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[Segata Sanshiro]

It seems odd to hear that not everyone has a computer in their home in Japan when they have wireless broadband for over 90% of the country, iirc. What do you think the reason for this is? Does the fact that the internet is so easily accessible outside the home make the push for having a computer at home less strong?

It's hard to say. A lot of conveniences offered by internet in NA are not offered here, such as good internet banking (christ the banking here is terrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrible), paying utilities online, and so on.

Longer work hours could be a factor, too. If you spend 12 hours looking at a computer screen at work you probably don't want to do it at home. Kids here are also way too busy (or at least need to look like they're busy) to spend hours bumming on the internet, particularly in the junior high/high school years, when they have to bust their asses just to make sure they aren't epic failures. People in Japan don't spend a lot of time at home, except the housewives and the otaku.

Another possibility lay in the cell phones. They're of course far more ubiquitous here than in most countries, and they can do a lot of things that computers can, and they can do it from the seat of the train, to boot. Part of the reason Apple's having such a rough time here with the iPhone is that it simply isn't the miracle advance over existing phones that it is in other markets.

Mini-PCs seem to have caught on a bit here, too, and that's probably going to eat into the chances of desktops going anywhere.

All that said, it's getting more common, particularly for University students, to get a laptop. Japan is changing, but it's still very different from NA with regards to computers.

Another question for Sales-Age and Japan-GAF: do you think the greying population is having a discernible effect on the gaming market in Japan now, and will this only get worse as time goes by?

I don't think the greying population is having much of an effect right now (chances are if they ever played games, they still might, particularly for watershed titles like DQIX), but of course the population is declining, and eventually that's going to spell trouble.

I believe what we're seeing right now are effects from the economy (it's in really, really bad shape in Japan), and the general malaise towards console gaming that was already coming in towards the later years of the PS2.

 

[Nirolak]

I believe what we're seeing right now are effects from the economy (it's in really, really bad shape in Japan), and the general malaise towards console gaming that was already coming in towards the later years of the PS2.

I was curious, do you have any idea as to why it took so long for handheld gaming to overtake console gaming in Japan?

Was it a lack of Japanese centric software support for handhelds, some technological advancement handhelds made, or something else?

I was thinking about it and I couldn't really come up with an obvious answer.

 

[cvxfreak]

I was curious, do you have any idea as to why it took so long for handheld gaming to overtake console gaming in Japan?

Was it a lack of Japanese centric software support for handhelds, some technological advancement handhelds made, or something else?

I was thinking about it and I couldn't really come up with an obvious answer.

My theory is that for a long time, not only have there been more consoles* active on the market than handhelds, but that their experiences were fairly distinct from each other, especially starting with the PSone era. Handheld games had similarities to mainstream console games from a few years earlier, so there was always a bit of a lag.

Now, we have the DS, which provides a lot of experiences you cannot nor ever have been able to get on home consoles, and the PSP, which actually does provide the level of graphics and close experiences to PS2 and Wii games. Even though the HD systems are far more advanced in terms of visuals and physics, the Japanese have demonstrated time and time again that visuals and horsepower aren't everything for them. So, for many Japanese, who are mobile in everyday life, there's little point in buying a home console. That's why the Wii has tried to be different, and although it's sales are not as high as the PSP and DS, it is still successful here with Wii Sports, Wii Fit and such that cannot be had on the handhelds, and these two have outsold 99% of DS games.

Japan's also undergoing a massive netbook push and 3G data modem services are gaining traction here. There just seems to be a huge preference for small, mobile content, and I myself have developed a preference for this. I don't know about anyone else, but Tokyo is really not the best place to spend a whole day in your home. Coupled with the lack of a mature public WiFi scene, it's good to see netbooks and mobile 3G modems maturing. I'm hoping that Nintendo and Sony can somehow get the DS and PSP to join these new networks.

*consoles = home systems, and this is the last time I will ever make that distinction.

 

[Apenheul]

Japan News Report: DQIX breaks 3 millions copies in 3 weeks

ドラクエIX、発売3週目で実売300万本突破　DS最速
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt1wNVo4VkQ&fmt=22

That was great to watch even though I didn't understand much at all.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

What cvx said. He is wise peoples.

 

[DangerousDave]

I was curious, do you have any idea as to why it took so long for handheld gaming to overtake console gaming in Japan?

Was it a lack of Japanese centric software support for handhelds, some technological advancement handhelds made, or something else?

I was thinking about it and I couldn't really come up with an obvious answer.

The gamer average age is bigger (not only in Japan, in all the world). So the 10-15 yo of the SNES era is the current 25-30 yo people.

And people has now less time to play at home (than we're they were 10 or 15 yo), and, specially in Japan, long travels to go and go back from work. I saw in a thread the average age of, for example, DQ IX, and almost all people is in late 20's or over 30 yo.

 

[Nirolak]

Thanks for all the information cvx. That was quite informative.

As a side note though:

Japan's also undergoing a massive netbook push and 3G data modem services are gaining traction here. There just seems to be a huge preference for small, mobile content, and I myself have developed a preference for this. I don't know about anyone else, but Tokyo is really not the best place to spend a whole day in your home. Coupled with the lack of a mature public WiFi scene, it's good to see netbooks and mobile 3G modems maturing. I'm hoping that Nintendo and Sony can somehow get the DS and PSP to join these new networks.

While I think this is a really good idea and would love to see it happen, unfortunately there are a few issues with doing this.

At minimum, both the DS and PSP would need new hardware revisions for this to work, since both of them lack 3G modems, and I can't really think of a good way to interface one into them without sacrificing their portable nature. 3G modems also aren't the most power friendly devices ever, especially the ones that are generally cheaper to produce. The biggest issue though is that there are essentially no 3G modems that support every frequency used by 3G, meaning that they'd either need to make regional hardware versions with separate 3G modems, or make more expensive 3G modems that cover the majority of 3G frequencies, while having to leave a few less prominent markets out in the cold.

Overall, it's kind of an expensive proposition being added to two pieces of hardware that have already had their prices moved up with their latest renditions. Raising the prices again with another hardware re-release is kind of a really risky proposition in this economy.

I think the first we'd see of this would be in the next handheld releases from Nintendo and Sony when the prices and power consumption of 3G modems have really sorted themselves out much better than they are right now.

 

[cvxfreak]

Nirolak, thanks for the info on 3G modems. Very nice.

I actually had in mind a way to unify cellphones with the DS and PSP, akin to tethering. I think it might be feasible, especially for the PSP, to tether to a cellphone with Bluetooth technology. I think this would be a natural extension that could overcome the limits of WiFi. Interestingly enough, Nintendo did this as far back as ten years ago with the Game Boy Color, and there had been plans at one point for the PSone to do it as well when it received its LCD screen and portable battery.

You have to wonder if, after the technology bars for cellular data are settled, if Nintendo and Sony will jump on board. But you're right that there are still quite a few hurdles including regional differences related to data networks that make it hard for the technology to be included into the machines themselves. Tethering sounds like a nice alternative, unless there's something else I haven't considered.

 

[justchris]

Nirolak, thanks for the info on 3G modems. Very nice.

I actually had in mind a way to unify cellphones with the DS and PSP, akin to tethering. I think it might be feasible, especially for the PSP, to tether to a cellphone with Bluetooth technology. I think this would be a natural extension that could overcome the limits of WiFi. Interestingly enough, Nintendo did this as far back as ten years ago with the Game Boy Color, and there had been plans at one point for the PSone to do it as well when it received its LCD screen and portable battery.

You have to wonder if, after the technology bars for cellular data are settled, if Nintendo and Sony will jump on board. But you're right that there are still quite a few hurdles including regional differences related to data networks that make it hard for the technology to be included into the machines themselves. Tethering sounds like a nice alternative, unless there's something else I haven't considered.

Ever since the DSi was released, I've been pretty certain that Nintendo is looking at ways to combat iPods and Cellphones as mobile gaming devices. The DS is better at gaming than those devices, but those devices have so many other features to balance that out, and that risks cutting into a very profitable market for Nintendo.

I had never considered tethering as an option, but its actually a pretty good idea. If Nintendo could partner up with a particular cell company, they could market a cellphone as a DS2 accessory (better to do it that way than the other way around, from a marketing perspective).

 

[Graphics Horse]

PSP Go lets you tether to a bluetooth phone. I might be missing the point of this conversation, but I'd rather modems stayed out of handhelds until the call charges are free.

 

[°°ToMmY°°]

thanks segata and cvxfrak. is it possible to read somewhere about all of these differences between jap and us/eu countries?

 

[Johann]

Another question for Sales-Age and Japan-GAF: do you think the greying population is having a discernible effect on the gaming market in Japan now, and will this only get worse as time goes by?

Like Nirolak said, it's going to affect which type of games will sell and which games won't sell. I can see genre that people to play long stretches of time in a row start to decline or be cannibalized by a handful of mega-franchises. Population decline, rather, than aging, will be the bigger problem. Publishers will need to either need to make games that get more people into gaming or move focus onto other, more healthy markets.

It's also going to make nostalgia marketing campaigns, such as the 'your first time playing Pokemon' campaign with Diamond and Pearl, that much more important.

 

[cvxfreak]

PSP Go lets you tether to a bluetooth phone. I might be missing the point of this conversation, but I'd rather modems stayed out of handhelds until the call charges are free.

They probably would never be free, but in Japan, it's pretty popular for everyone to have "packet-houdai" cellular plans that allow for unlimited use of internet services. For example, instead of text messaging, everyone here uses e-mail to communicate between phones. And Segata mentioned that it's not guaranteed for a household to have a computer, because cellphones here can access and manipulate the internet pretty darn well. DS and PSP would be a nice way for consumers to tap into their packets.

Users who'd like the service to be free should stick to WiFi. I agree that they shouldn't be a part of the hardware internally, at least for the next few years.

thanks segata and cvxfrak. is it possible to read somewhere about all of these differences between jap and us/eu countries?

Not sure if there's any dedicated site on these differences, but Googling cellphone and computer use in Japan might be a good start.

 

[schuelma]

Really good stuff the last page or so guys. Thanks!

 

[duckroll]

Just to step away from the MH3 discussion for a moment, I've just noticed something. In October, we're looking at 4 somewhat notable RPGs coming out on the DS pretty much one week after another.

Oct 1 - Blue Dragon: Ikai no Kyoujuu (Bandai Namco)
Oct 8 - Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (Atlus)
Oct 15 - Shounen Sunday & Shounen Magazine - White Comic (Konami)
Oct 29 - 4 Warriors of Light: Final Fantasy Gaiden (Square Enix)

I wonder what sort of sales we'll be seeing. Any predictions?

 

[schuelma]

Just to step away from the MH3 discussion for a moment, I've just noticed something. In October, we're looking at 4 somewhat notable RPGs coming out on the DS pretty much one week after another.

Oct 1 - Blue Dragon: Ikai no Kyoujuu (Bandai Namco)
Oct 8 - Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (Atlus)
Oct 15 - Shounen Sunday & Shounen Magazine - White Comic (Konami)
Oct 29 - 4 Warriors of Light: Final Fantasy Gaiden (Square Enix)

I wonder what sort of sales we'll be seeing. Any predictions?

Hmmm..there doesn't seem to be any sure bets on that list IMO. Just at first glance I think SMT and Warriors of Light might do the best? I think Blue Dragon might not do so hot.

 

[HK-47]

I guess it's interesting for people outside Japan to see. That stuff has been the reality of Japan for the last few weeks for people living here, though. Haha. I've seen more people walk into traffic because they have a DS held up in front of their face than I ever expected to see in my life.

DQ IX is a public health hazard.

 

[Nirolak]

Nirolak, thanks for the info on 3G modems. Very nice.

I actually had in mind a way to unify cellphones with the DS and PSP, akin to tethering. I think it might be feasible, especially for the PSP, to tether to a cellphone with Bluetooth technology. I think this would be a natural extension that could overcome the limits of WiFi. Interestingly enough, Nintendo did this as far back as ten years ago with the Game Boy Color, and there had been plans at one point for the PSone to do it as well when it received its LCD screen and portable battery.

You have to wonder if, after the technology bars for cellular data are settled, if Nintendo and Sony will jump on board. But you're right that there are still quite a few hurdles including regional differences related to data networks that make it hard for the technology to be included into the machines themselves. Tethering sounds like a nice alternative, unless there's something else I haven't considered.

That would actually be interesting solution. Nice thinking there.

Actually, now that I think about it, Sony confirmed they were making a gaming phone just last month actually: http://www.reuters.com/article/tech...20090627?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews

Maybe they'll allow the PSP to tether internet through it as well?

 

[swerve]

Tethering through your phone is not the solution though. It's always going to be exclusively the domain of the tech-savvy, and it'll be flakey from device to device.

The games machines, whilst not needing phone functionality, need the always-on connection all to themselves. Once they sort out a way to make that free to use (!) there will be nothing but battery life standing in the way of an always-online, data-anywhere portable from Sony and Nintendo.

I give it twelve months until we know who jumps first.

 

[ethelred]

Just to step away from the MH3 discussion for a moment, I've just noticed something. In October, we're looking at 4 somewhat notable RPGs coming out on the DS pretty much one week after another.

Oct 1 - Blue Dragon: Ikai no Kyoujuu (Bandai Namco)
Oct 8 - Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (Atlus)
Oct 15 - Shounen Sunday & Shounen Magazine - White Comic (Konami)
Oct 29 - 4 Warriors of Light: Final Fantasy Gaiden (Square Enix)

I wonder what sort of sales we'll be seeing. Any predictions?

The audiences for some of those are a bit different. I don't think Shin Megami Tensei is exactly competing for the same potential buyers as anime/manga-centric RPGs like Blue Dragon and Konami's Shounen RPG. I think those two are kind of competing, but I don't think at this point that either one will sell all that hot anyway -- for one thing, Blue Dragon's sales are basically capped at around 200k max (since, unfortunately, with the way this franchise has been handled I can't see this game appealing to anyone who took a pass on the 360 version) but given the genre change and the weaker marketing push and the decreased amount of hype, I'd more expect it to sell half of that. And as far as Sunday vs. Shounen goes, the PSP game tanked and given what we've seen so far I can't think of a reason why the DS game would do differently.

Shin Megami Tensei sort of appeals mostly to its own sort of market, and I think the game will sell to them quite well. Atlus has been doing great selling its RPGs on the DS so far, I think they'll do a very good job promoting the game to their core fans, and everything about the game looks so appealing. And while I see a ceiling on the sales of Blue Dragon, I see a floor for Strange Journey -- because I can't imagine the game selling less than Etrian Odyssey 2 (~150k), while I expect the Shin Megami Tensei name and game systems and the increased push the game will get to help it sell even more than that.

As far as 4 Warriors of Light goes... in the recent past, Square's Final Fantasy games haven't so much been competing with the offerings of other companies as they've been competing with themselves. It wasn't until 2007 that we really saw the sales of FF-branded games start to tank, and that was the Year of the 30 Final Fantasies. And even then, while the number of FF games cut down on the individual level of sales, most of them pulled in pretty good sales not relative to that (FF4 did 622k, RW did 534k, CC: RoF did 390k, FFT A2 did 290k). Even the lazy, poorly received, height of milking Echoes of Time in 2009 managed to do 230k (and that came out just a month after Dissidia). I expect 4 Warriors of Light to do at least that. And given that there's virtually no competition from the Final Fantasy brand during the timeframe (the last FF-branded retail release was, I believe, in January, so it'll have been 9 months) it's being released (and no competition from million+-selling DQ entries) and given that the game looks way higher quality and is being/will be marketed very well, I'd expect something more in the Revenant Wings range.

So... my guesses:
Blue Dragon: 104k
Shin Megami Tensei: 230k
White Comic: 40k
4 Warriors of Light: 510k

 

[jesusraz]

So... my guesses:
Blue Dragon: 104k
Shin Megami Tensei: 230k
White Comic: 40k
4 Warriors of Light: 510k

Are you talking lifetime figures there then? I wonder if BanNam will try to aim BD at the Tales market somewhat. For me, I'd say something like the following first week:

BD: 125,000
SMT: 95,000
WC: 30,000
4WoL: 300,000

Purely a gut feeling that could prove to be way off the mark, but hey, why not join in the fun

Whilst we're at it, I reckon MH3 will do ~550,000-600,000 first week and Wii will rise to ~115,000 units.

 

[duckroll]

Are you talking lifetime figures there then? I wonder if BanNam will try to aim BD at the Tales market somewhat. For me, I'd say something like the following first week:

BD: 125,000
SMT: 95,000
WC: 30,000
4WoL: 300,000

Purely a gut feeling that could prove to be way off the mark, but hey, why not join in the fun

Whilst we're at it, I reckon MH3 will do ~550,000-600,000 first week and Wii will rise to ~115,000 units.

I think you're kinda insane if you think BD has any chance of outselling a SMT game.

 

[charlequin]

I know a lot of people like to think of the PSP as a good software choice, but I really couldn't disagree more. It is a fine choice for some select titles, but overall, the tie ratio on the PSP has been abysmal since it launched, and it still sucks hard after all this time. The PSP has a userbase approaching 13 million, it has been on the market nearly 5 years now, and yet not one single game not named Monster Hunter has topped a million units. And only 7 games have managed to top 500k. That's just pathetic.

Well, I think it's pretty unambiguously clear that the DS is the software-selling system in Japan: working from this 500k standard we've been discussing, it has 54 titles, of which 20 are published by companies other than Nintendo.

On the PSP, I think it's extremely dependent on what you're looking for. I wouldn't now, or at any past time, agree with the idea that the Wii "can't sell software," but looking at it today, from the perspective of a publisher deciding on a platform for new software, it's extremely lopsided. Out of 14 titles >500k, 13 of them are Nintendo-published -- only Taiko manages to squeeze into the same window. The PSP, by contrast, has seven third-party "titles" in that window -- if you lump all four MH together in a single slot, the resulting four is still more than all three home consoles put together, since that's just one lone entry each from PS3 and Wii, and zero from 360.

So: if a publisher is looking to develop a game in the A to AA window (i.e. something they're expecting to put up "hit-like" sales but not necessarily sell multiple millions) that isn't well-suited to the DS (probably suggesting it's either presentation-oriented with lots of VA and cutscenes, or it's based on a PS2 franchise that wouldn't scale down effectively to the DS), the PSP seems like the obvious choice -- it's the only system besides DS that has any real demonstrated ability to support such titles with relatively decent sales. (The comparison actually gets worse for the Wii, not better, if you bring the threshold down to 250k.)

And I think we've seen evidence of this with actual platform announcements coming out of Japan. KH:BbS, FFXIII:A, and MGSW are all titles that quite clearly would have been console releases last generation, now being released on PSP to maximize potential returns.

Oct 1 - Blue Dragon: Ikai no Kyoujuu (Bandai Namco)
Oct 8 - Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (Atlus)
Oct 15 - Shounen Sunday & Shounen Magazine - White Comic (Konami)
Oct 29 - 4 Warriors of Light: Final Fantasy Gaiden (Square Enix)

I wonder what sort of sales we'll be seeing. Any predictions?

I'm fairly bullish on SJ and FFG. Both of these titles represent a first attempt to release a brand-new franchise entry on the platform in question rather than simply a "spinoff" and I think it's well-demonstrated that there's an enthusiastic RPG market on the DS. I think SJ will appeal to almost everyone who bought either EO and draw in a good portion of whatever SMT audience exists as well, so I think 200k is a safe prediction. I'm optimistic that FFG will have a big launch; I think it can crack 500k. My instinct says that this is actually less appealing in general than FF4 but we'll see how it plays out.

I have no idea what White Comic is and I expect Blue Dragon to mega-tank.

 

[schuelma]

The PSP, by contrast, has seven third-party "titles" in that window -- if you lump all four MH together in a single slot, the resulting four is still more than all three home consoles put together, since that's just one lone entry each from PS3 and Wii, and zero from 360.
.

This isn't really an argument against your point, but something I thought was worth noting- of those 7 titles, I believe 5 of them were released at a point in the PSP's lifespan later than where the Wii is right now. (also 4/7 of them are Monster Hunter titles).

I'm not arguing that Wii is going to duplicate PSP's success from this date, but just wanted to point out that the picture didn't look quite so rosy two years ago.

 

[Kurosaki Ichigo]

Just to step away from the MH3 discussion for a moment, I've just noticed something. In October, we're looking at 4 somewhat notable RPGs coming out on the DS pretty much one week after another.

Oct 1 - Blue Dragon: Ikai no Kyoujuu (Bandai Namco)
Oct 8 - Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (Atlus)
Oct 15 - Shounen Sunday & Shounen Magazine - White Comic (Konami)
Oct 29 - 4 Warriors of Light: Final Fantasy Gaiden (Square Enix)

I wonder what sort of sales we'll be seeing. Any predictions?

Too far away but <100k for BD, ~200k for SMT, <50k for Shounen crossover and ~500k for FF if SE doesn't do some heavy push nearer to its release (so far given the announcement and the rather soon release it just seems it isn't being pushed as hard as...say FF3, FF4 or Dissidia).

We should do 8/6 war zone predictions (1st day and 1st week): Tales of VS PSP, SD Gundam PS2/WII, Bahamut DS, Tingle 2 DS, Magna Carta 2 360, Climax Heroes, JWE 2009... now that is really going to be bloody.

 

[ethelred]

Are you talking lifetime figures there then?

My guesses were for lifetime sales, yes. And I think your Blue Dragon guess is way too optimistic, but I guess we'll see!

I think you're kinda insane if you think BD has any chance of outselling a SMT game.

Yeah, I mean... even EO2 launched with 85k, which is only 10k less than that SMT prediction!

PSP & Wii stuff

Hey, what do you know. I agree with all of that in its entirety.

I'm fairly bullish on SJ and FFG. Both of these titles represent a first attempt to release a brand-new franchise entry on the platform in question rather than simply a "spinoff" and I think it's well-demonstrated that there's an enthusiastic RPG market on the DS. I think SJ will appeal to almost everyone who bought either EO and draw in a good portion of whatever SMT audience exists as well, so I think 200k is a safe prediction. I'm optimistic that FFG will have a big launch; I think it can crack 500k. My instinct says that this is actually less appealing in general than FF4 but we'll see how it plays out.

I have no idea what White Comic is and I expect Blue Dragon to mega-tank.

I pretty much agree with all of this, too! I don't think FF Gaiden will quite reach as high as FF4, though I think that's very possible. At the least, though, I expect it to break Revenant Wings' 500k sales.

This isn't really an argument against your point, but something I thought was worth noting- of those 7 titles, I believe 5 of them were released at a point in the PSP's lifespan later than where the Wii is right now. (also 4/7 of them are Monster Hunter titles).

I'm not arguing that Wii is going to duplicate PSP's success from this date, but just wanted to point out that the picture didn't look quite so rosy two years ago.

I have no idea why you think that matters. For one thing, the idea that sales hits are concentrated towards the end of a console's lifespan when its market share is at its peak is demonstrably false. For another thing, even if that were true, the PSP's LTD isn't that much higher than the Wii's lifespan is, and that's even if you ignore that the userbase is probably lower given that the PSP has gone through several successful model revisions. And third, the PSP's third party sales successes took place because of an all-fronts dedicated campaign by both Sony and those third parties to turn around the machine's fortunes with specific regards to the types of software that have been seeing success and I think we can all agree that this is not going to happen with Nintendo or the Wii. So what's the relevance?

 

[schuelma]

We should do 8/6 war zone predictions (1st day and 1st week): Tales of VS PSP, SD Gundam PS2/WII, Bahamut DS, Tingle 2 DS, Magna Carta 2 360, Climax Heroes, JWE 2009... now that is really going to bloody.

I'm very interested in VS. Maybe 200K 1st week/300K LTD? Similar to ToW2 I'm thinking.

SD Gundam...Hmm..maybe 200K first week for PS2 version, 40K Wii version? 350K LTD maybe.

 

[duckroll]

Personally, I think Blue Dragon had a good chance of selling 100-200k LTD easily, if they had marketed the shit out of it starting say, a month ago. If they raised the awareness and people picking up DQIX started to associate it as the "next" Toriyama RPG coming out on the DS, it could have picked up a lot of extra interest. As it is now, we're in August, and there's still pretty much zero hype and zero real marketing for the game, I think it's pretty obvious Namco is ready to let this one sink, like all Mistwalker publishers before them in Japan. So now I don't even know if it can hit 100k.

SMT:SJ will almost certainly be able to achieve a LTD of 200-250k at least. It could launch anywhere from 100-150k in the first week, I guess depending on how good the game looks in the coming weeks as they reveal more and more. This is certainly a big effort by Atlus, and their core fanbase is definitely strong enough to support it imo.

White Comic is kinda odd, I actually didn't really know much about it when I initially posted that list, and after having seen the screenshots... I dunno. It'll probably barely crack 50k it that. Another Konami shovelware licensed failure waiting to happen.

4WoL is going to be interesting. Normally I would think a traditional FF effort would certainly sell a buttload in Japan on the DS especially. But after FFIV's weaker than expected performance, I'm really not sure if it'll be able to hit the half-million milestone. This doesn't reflect my own personal preference, but I do feel that art style and designs in the game might be a sort of turn off to a significant part of the fanbase, and the success of the title will rely more on TGS buzz and world of mouth after release for it to really succeed in the long run.

 

[HK-47]

FFIV was weaker for a reason. Expecting III level numbers was stupid. You can only milk something so much.

 

[duckroll]

FFIV was weaker for a reason. Expecting III level numbers was stupid. You can only milk something so much.

The point is, most times a numbered FF remake will still sell way more than a spinoff. No FF spinoff on the DS has outsold FFIV's numbers. The closest being FFXIIRW, which is also a numbered FF, and a sequel to a numbered FF in terms of storyline. That makes it kinda unlikely that 4WoL will be able to sell as much, unless the world of mouth is REALLY good.

 

[charlequin]

This isn't really an argument against your point, but something I thought was worth noting- of those 7 titles, I believe 5 of them were released at a point in the PSP's lifespan later than where the Wii is right now. (also 4/7 of them are Monster Hunter titles).

Yup, a good point to raise. (And I purposely raised the idea that you could consider the PSP to have 4 such titles -- three others and then "all Monster Hunter" -- for that reason.)

I'm not arguing that Wii is going to duplicate PSP's success from this date, but just wanted to point out that the picture didn't look quite so rosy two years ago.

I don't disagree at all, actually. I think pretty clearly what you have is a situation where one success (MH) led a couple other companies (SE, Sega) to try a few relatively high-profile projects on the PSP where previously it might have been abandoned by this point, and then the success of those projects helped pave the way for a few more announcements. As a result, PSP looks like a halfway decent place to park relatively successful PS2 franchises, or anything with a local multi component, where before it looked basically like a garbage bin.

I don't see any particular reason in theory that a similar thing can't happen with Wii, but it'd require MH to be successful (I think this is pretty much a lock), for people to respond to that success with more announcements (this is very possible by no means certain), and then for those announcements to prove successful (and that is the $64,000 question.) And I don't think you can discount the fact that Sony made a widely-reported, dedicated push to bring developers back to PSP in the wake of MH's success, while current evidence leans away from Nintendo doing any such thing.

We should do 8/6 war zone predictions (1st day and 1st week):

I think Tales will do well and Bahamut will do badly. :lol

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

FFIV was weaker for a reason. Expecting III level numbers was stupid. You can only milk something so much.

Square-Enix: "Now that sounds like a challenge!"

 

[HK-47]

Square-Enix: "Now that sounds like a challenge!"

I dont doubt they will milk it. But I bet it'll still continue to have diminishing returns if they continue at the current pace. III was able to do well partly because it sat unre-released for so long. (Having no RPG competition on the fastest growing platform and never being released overseas also helped)

 

[cvxfreak]

FFIII also came in between NSMB and Pokemon D/P, a time period of 2006 when the DS was just selling out over and over again. We can see it through FFIII's sales pattern, too. FFIII has the longest legs of any FF game I know (maybe FFVII's were longer, but I haven't gone back to check). I remember when the word was still out whether it could make it to a million or not. Those were the days for MC threads. :lol

That said, I'm kind of surprised neither Crisis Core nor Dissidia were able to outdo FFIII. And I have to question if anything short of FFXV as a DS exclusive would.

 

[charlequin]

The point is, most times a numbered FF remake will still sell way more than a spinoff. No FF spinoff on the DS has outsold FFIV's numbers.

I think FFG is closer to FF12:RW (or X-2, if you think of that as a spinoff which I don't) than to any other spinoff game. I expect it to sell near the top of what a spinoff can be expected to sell, especially if it does indeed get good TGS buzz.

 

[schuelma]

I have no idea why you think that matters. For one thing, the idea that sales hits are concentrated towards the end of a console's lifespan when its market share is at its peak is demonstrably false. For another thing, even if that were true, the PSP's LTD isn't that much higher than the Wii's lifespan is, and that's even if you ignore that the userbase is probably lower given that the PSP has gone through several successful model revisions. And third, the PSP's third party sales successes took place because of an all-fronts dedicated campaign by both Sony and those third parties to turn around the machine's fortunes with specific regards to the types of software that have been seeing success and I think we can all agree that this is not going to happen with Nintendo or the Wii. So what's the relevance?

I only thought it was relevant in terms of where the PSP was at two years ago and where it is at now. Two years ago you had Monster Hunter and Crisis Core soon to come as examples of big, 3rd party successes. I'm not saying that it is likely that Wii will duplicate PSP's success the last two years, just that it wouldn't be unprecedented- right now you have by far the biggest 3rd party effort on the platform, and in theory I think that could lead to more support. Now, I have no idea what Nintendo has planned, but at least in terms of Monster Hunter they have clearly done all they can do to ensure its success and bring a different kind of gamer to the platform.

Again, wasn't trying to make some profound argument- just that it was worth mentioning that much of the 3rd party success charlequin was referencing is relatively recent and in my opinion that success didn't seem incredibly obvious two years ago.

 

[duckroll]

That said, I'm kind of surprised neither Crisis Core nor Dissidia were able to outdo FFIII. And I have to question if anything short of FFXV as a DS exclusive would.

I'm pretty sure Agito will easily topple FFIII's sales. The big question will be whether it will be able to topple FFXIII's sales. If it does, maybe we'll see FFXV on the PSP! :lol

I think FFG is closer to FF12:RW (or X-2, if you think of that as a spinoff which I don't) than to any other spinoff game. I expect it to sell near the top of what a spinoff can be expected to sell, especially if it does indeed get good TGS buzz.

My point with FFXIIRW was entirely that though, it's not about whether it's a "spinoff" or not, but the public's perception of it as a "numbered" FF game. Being in the same world as a mainline FF game counts for a lot in terms of people buying the game, even if it's simply for the characters and story. 4WoL doesn't have that.

 

[cvxfreak]

I'm pretty sure Agito will easily topple FFIII's sales. The big question will be whether it will be able to topple FFXIII's sales. If it does, maybe we'll see FFXV on the PSP! :lol

Ouch. That's harsh. :lol

 

[duckroll]

Ouch. That's harsh. :lol

Hey, think of it this way. Internally within S-E, they already have more experience on the PSP hardware than they do on the PS3!

 

[Paracelsus]

Hey, think of it this way. Internally within S-E, they already have more experience on the PSP hardware than they do on the PS3!

*Duckroll strikes*

*Duckroll hits for 99999 dmg*

*overkill*

*fanfare*

 

[HK-47]

*Duckroll strikes*

*Duckroll hits for 99999 dmg*

*overkill*

*fanfare*

You got 215g and a fire ring!?

 

[cvxfreak]

Hey, think of it this way. Internally within S-E, they already have more experience on the PSP hardware than they do on the PS3!

I am in complete agreement.

Spoiler

As a Capcom fan, I hope MH3 sales blow FFXIII out of the water.

 

[duckroll]

I am in complete agreement.

Spoiler

As a Capcom fan, I hope MH3 sales blow FFXIII out of the water.

Could happen. It'll be HARD, but stranger things have been known to happen.

Spoiler

MHP3 will outsell FFXIII+Agito+Versus.

 

[charlequin]

My point with FFXIIRW was entirely that though, it's not about whether it's a "spinoff" or not, but the public's perception of it as a "numbered" FF game.

I guess it's hard for me to buy that having a XII in the name of Revenant Wings in and of itself counts for more than 4WoL being a whole, brand-new FF-styled RPG.

I'm pretty sure Agito will easily topple FFIII's sales. The big question will be whether it will be able to topple FFXIII's sales. If it does, maybe we'll see FFXV on the PSP! :lol

Come oooooooooooon Agito! :lol

 

[duckroll]

I guess it's hard for me to buy that having a XII in the name of Revenant Wings in and of itself counts for more than 4WoL being a whole, brand-new FF-styled RPG.

The masses are easy to fool. Putting a VII in DoC's title helped push over 500k of that turd!

 

[Captain Smoker]

Next weeks releases

08/03 - 08/09/2009


NDS:
08/06 Akogare Girls Collection: Suteki ni Nurse Days
08/06 Arabians Lost
08/06 Bleach DS 4th: Flame Bringer
08/06 Blood of Bahamut
08/06 Hottarake no Shima: Kanata to Nijiiro no Kagami
08/06 Irodzuki Tincle no Koi no Balloon Trip
08/06 Item Getter: Bokura no Kagaku to Mahou no Kankei
08/06 Miami Law
08/06 Neko Neko Bakery DS
08/06 Sekai Fushigi Hakken DS: Densetsu no Hitoshi-kun Ningyou o Sagase
08/06 Shugo Chara! Norinori! Chara-Nari Zumu
08/06 Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
08/06 Tsukibito


PSP:
08/06 Fate/Tiger Colosseum Upper (Best Price!)
08/06 Hayarigami 3: Keishichou Kaii Jiken File
08/06 Strikers 1945 Plus Portable
08/06 Tales of VS.


Wii:
08/06 EA Sports Active: Personal Trainer Wii 30-Hi Seikatsu Kaizen Program
08/06 Kororinpa 2: Anthony to Kiniro Himawari no Tane
08/06 Pop'n Music
08/06 SD Gundam G Generation Wars


360:
08/06 MagnaCarta II
08/06 Red Faction: Guerrilla
08/06 Soul Calibur IV (Platinum Collection)


PS2:
08/06 Aria: The Origination ~Aoi Hoshi no El Cielo~ (Alche-Best)
08/06 J-League Winning Eleven 2009: Club Championship
08/06 Kamen Rider: Climax Heroes
08/06 SD Gundam G Generation Wars


PS3:
08/06 Janline R
08/06 Red Faction: Guerrilla
08/06 SoulCalibur IV (PlayStation3 the Best)

 

[test_account]

Nice, that is nice amount of games that are being released next week

 

[jj984jj]

Actually Prototype's Arabians Lost is due out on September 10th alongside Iron Master now, the Thursday before Pokemon HG/SS launch on Saturday (the 12th).

 

[duckroll]

Looks like MH3 will remain #1 for some time. Lol.

 

[HK-47]

Is the new Bleach DS game a fighter or a strategy game?