales. The poor fellow that tried to teach integration and differentiation conceptually to a thread full of randoms who just refused to get it... oh, the horror!

Edit: removed a largely tangential discussion on the merits of a year-by-year histogram.

 

[Liabe Brave]

The problem is that a developer or publisher who is looking into making a new title doesn't necessarily care about the number of units of software shifted; they care about their chances to shift a unit of software. In this case, the general health of the platform in terms of an average measurement is going to be more useful.

Okay, yes, I agree (though this isn't what you said you were trying to measure). I think publishers would be most interested in the modal sales as an overview, followed by the median sales to eliminate possible endpoint-drag, followed by mean. Of course, the more carefully restricted the field of view, the better the prediction, though it's anybody's guess what the correct dimensions for most accurate modelling are. Is RE4 Wii best compared to lightgun games, to ports, to series predecessors, to third-party games on Nintendo systems. . . ? I'm sure publishers have entire departments trying to crunch these numbers.

Well, yes and no. I mean, certainly console sales tend to be multi-modal in that we have several sort of distinct categories of sellers (ultra-bombs, low-profile, medium profile, high profile), but I've never seen anything approximately a pure bi-modal or multi-modal distribution.

Fair enough. I don't know what game sales histograms look like, I was just mentioning this as a possible drawback of median measures in general.

The sort of multi-modal distribution we DO see is a bi-modal distribution with peaks at the very very bottom and the very very top, which are nicely smoothed out by the median. Also, our data is not complete and is more complete for our top end, so the median could be considered a more accurate measurement since it provides some "benefit of the doubt" to the lower end given that the relative incompleteness of the lower end of data versus the upper end is compensated for.

A median wouldn't "smooth out" bimodal distribution unless the two modes were exactly equal in size; otherwise, it would skew toward the prevalent mode. Given the general idea that there are only a few high-performing blockbusters but many off-the-radar releases, median measures of video games are likely to skew strongly downward (though you're absolutely right that the lack of record-keeping for the lower end would offset this some).

Again, total sales is pretty irrelevant, but I do think a histogram year-by-year would be interesting if only to see the growth in sales over the life of the system. I'd be happy to do one as well when I get the time. A histogram would show you a pretty even distribution for most consoles, though.

Is that really obvious? An honest question, I'm not as committed a sales-ager as yourself. I have no preconceptions here, but on first blush at least I find it totally believable that sales histograms for individual consoles would be irregular, would change given different time periods, and would be different from console to console. Perhaps diagnostic of particular regions or times? Perhaps even of brands? I'd love to see the data, but don't commit to it on my account.

 

[AnimeTheme]

PSP's current sales pace has little to do with the games available for it. Therefore, a similar sustained PS3 style "comeback" would have nothing to do with the games on the system, but rather likely something to do with increased Blu-Ray adoption.

BD and firmware updates I would say. If you take a look at the PSP, it can do a lot more than the launch model. The slim redesign is more like a catalyst to make people aware of those new functions that have been added in substantial updates.

 

[Lightning]

http://www.konamistyle.jp/sp/mgs/mgs4/

More of this would be nice. Go Japan Go.

 

[picsou]

http://www.konamistyle.jp/sp/mgs/mgs4/

More of this would be nice. Go Japan Go.

more konami
and mgs 4 still n°1 on amazon

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/bestsellers/videogames/ref=sv_vg_2

it's the first time for a ps3 game

 

[Phife Dawg]

But why not? Were the titles released in the PS2s first year expected to million sellers or become huge franchises. Also if its about profits determining weather or not a title is a bomba. How can anyone say that all those titles people like to trot as bomba for Ps3 didnt make a profit. Does anyone honestly think these titles had huge budgets i.e. dynasty warriors, hotshots. While they may not have sold on par with previous iteration they have most likely shipped enough worldwide if not japan alone to be profitable.

Also if it is about expectations why would these same titles be expected to sell more on a console with a smaller userbase and one which is selling at a slower pace than its predecessor.

Also when people say certain titles on wii exceeded sales expectations as a barometer if a title sold well; would you also say that 3rd parties were probably overly conservative in their predictions not knowing how Wii's userbase would respond to such a titles.

Huh? Are you seriously suggesting that titles like Z&W etc. would've been million sellers or huge franchises in PS2's first year? Was there even a million seller in PS2's first year? Apart from that most PS2 million sellers were continuations of existing and successfull franchises and not new IPs, Onimusha and Kingdom Hearts being the only exceptions I can think of.

We don't know at what point certain games profit but what we do know is that game development is considerably more expensive on 360/PS3, just take a look at the CG videos most games implement nowadays. I guess the budget for some of those exceed those of smaller games. And why wouldn't DW and HSG have big budgets? HSG is ultra popular in Japan and it's a flagship title. Of course lot of resources went into making and marketing it. The same applies to DW.

Apart from that those games are not huge bombs, they just fall way short of their predecessors and cost more to make - not a good thing. When these titles were developed no one knew just how badly PS3 would bomb in Japan, thus they weren't made with small expectations in mind. I know BandaiNamco are insane when it comes to expectations, but they were (jokingly?) expecting 2m in Japan for Gundam Musou first (1m for Gundam, 1m for Musou), which was then revised to 1m in Japan and at last 1m worldwide. Now they may just make it with the recently released PS2 version, but that was unannounced at that time. Only after sales not being up to par did they announce the PS2 version.

As for the last point, it doesn't matter if they were overly conservative. These expectations were the ones they based greenlighting the project on. So the product then going on to beat said expectations (and in the case of the RE games by a good mile) the product can't be considered anything than a big success.

It can't be stressed enough. A mainline current gen exclusive DW developed from the ground up (and accompanied by a price drop, bundle, SA, new colour) doing 350k is disappointing. An outsourced RE spin-off doing 250k is a success (esp. since expectations were 620k sold to retailers worldwide).

 

[Phife Dawg]

dp

GAF is slooow.

 

[Innotech]

actually, for the niche games they are, Zack and WIki and No More Heroes have done exceptionally well worldwide. In JApan they struggled, but so does just about everything.

 

[test_account]

About expecations of games, will people say that the 1st shipment numbers is an indicator of whats being expected for sales?

 

[Stumpokapow]

About expecations of games, will people say that the 1st shipment numbers is an indicator of whats being expected for sales?

Do you mean how do first shipment sizes compare to lifetime expected sales?

Well, it varies. For low-legs, front-loaded games the first shipment is normally as close to their total expected sales as possible without pissing off retailers. For long legged games, total sales expectations have nothing to do with the first shipment numbers. And hell, for all consoles, 3rd parties just put in a print run requisition order and the console manufacturers choose whether or not to honour it. We saw with Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker and indeed also Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles that companies were very slow at getting restocks. Or, in perhaps a more illuminating comparison--when the Taiko Drum Master crash bug was discovered, it was three or four weeks before patched copies got out in the wild.

In general, almost all games are expected to get a restock unless they're expected to sell very very very few copies. Games like Seiken Densetsu 4 or ASH bomb precisely because they need to price drop substantially to sell through their first shipment and the publisher-intended subsequent shipments just never happen.

Ultimately though companies VERY rarely ever disclose their honest internal expectations. Occasionally you hear PR people saying they are disappointing or happy about sales, but the numbers themselves are rarely disclosed.

 

[Shiggy]

more konami
and mgs 4 still n°1 on amazon

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/bestsellers/videogames/ref=sv_vg_2

it's the first time for a ps3 game

Are you sure? Weren't there also games like VF5 or Minna no Golf 5 on number 1?

 

[Kurosaki Ichigo]

Are you sure? Weren't there also games like VF5 or Minna no Golf 5 on number 1?

I remember at least RGG Kenzan doing so. (short-term memory I know). Plus getting to #1 on amazon isn't difficult at all.


Mmm, I wonder how will Pro Yakyuu Spirits 5 split between PS2/PS3 this year. Pro Yakyuu Spirits 4 sure was weird, first week it sells 2:1 in favor of PS2, but LTD is around 6:1 (maybe not very fair for PS3 since it just counts 2 weeks of sales). Also the PS2 edition alone (196k) is the best selling entry, surpassing 3 previous yearly entries (its quite surprising to see a yearly franchise growing its numbers on PS2 2007).

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

more konami
and mgs 4 still n°1 on amazon

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/bestsellers/videogames/ref=sv_vg_2

it's the first time for a ps3 game

Amazon? Snah, you're back!

 

[picsou]

lol no :lol

 

[Pachael]

Amazon? Snah, you're back!

There should be a Sales-Age: Amazon style thread.

 

[test_account]

Do you mean how do first shipment sizes compare to lifetime expected sales?

Well, it varies. For low-legs, front-loaded games the first shipment is normally as close to their total expected sales as possible without pissing off retailers. For long legged games, total sales expectations have nothing to do with the first shipment numbers. And hell, for all consoles, 3rd parties just put in a print run requisition order and the console manufacturers choose whether or not to honour it. We saw with Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker and indeed also Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles that companies were very slow at getting restocks. Or, in perhaps a more illuminating comparison--when the Taiko Drum Master crash bug was discovered, it was three or four weeks before patched copies got out in the wild.

In general, almost all games are expected to get a restock unless they're expected to sell very very very few copies. Games like Seiken Densetsu 4 or ASH bomb precisely because they need to price drop substantially to sell through their first shipment and the publisher-intended subsequent shipments just never happen.

Ultimately though companies VERY rarely ever disclose their honest internal expectations. Occasionally you hear PR people saying they are disappointing or happy about sales, but the numbers themselves are rarely disclosed.

Ye, i wondered how the total size of the first shipment reflects on the LTD expectation of the game

For smaller budget games i guess its easier to know the expecations on the first shipment as you said, but for "bigger" games i guess there is no real way to know if the developers expect the game to have long legs or not just by looking at the shipped numbers? To take one example, the first shipment of Super Mario Galaxy was like 700k, no? Would Nintendo be happy if this game only sold 700k copies in Japan, eventhough they hoped/thought it would sell more? And about Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker, was production constraining the only reason why they shipped the numbers that they shipped or did they want to test the market to see how well it sold before eventually shipping more? I guess this applies most to RE:UC since the other game is is a Dragon Quest game afterall, spinoff or not.

I guess there is no real way to know for sure to know exactly how much a developer except to sell if they dont say anything about it (well, bigger franchises like i.e Gran Turismo, we know sales are expected to be high, but now exactly how high unless they say it i guess). But as you say, it seems very rarely that the developers go out and reviel exactly how many copies they expected a game to sell. It would be cool to know though, then it would be much easier to claim a game bomba or not

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Of course the problem with mean and median is that since most of our data comes from Top 30, 100, 500 lists, we miss the really shitty bottom-clingers that would drag both down if we had truly complete data. Perhaps it would have an equal effect on the various consoles, but perhaps not.

The "third party mean" picture sticks out to me as especially interesting. Wii's third party mean is still well below what GameCube's was even early on. There are the biggies like DQS and RE:UC that stand up to any individual releases on GCN, but that middle is pretty awful.

Are you seriously suggesting that titles like Z&W etc. would've been million sellers or huge franchises in PS2's first year? Was there even a million seller in PS2's first year?

Sort of. Onimusha was out within PS2's first year, but didn't reach a million until well into its second year.

Apart from that most PS2 million sellers were continuations of existing and successfull franchises and not new IPs, Onimusha and Kingdom Hearts being the only exceptions I can think of.

Dynasty/Samurai Warriors, too. Related to a PS1 game, but something quite different that had the "Shin" tacked on to the title to show it, rather than the simple "2" used outside of Japan.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Of course the problem with mean and median is that since most of our data comes from Top 30, 100, 500 lists, we miss the really shitty bottom-clingers that would drag both down if we had truly complete data. Perhaps it would have an equal effect on the various consoles, but perhaps not.

This is why I added a disclaimer for 2007 info. Top 500 I feel comfortable saying is pretty close to a full picture. I mean, let's be honest; number 500 is around 10-15k per year, which works out to ~200 copies per week. In terms of catalog titles, <200 copies per week means it's done shipping and it's just selling through back-stock in bargain bins. In terms of new titles, only the bombiest of the bombs can't manage 10-15k.

I guess the worst case scenario would be a low-tier launch near the end of the year. It might make 20k lifetime, but because it'll be split over 2 calendar years, we might not see it.

The "third party mean" picture sticks out to me as especially interesting. Wii's third party mean is still well below what GameCube's was even early on. There are the biggies like DQS and RE:UC that stand up to any individual releases on GCN, but that middle is pretty awful.

Yeah, it shocked me too. I mean, I realized it'd be low, but that's... low. On the other hand, the Wii's third party mean exhibited some pretty large growth 2006 to 2007 along with the PS3 third party mean. I'm sure 2008 numbers will exhibit similar growth for both platforms.

What I was interested in is the fact that neither the mean nor the median showed ANY growth over the lifetime of the PS2, nor the Cube, nor the PSP. I mean, yes we've that slight raise in the PSP, but it seems that mean/median sales are a lot more set in stone than I would have thought over the lifetime of a console.

I originally put together the graphs in an effort to ascertain whether or not the assertion that PS2's sales were initially weak (and by implication that concern for weak Wii sales is overblown). The actual conclusions I think were far more interesting than what I set out to test.

 

[Stumpokapow]

For smaller budget games i guess its easier to know the expecations on the first shipment as you said, but for "bigger" games i guess there is no real way to know if the developers expect the game to have long legs or not just by looking at the shipped numbers? To take one example, the first shipment of Super Mario Galaxy was like 700k, no? Would Nintendo be happy if this game only sold 700k copies in Japan, eventhough they hoped/thought it would sell more?

I think it's fair to say that really really "megaton" games are a little more front-loaded than most games, but that Nintendo games tend to be a little less front-loaded than most games. Nintendo is generally going to do a bigger shipment initially than most publishers, in part because of the fact that their titles sell for longer means retailers are less likely to slash prices ("price collapse") in reaction to weaker than expected initial sales.

If you ask me, Mario Galaxy was probably a slight disappointment internally for Nintendo. Given the 700k initial shipment, I would assume their projection for lifetime sales was probably 1.25mln or so. On the other hand, we might find that SMG sells 5k per week for the rest of the Wii's life and blows past that number.

And about Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker, was production constraining the only reason why they shipped the numbers that they shipped or did they want to test the market to see how well it sold before eventually shipping more? I guess this applies most to RE:UC since the other game is is a Dragon Quest game afterall, spinoff or not.

DQM:J was definitely production constraints. Restocks took a long time and this was during the time where Nintendo was actually limiting production runs because of capacity issues. AFAIK it also happened during the peak of the "plastic shortage", when Nintendo was releasing some games in cardboard cases temporarily... FF3 DS similarly got hit with those production constraints although not quite as hard.

RE:UC, I'd say you're at least partially right. I'd say it initially undershipped because they weren't super confident, but then when they asked for another production run to be expedited to deal with the sell-out, they were delayed by manufacturing issues.

It would be cool to know though, then it would be much easier to claim a game bomba or not

It's sort of like budget info. We almost NEVER find out the production budget for a game, and even more rarely do we hear commentary on marketing budgets for games. In my searches I've managed to find leaked numbers occasionally, but it's not anything like films where you know the marketing and production budgets for EVERY movie produced.

In my experience, production budgets tend to be a lot lower than people would expect, and marketing budgets tend to be a lot higher than people would expect. The rule of thumb is around ~15% of gross income expected is spent on marketing for major titles. So if they expect a game to sell 1 million copies worldwide, you're looking at a 3-7 million dollar marketing budget.

Production budgets vary very wildly. There's a lot of asset and tech re-using that leads to sequels to unprofitable games becoming very profitable. There are a ton of loss leaders in the game industry (games made for a financial loss in order to train people, develop tech, and build up a brand name). It's often said that Red Steel's budget was 10 million dollars, but I'm certain than Red Steel 2, even having been scrapped and restarted by another team, will probably cost less than half of that.

 

[Phife Dawg]

There should be a Sales-Age: Amazon style thread.

Updated every hour! The awesomeness won't ever stop.

Sort of. Onimusha was out within PS2's first year, but didn't reach a million until well into its second year.

Dynasty/Samurai Warriors, too. Related to a PS1 game, but something quite different that had the "Shin" tacked on to the title to show it, rather than the simple "2" used outside of Japan.

Thanks. Never really got into the DW series so I'm not too knowledgable on the subject - I thought it was a mere continuation from the PS game.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Thanks. Never really got into the DW series so I'm not too knowledgable on the subject - I thought it was a mere continuation from the PS game.

Dynasty Warriors PSX - a generic 2 player fighting game.

Dynasty Warriors 2-6 - a beat-em-up-ish game where there are tons of little bad guys that you wipe out by mashing buttons.

Totally disconnected. Unfortunately the US marketing screwed the pooch on that one.

 

[Moor-Angol]

It's the limited edition of MGS4 to be at #1 on amazon, usually limited editions are very high on amazon chart... regular edition is at #57

 

[test_account]

I think it's fair to say that really really "megaton" games are a little more front-loaded than most games, but that Nintendo games tend to be a little less front-loaded than most games. Nintendo is generally going to do a bigger shipment initially than most publishers, in part because of the fact that their titles sell for longer means retailers are less likely to slash prices ("price collapse") in reaction to weaker than expected initial sales.

If you ask me, Mario Galaxy was probably a slight disappointment internally for Nintendo. Given the 700k initial shipment, I would assume their projection for lifetime sales was probably 1.25mln or so. On the other hand, we might find that SMG sells 5k per week for the rest of the Wii's life and blows past that number.

Ye, thats true, afaik Nintendo games usually dont have price collapse (atleast not very often). SMG might have been a small dissapointment for Nintendo in Japan, i agree to that. It took some time to sell out the first shipment afaik atleast, but as you say, SMG might end up selling something like 5k every week for the next years to come

DQM:J was definitely production constraints. Restocks took a long time and this was during the time where Nintendo was actually limiting production runs because of capacity issues. AFAIK it also happened during the peak of the "plastic shortage", when Nintendo was releasing some games in cardboard cases temporarily... FF3 DS similarly got hit with those production constraints although not quite as hard.

RE:UC, I'd say you're at least partially right. I'd say it initially undershipped because they weren't super confident, but then when they asked for another production run to be expedited to deal with the sell-out, they were delayed by manufacturing issues.

There was really a plastic shortage? I didnt know that. Are those FF3 in cartboard boxes rare because of this?

Ye, that seems very likely for RE:UC. I guess its not always easy to say how good a game will do so they might undership if they are unsure if the game will sell good or not. As you said ,if it sells good and they arent that prepared for it (or what i shall say) it might take some time to get a 2nd shipment out as fast as they want.

It's sort of like budget info. We almost NEVER find out the production budget for a game, and even more rarely do we hear commentary on marketing budgets for games. In my searches I've managed to find leaked numbers occasionally, but it's not anything like films where you know the marketing and production budgets for EVERY movie produced.

In my experience, production budgets tend to be a lot lower than people would expect, and marketing budgets tend to be a lot higher than people would expect. The rule of thumb is around ~15% of gross income expected is spent on marketing for major titles. So if they expect a game to sell 1 million copies worldwide, you're looking at a 3-7 million dollar marketing budget.

Production budgets vary very wildly. There's a lot of asset and tech re-using that leads to sequels to unprofitable games becoming very profitable. There are a ton of loss leaders in the game industry (games made for a financial loss in order to train people, develop tech, and build up a brand name). It's often said that Red Steel's budget was 10 million dollars, but I'm certain than Red Steel 2, even having been scrapped and restarted by another team, will probably cost less than half of that.

Ye, pity that we hardly get any budget info on games It would be cool to read this. I remember back right before the PS3 was released (or maybe it was right after it was released, i dont quite remember) i read something that PS3 games was damn expencive to produce, like 10 - 25 million dollars or so. This might have just been for a couple of games since i know some games have a very high budget, but what i can remember i understood the article that this was for like "every" PS3 game. I dont know how much truth there was to this. 3-7 million dollars in promotion is alot, i had no idea that much money was used on advertising just one game.

Ye, thats true, if they re-use alot of the tech i would assume it would be cheaper to make a game since it takes a shorter amount of time to make them if much of the tech stuff is already done. I also think it might get cheaper to develope after a while when the developers get used to the hardware too. I assume they might be able to make the game in a shorter amount of time then since they have more knowledge about the hardware, but that is just my guess. This also got me to think of the companies that pay for licenses to use other companies' game engines, like i.e the Unreal Engine 3. I guess they will save alot of develope time if they use a pre-made game engine. It probly cost quite some money to license this engine though, but it still might be cheaper

Thanks for all the info by the way

 

[Stumpokapow]

There was really a plastic shortage? I didnt know that. Are those FF3 in cartboard boxes rare because of this?

Nah, it wasn't FF3 that was released in cardboard boxes. I didn't explain well enough. I was talking about two separate events:

1) Nintendo had a production capacity issue when FF3 was released so the initial print run was smaller and the restock took longer than expected. If you check the threads back then, you'll see how FF3 sales were "AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME ... uh... where is it?... guys? what happened to FF3?" and then it totally crawled to a million.

2) Dragon Quest Monsters Joker was ALSO released during a production capacity problem. During that time, Nintendo actually had a plastic shortage. They were cutting print run size for a lot of people. The cardboard box thing was basically that they used boxes the shape of a DS box and the same material as a GBA box (so pretty flimsy). Inside the box with the normal stuff was a little letter from Nintendo saying "sorry, plastic shortage! Get a hold of us in a month or two and you'll get a plastic case".

They (fortunately) didn't package any 3rd party games like that. It was just first party stuff. It affected Nintendogs, Mario Kart DS, Animal Crossing DS, Tetris DS, New Super Mario Bros, and Super Mario 64 DS from around the mid-point of September 2006 to around the end of December 2006. I don't think it affected Brain Training or anything either probably because Nintendo was still trying to build the brand.

Actually, it was so bad that a bunch of Nintendo of Europe branches (I think the Benelux [Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg] branch was the big one) said they were considering doing it too!

Can you imagine? You're selling so much stuff that you don't have enough plastic to cover one and a half major regions!?

I dont know how much truth there was to this. 3-7 million dollars in promotion is alot, i had no idea that much money was used on advertising just one game.

Yeah. I was really surprised to see 7 digit advertising budgets for some major games. I had always thought that advertising was about a million bucks for high profile titles, but then when I started tracking down some numbers, I was blown away.

This also got me to think of the companies that pay for licenses to use other companies' game engines, like i.e the Unreal Engine 3. I guess they will save alot of develope time if they use a pre-made game engine. It probly cost quite some money to license this engine though, but it still might be cheaper

Exactly! The initial licence fee is HUGE, and that's why a company's first project on a new engine almost always loses money because the licence fee is so high and it takes a long time to train people in. Especially since during the PS2 era a lot of games used the RenderWare middleware but now that's not around anymore, so a lot of people needed to "recalibrate" to some of the new tools...

... but once you've got it, you save SO MUCH money on future projects. It's pretty obvious it must be a good move, given that Square Enix has sort of half-ditched or at least toned down the White Engine / Crystal Tools and have since licenced UE3!

 

[Liabe Brave]

Apart from that those games are not huge bombs, they just fall way short of their predecessors and cost more to make - not a good thing. . . .It can't be stressed enough. A mainline current gen exclusive DW developed from the ground up (and accompanied by a price drop, bundle, SA, new colour) doing 350k is disappointing.

Dynasty Warriors 6 isn't a current-gen exclusive; it's also available on the 360 (which meant more worldwide than in Japan, of course). And though I'm sure that Koei would've preferred better performance--indeed expected it--the title likely won't be a dealbreaker for them. It's done better than the original Shin Sangoku Musou, which was also a comparatively expensive first-generation game on complex hardware. (Not the same actual cost, of course, but greatly elevated from a PS1 Koei game.) I doubt DW7 will explode the way DW3 did, but with careful management Koei won't ever lose money on the series.

I don't want to underplay the failure of the PS3 in Japan, but I do think you're overplaying it. Using the most popular home console of all time as comparison will inevitably make anything less look dangerously anemic. I mean, in some respects even Wii looks weak next to PS2!

 

[Rolf NB]

Uh, shouldn't we have leaked Famitsu sw charts just about now?

 

[schuelma]

Uh, shouldn't we have leaked Famitsu sw charts just about now?

nope, tomorrow morning about 8:30 Eastern time

 

[Phife Dawg]

Dynasty Warriors PSX - a generic 2 player fighting game.

Dynasty Warriors 2-6 - a beat-em-up-ish game where there are tons of little bad guys that you wipe out by mashing buttons.

Totally disconnected. Unfortunately the US marketing screwed the pooch on that one.

Thanks for the explanation. Never owned a PS1, I always thought the games were all like 2-6.

Dynasty Warriors 6 isn't a current-gen exclusive; it's also available on the 360 (which meant more worldwide than in Japan, of course). And though I'm sure that Koei would've preferred better performance--indeed expected it--the title likely won't be a dealbreaker for them. It's done better than the original Shin Sangoku Musou, which was also a comparatively expensive first-generation game on complex hardware. (Not the same actual cost, of course, but greatly elevated from a PS1 Koei game.) I doubt DW7 will explode the way DW3 did, but with careful management Koei won't ever lose money on the series.

I don't want to underplay the failure of the PS3 in Japan, but I do think you're overplaying it. Using the most popular home console of all time as comparison will inevitably make anything less look dangerously anemic. I mean, in some respects even Wii looks weak next to PS2!

Uhm, so 360 is not part of the current gen? I don't know if it'll be a dealbreaker for Koei or that they won't ever lose money on the series but so far they, unlike Capcom, haven't positioned themselves very well.

I was talking about PS3 being a failure by itself, not comparing it to PS2. Since Wii is indeed selling faster than PS2 at the moment how can it look weak when being compared? And PS3 is tracking behind the GC, how is it more than an utter failure?

If you are talking about third party software sales, then neither PS3 nor Wii are healthy plattforms on a whole (yet?).

 

[AnimeTheme]

Dynasty Warriors 6 isn't a current-gen exclusive; it's also available on the 360 (which meant more worldwide than in Japan, of course). And though I'm sure that Koei would've preferred better performance--indeed expected it--the title likely won't be a dealbreaker for them. It's done better than the original Shin Sangoku Musou, which was also a comparatively expensive first-generation game on complex hardware. (Not the same actual cost, of course, but greatly elevated from a PS1 Koei game.) I doubt DW7 will explode the way DW3 did, but with careful management Koei won't ever lose money on the series.

I don't want to underplay the failure of the PS3 in Japan, but I do think you're overplaying it. Using the most popular home console of all time as comparison will inevitably make anything less look dangerously anemic. I mean, in some respects even Wii looks weak next to PS2!

I agree. You can quite easily tell from every angle that DW6 is kinda rushed: poor graphics, no new characters, some old characters removed, no story mode for many characters, etc, etc. Probably Sony wanted very much this game to be released in line with the new PS3 launch/price cut, even if that meant the game had to be rushed. Either that, or Koei was simply conservative in investing too much into the first next-gen DW, especially when it seems quite obvious that it wouldn't be as big as the PS2 counterparts.

 

[Neo C.]

Yeah. I was really surprised to see 7 digit advertising budgets for some major games. I had always thought that advertising was about a million bucks for high profile titles, but then when I started tracking down some numbers, I was blown away.

Lots of people constantly underestimate the advertising budget. People don't understand the big budget difference between last gen and current gen because they often assume the advertising budget is constant or maybe a little higher than before. I read the growth of the ad budget is proportional to the development budget or even faster.

 

[creamsugar]

Famitsu

DSL&#12288;56000
PSP&#12288;66000
Wii&#12288;50000
PS3&#12288;16000
PS2&#12288;9000
360&#12288;2600

1.Pokemon Ranger: Batonnage (DS)&#12288;243000
2.DECA SPORTA (Wii)&#12288;67000
3.ARMORED CORE for Answer (PS3)&#12288;50000
4.Sim City DS 2 (DS)&#12288;46000
5.Tales of Rebirth (PSP)&#12288;45000
6.Wii Fit (Wii)&#12288;42000&#65288;1719000&#65289;
7.DS Bimoji Training (DS)&#12288;38000&#65288;109000&#65289;
8.SSBB (Wii)&#12288;37000&#65288;1522000&#65289;
9.Dramatic Dungeon - Sakura Taisen - Kimi Arugatame (DS)&#12288;36000
10.Crayon Shin-Chan - Arashi wo Yobu Cinema Land (DS)&#12288;29000

 

[Redd]

What the heck happened to the PS3. That number cant be right.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

What the heck happened to the PS3. That number cant be right.

I know!


It went up for no reason!

 

[schuelma]

What the heck happened to the PS3. That number cant be right.

Why not? It's been that low for a while now

 

[Redd]

Holy crap is it really that bad in Japan? Thank goodness for North America and Europe then.

 

[Moor-Angol]

wow @ Deca Sporta numbers

 

[Laguna]

Tales of Rebirth didn´t do well. It seems that it´s the worst Tales of first week debut on PSP - (and maybe overall? - looking at Famitsu first week sales - 45k first week)

 

[schuelma]

wow @ Deca Sporta numbers

Pretty nice start

 

[topscouse]

what is deca sporta?

 

[schuelma]

what is deca sporta?

Wii Sports type game from Hudson

 

[Pureauthor]

5.Tales of Rebirth (PSP)&#12288;45000

Is this bad or good? Throw me a bone here, people.

 

[Evlar]

Famitsu

DSL&#12288;56000
PSP&#12288;66000
Wii&#12288;50000
PS3&#12288;16000
PS2&#12288;9000
360&#12288;2600

1.Pokemon Ranger: Batonnage (DS)&#12288;243000
2.DECA SPORTA (Wii)&#12288;67000
3.ARMORED CORE for Answer (PS3)&#12288;50000
4.Sim City DS 2 (DS)&#12288;46000
5.Tales of Rebirth (PSP)&#12288;45000
6.Wii Fit (Wii)&#12288;42000&#65288;1719000&#65289;
7.DS Bimoji Training (DS)&#12288;38000&#65288;109000&#65289;


8.SSBB (Wii)&#12288;37000&#65288;1522000&#65289;
9.Dramatic Dungeon - Sakura Taisen - Kimi Arugatame (DS)&#12288;36000
10.Crayon Shin-Chan - Arashi wo Yobu Cinema Land (DS)&#12288;29000

Interesting re-arrangement of software. Wow @ PSP, it keeps hanging on to the top spot. And I haven't been paying terrible close attention... is that the first sub-10k week for PS2?

 

[Frillen]

what is deca sporta?

Kinda like if Nintendo made a Wii Sports 2.

 

[FrankT]

PS3 back into low cruise control once again. I'm not sure what can save it in Japan at this point.

 

[Laguna]

Is this bad or good? Throw me a bone here, people.

first week and LTD
Tales of Eternia 74,630 193,458
Tales of Phantasia 65,417 111,034
Tales of Destiny 2 65,503 113,984

Under expectation I would say after weeks and weeks of PSP hardware topping the charts.

 

[cvxfreak]

Is this bad or good? Throw me a bone here, people.

*throws*

*hits Pureauthor in the head*

 

[Kurosaki Ichigo]

Tales of Rebirth didn´t do well. It seems that it´s the worst Tales of first week debut on PSP - (and maybe overall? - looking at Famitsu first week sales - 45k first week)

2nd (maybe 3rd) worst first week ever for the franchise. KUREAAAAAAAA-alarm ringing.

 

[farnham]

Interesting re-arrangement of software. Wow @ PSP, it keeps hanging on to the top spot. And I haven't been paying terrible close attention... is that the first sub-10k week for PS2?

the recent PSP hardware sales spike is indeed impressive

the new model did a lot to the PSP

but still its a little to late and the DS is still selling similar numbers... its just that the DS already passed (or is about to pass) PS2 numbers which is the highest numbers of consoles sold in Japan ever.. in other words everyone that wanted DS already got one..

and its not translating into software sales

which is puzzling to me..

man the PSP right now has a great software library...

 

[schuelma]

NEED MY TOP THIRTY

 

[Laguna]

2nd (maybe 3rd) worst first week ever for the franchise. KUREAAAAAAAA-alarm ringing.

Only GBA Tales of the Worls games did worse, right?