Media Create Sales: Week 18, 2014 (Apr 28 - May 04)

BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO · May 12, 2014

ah okay

Shengar · May 12, 2014

L~A said:

It'll be irony if the top gun of mobile market tries to gain foothold on traditional market, and quite easy at that, while big traditional publishers like Capcom and SE struggling to make significant gain within the mobile market.

Nirolak said:

Damn Nirolak, I'm on diet here

Nice analogy, but you forget to add that their chicken patties, breakfast meals, and salads doesn't sell really well, at least when compared to their competitor. They don't have particular menu that makes people craze over like what the big outlets have. Their big names as hamburger outlet didn't help either, if not makes things worse for them.

Tigersuperman · May 12, 2014

Magicpaint said:

Because they are significantly more numbers than the average BlazBlue game which the game's framework is based on and we have a generation where once heavy hitters like Tekken, Dead or Alive and Soul Calibur struggle to sell 200k. Street Fighter is really the only real major success story for traditional fighters (and much of that success comes from the West anyway).

Well we don't know as per Ni No Kuni since we have no precedence for a Studio Ghibli RPG. Studio Ghibli certainly has a presence in the west that could have worked to its favour but we just don't know how that game would have fared on PS2. As far as traditional RPGs go, it is really charming and accessible. This does not translate to big success for SMT, though, which couldn't be a more different type of experience. There are always going to be individual success stories here and there: even on the 3DS we saw it with Fire Emblem and Bravely Default, but that's not enough reason to extrapolate those sales as an argument in favour of a relatively obscure franchise like mainline SMT. But I can't say you are wrong since we'll never know. I just know that the last SMT game with a decent budget sold around 70k in the US

As far as Tales is concerned, Symphonia GC is still by far the most successful entry in the franchise in the west and really was the anomaly when we look at the big picture. There's been growth sure, but only really because Namco is bothering to localise more Tales games. The individual entries still mostly do <200k in the US. Symphonia GC did >400k.

I... Maybe Japanese fighting games sure, but considering almost every western one has sold over that number last gen Including all the realistic ones I just find your genralization strange. (Actually didn't KOFXIII sell over 200k?) Blazeblu is a bad comparison anyway to be honest. GG/BB were never really more than a niche.

Tigersuperman · May 12, 2014

9thwonder said:

No it did. Just couldn't maintain it.

Also, are you talking about Ni No Kuni? I believe that came sold because of artstyle and name attachment alone.

BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO · May 12, 2014

Tigersuperman said:

I think the production values and lack of competition is the reason why it did well. Reviews helped too.

Nirolak · May 12, 2014

L~A said:

I should note that the context of this was an small note on page six of an eight page interview with a business magazine covering a very wide swath of topics.

I'm not sure they meant this as a major statement on its own.

9thwonder said:

Thief went through a few senior development teams. The last one seemed interested in making something a bit more complex, but had to deal with what the previous teams poached from Ubisoft had made.

Whether they can do a good job when starting the second from the beginning is an open question.

We will most likely get Deus Ex in Q1 2015. I'd be surprised if we didn't.

Shengar said:

A couple of their browser and mobile have been performing really well for them.

Sengoku IXA has been listed as a solid performer for around three years now, and Million Arthur, especially in mainland Asia, has been doing really well for around two or so years as well.

Dragon Quest Monsters: Super Light is their first really big long term hit in the top grossing charts for Japanese mobile.

I should mention that Wada actually took over this division and they've been doing a better since he was moved there.

Basically it's taking them a lot of time to wind up, but they're starting to find success. Whether they can continue is an open question, but they are taking this much more seriously than they used to.

duckroll · May 12, 2014

KillerMan91 said:

In particular, at over 2 million, RE2 sold more than twice as much as RE5 in Japan. That's the sort of gap we're talking about. The PS1 era was insane. People would buy pretty much anything which had buzz. Those days are dead and buried.

Psycho_Mantis · May 12, 2014

9thwonder said:

There better be a P5 port of PS4 considering its coming in 2015. Kickstart it lol!

9thwonder said:

Re6 sod surprisingly well in JP. I don't know if theres a BEST version yet but it could get to 1 million. Its at 850k iirc (PS360)

Tigersuperman said:

I think it was a mix between great word of mouth, good reviews and a eye catching art style.

Tigersuperman · May 12, 2014

9thwonder said:

Nah there was competition. Most reviews also went giddy due to the name attachment and artstyle as well.The game itself is last rebellion poor.

Magicpaint · May 12, 2014

Tigersuperman said:

Well, I didn't make myself clear but I was speaking strictly on the Japanese market. KOFXIII for example opened with just 21k in Japan. And I disagree about BlazBlue because P4A is remarkably similar to that game and they're by the same developers afterall, but yes it has always been a niche fighter and I am not arguing that. I just think P4A's sales are very impressive when looked at in that market context.

Tigersuperman · May 12, 2014

Psycho_Mantis said:

Well lots of the reviews talked about the name attachment and the artstyle. So it all flows together into the soup that is uh... soup.

Shengar · May 12, 2014

Nirolak said:

Their insistence and IPs certainly net them some sure foothold on the market. But at current rate, how long will they reach at least half of the what Gungho's have with their PnD?

Tigersuperman · May 12, 2014

Magicpaint said:

Yeah i figured that's maybe what you were referring to (although the numbers are barely bigger of you include those games with NA sales.) But back to your point, I though the Persona series was a constant 500,000ish like series there. So i figured 200k would be a bit poor, but I guess since it's a spin-off and the 3rd title with P4 in it, 200k is not too bad.

duckroll · May 12, 2014

Psycho_Mantis said:

Even if RE6 sells another 300k (and that's not happening), it'll still be behind RE1-3 in Japan. PS1 power!

Nirolak · May 12, 2014

Shengar said:

It will probably be a while.

EA's conversion from licensed game garbage company that shipped 80+ titles a year that all sold pretty low amounts to releasing a few ultra blockbuster games and having monstrous digital revenue took about six years.

Activision's turn around from having the same model as EA to the same state EA hit took about 3-4 years as well, but was heavily aided by a merger with Vivendi who was already a digital titan.

So, 3-6 years would be my estimate assuming they continue to focus and learn.

The main benefit they view from this is that they're leaving markets that are dying (much like licensed games were) and entering ones that are growing and/or notably healthy with a potential for growth.

It can be fairly sad from a consumer perspective, but I get the logic.

Psycho_Mantis · May 12, 2014

Tigersuperman said:

Name attachment will only get you so far in a review. It was also a great game. Now if we're saying that Ghibli being involved helped the quality of the game then I agree. The story was very heart warming.

antibolo · May 12, 2014

Tigersuperman said:

Arc System Works' fighting games are definitely not a niche in Japan.

Psycho_Mantis · May 12, 2014

duckroll said:

Yo the PS1 was fricking crazy. I'm looking at some of the software sales...

Derby Stallion: 1.7 million
Tekken: 1.1 million
Parappa the Rappa: 900k+
Intelligent Cube: 750k

SE's jrpgs did 700-1 million+, and SCE also had an uncanny amount of hits. Truly was a golden age of console games in Japan in sales and quality.

BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO · May 12, 2014

Psycho_Mantis said:

That combat though.......

Psycho_Mantis said:

HOLY FUCK ahahaha

Nirolak · May 12, 2014

Psycho_Mantis said:

See when games were selling like this it made perfect sense to go all in on console games, which Square Enix did at the time.

Now that mobile is the field that most resembles this, they're just doing the same thing.

duckroll · May 12, 2014

Psycho_Mantis said:

Yeah, it's a point I've been trying to bring up every now and then in these threads. It's very interesting to look at historical sales while also looking at current sales and the future they hold. There was this period with the launch of the PS1 where Japan was really swept up in videogames in a really crazy way. The sales clearly indicate that it was a time where people were really willing to buy anything they were interested in regardless of genre, and once something caught mainstream buzz it could sell millions, literally.

So when looking for a threshold for what the ultimate ceiling could be for a given sort of game in a series or genre, I think it's very helpful to look to that period and see what people were buying. Nothing is for sure, but I feel that if something sold [x] at that time, it would be a very challenging task to sell more than [x] for something similar today.

Shengar · May 12, 2014

Nirolak said:

It will probably be a while.

EA's conversion from licensed game garbage company that shipped 80+ titles a year that all sold pretty low amounts to releasing a few ultra blockbuster games and having monstrous digital revenue took about six years.

Activision's turn around from having the same model as EA to the same state EA hit took about 3-4 years as well, but was heavily aided by a merger with Vivendi who was already a digital titan.

So, 3-6 years would be my estimate assuming they continue to focus and learn.

The main benefit they view from this is that they're leaving markets that are dying (much like licensed games were) and entering ones that are growing and/or notably healthy with a potential for growth.

It can be fairly sad from a consumer perspective, but I get the logic.

3-6 years then. But due to the very nature of mobile, wouldn't market potentially changed drastically before they could reach that level? Of course I could be very wrong on this assumption.

Tripon · May 12, 2014

Nirolak said:

Sure, but when S-E gives a number for downloads for a F2P game, I always wonder how they're able to monetize those downloads and what the revenue stake is. When they mentioned 5 million+ downloads for Dragon Quest Monsters Super Light, its probably only a fraction are paying anything to play that game, and I have further doubts that DQMSL is making revenue like say, Puzzle and Dragons is.

Mpl90 · May 12, 2014

Comgnet's retail chain preorder comparisons, as of May 12th, 2014

[3DS] Yokai Watch 2 - 147pt + 113pt = 260pt

[Wii] Mario Kart Wii - 148pt
[3DS] Mario Kart 7 - 126pt
[WiiU] Mario Kart 8 - 124pt

[PSV] Persona 4 The Golden - 127pt
[3DS] Etrian Odyssey IV - 47pt
[3DS] Shin Megami Tensei IV - 91pt
[3DS] Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl - 42pt
[3DS] Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth - 92pt

[PSV] Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 2 - 27pt
[PSV] Chō Megami Shinkō Noire: Gekishin Black Heart - 36pt + 19pt = 55pt

Psycho_Mantis · May 12, 2014

Nirolak said:

The thing is though, SE had an insane number of hits on PS1. How many relative hits have SE had on mobile?

duckroll said:

Its been pretty much constant decline for everything since PS1. In fact I can only think of one franchise that improved: Armoured Core. I find it very weird that as console gaming became more and more popular in the West it started to decline in the Japan.

L~A · May 12, 2014

Nirolak said:

Ah fair enough. It still ended up as a major statement, since the press talked a lot about it. I wonder if they regret making that statement now.

Mpl90 said:

Youkai Watch 2 still beasting.
Mario Kart 8 doing great.
Persona Q still doing great.

Really can't wait for Persona Q first week numbers... Unfortunately, it'll fall right during E3 week : /

KillerMan91 · May 12, 2014

duckroll said:

Yeah PS1 era was pretty crazy. You had all kinds of weird titles over a million. You could see the decline already during PS2 era (even though PS2 still of course sold truckloads of software its million seller list is pretty boring) and well last gen was just sad. This gen is going to be brutal....

Road · May 12, 2014

saichi said:

Call of Duty
Grand Theft Auto
Battlefield
Red Dead
God of War
Tom Clancy

Oh, you mean Japanese franchises?

There really isn't anything consistent. There have been plenty of one time spikes on the PS3.

There's the anime group: One Piece Pirate Warriors, Jojo All Star Battle and Kamen Rider Battride War were the best selling in their franchises.

And others with peak entries on PS3(+360): Sengoku Basara, Ar Tonelico, Another Century Episode, Armored Core, Earth Defense Force.

Probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.

sörine · May 12, 2014

KillerMan91 said:

Globally I'm not sure of either. Capcom lists it that way on their IR site but that only because they started combining platforms with PS3 & 360 which is something they never did for even day and date multiplatform games before.

L~A · May 12, 2014

Looks like SoniPro got a new release date : July 31st. That's basically one year after the actual announcement.

Nirolak · May 12, 2014

Tripon said:

Monetization rate is usually pretty low. Around ~2-3% of users for f2p mobile games with around 0.5% or so representing half the revenue (known as the whales).

They're currently #20 in top grossing apps on iOS and #16 on Android. The two OSes have about the same app revenue in Japan.

They're obviously not making $4.2 million a day like Puzzle & Dragons was at its peak, but if that's our bar, then almost every publisher in the industry is failure.

In the top 20 we're still looking at quite a few hundred thousand a day based on what people have told me who work in social mobile, which can add up to well over a hundred million in a year of very high margin revenue.

Psycho_Mantis said:

They are undeniably late on this front.

That said if we go back to when Square was really trying to get into the home console business, they actually really struggled and faced a lot of financial difficulty. That's actually why the series is named Final Fantasy, because they thought it might be their final product before the company shut down.

Then, through continued effort and attempts at making popular products, they became the juggernaut they were during the late SNES/PS1/early PS2 days.

That they're finally starting to have some success here is a positive sign for their efforts business wise in the future.

The last time Square Enix sat around and ignored market trends they ended up... well frankly they ended up where they are now, so I can understand why they want to be more proactive this time around.

L~A said:

Probably not. They're still making Bravely Default. It just isn't a big money maker for them.

Hence why the producer is really hoping sales go well for the next installment given what happened to all the other low to moderate performing Square Enix handheld series.

SatelliteOfLove · May 12, 2014

Nirolak said:

Of course, sadly, the criteria for what is or is not becoming popular is rougher on diversity of genres and iteration on console-bred game design.

Tripon · May 12, 2014

Nirolak said:

Monetization rate is usually pretty low. Around ~2-3% of users for f2p mobile games with around 0.5% or so representing half the revenue (known as the whales).

They're currently #20 in top grossing apps on iOS and #16 on Android. The two OSes have about the same app revenue in Japan.

They're obviously not making $4.2 million a day like Puzzle & Dragons was at its peak, but if that's our bar, then almost every publisher in the industry is failure.

In the top 20 we're still looking at quite a few hundred thousand a day based on what people have told me who work in social mobile, which can add up to well over a hundred million in a year of very high margin revenue.

Hmm, good to know. Thanks for the information.

Nirolak · May 12, 2014

Tripon said:

I should note that this is specifically f2p on mobile. On PC, among the bigger hits, monetization is often closer to 20-30%, though the whales don't tend to spend as much as the whales do on mobile.

This is because f2p PC games are monetized around engagement. What this means is that the games first try to get consumers to play them for a whole bunch of time and then try to sell them value additions like vanity items, new heroes, or card packs (in the MTG sense, not the social mobile sense). They're usually much more fair to players because they want them to keep playing so they eventually start spending.*

Mobile on the other hand throws walls up in front of the player immediately and constantly because play sessions are very short, so they have to monetize very quickly. They also usually let you pay to win because some people who aren't traditional gamers and have tons of cash don't really see an issue there and are happy to do so.

Square Enix is also investing in PC f2p via efforts like Nosgoth at Psyonix and Gods & Heroes by ex-IO Interactive staff at Reto-Moto.

When they eventually enter console f2p (they will almost assuredly enter console f2p), presumably it will follow the models popular on PC instead of mobile.

*I will note this is a newer trend on PC and that older PC f2p games worked a lot like mobile. Also browser games are not considered PC games for this purpose.

Soriku · May 12, 2014

9thwonder said:

Nah. Ninokuni has more appeal than SMT for reasons already stated. Only Persona has a shot at competing with Ninokuni.

Tigersuperman said:

Tales has absolutely grown in the West. Symphonia was an anomaly. No other Tales game in the PS2/GC gen crossed the 100k mark. On the other hand, we have Vesperia, Dawn of the New World, and Xillia crossing 100k. That's not possible without growth.

Magicpaint said:

Although we don't have precedence for a Ghibli game on PS2, Level 5 games did pretty well on PS2, so I think Ninokuni would've done well too. Some games like Tales have definitely gained more interest last gen, but I think Ninokuni would've done well regardless on PS2 or PS3 in the West.

Also Tales growth has more to do than just more localizations, although that helps. Namco at least localized all the 3D games for PS2/GC, but again none crossed 100k. Then Vesperia and Dawn came early for 360/Wii, but did manage to cross.

antibolo · May 13, 2014

Is Japan heading towards a "hardcore video game crash"? Where only phone/tablet games remain, and everything else is considered dead? Because it sure seems that way. Both the industry and the end consumer seem to just don't give a fuck anymore.

SwiftDeath · May 13, 2014

antibolo said:

Seems like we're probably already knee deep in it?

"Hardcore" gaming in Japan seems to have gone not with a bang but with a whimper

Sandfox · May 13, 2014

What if the upcoming mobile FF game and whatever other rpgs they have planned for the platform end up being more successful than FFXV and KH3?

SwiftDeath · May 13, 2014

Sandfox said:

Well 15 final fantasy console games is a pretty good run [let's not count the sequels]

djtiesto · May 13, 2014

antibolo said:

Sure seems that way. Depressing as hell, since Japan traditionally made the kinds of games you can't get anywhere else, and the gaming industry will be a much bleaker place without them. At least I have 25+ years of great Japanese games that I missed (or ones that I want to revisit).

Bizubani · May 13, 2014

In some unsurprising but sad news: Golden week sales down 30% year on year.

http://www.siliconera.com/2014/05/12/japans-golden-week-sales-dropped-30-compared-to-last-year/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+siliconera%2FMkOc+%28Siliconera%29

BriBri · May 13, 2014

Bizubani said:

What ridiculous journalism. If next year has Dragon Quest 11 then they go up. If next year has Nintendogs, cats and goldfish then it goes down.

AdventureRacing · May 13, 2014

antibolo said:

If hardcore gaming crash means handhelds and home consoles then we;re basically already there.

Sandfox said:

I think it's only a matter of time before they start seeing more success on mobile devices with their key franchises.

1st Course · May 13, 2014

Dena and Gree (mobile giants) financials are out and everything is down (revenue, opt profit). Both companies stocks lost 15-20% of its value in the last couple few days. They didn't post lossess mind you (their margins are very healthy actually), investors just disappointed there are no growth.

From my irl experience I would say investors cares about revenue growth more than anything, even more than profit. If a company post loss but their revenue is up significantly, share price will actually go up than the opposite.

RalchAC · May 13, 2014

Soriku said:

Well. Tales of Symphonia was localized in Multi-5 (English, German, French, Italian and Spanish) and on a console where JRPG fans were starving. That sure helped. Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Legendia (PS2) didn't even released in Europe. So it's obvious that releasing in 3 regions will mean more sales than releasing in 2 of them.

And it's growing since Graces because they've started to have a solid release schedule, they're doing better marketing, looking for ways to cheapen localization costs while localizing the games in more lenguages than English. And they've learned to have realistic expectations, that sure helped too.

They won't get FF numbers, that's sure. But there is a legion of anime fans that could love Tales of if they knew what is it.

At this point both SMT and to a lesser extend Persona are cult series though. They're on a completely different status than Tales.

Those two series will sell only due to word of mouth and an active and vocal userbase even if they had an stealth release IMO. Persona 4 Golden is above 700k on a struggling platform like the PSVita and it'll probably reach 1 million units sold when all it's said and done thanks to the insane amount of (deserved) praise Vita owners give to this game. There is room for growth though.

impact · May 13, 2014

antibolo said:

It's already happened. Japanese people don't like quality video games or sex. What happened to Japan?

Shengar · May 13, 2014

antibolo said:

Its not heading if it's already happening right now. The only thing I think could "save" console gaming, and hardcore video game market is VR at the moment.

L~A · May 13, 2014

RalchAC said:

Let's all not forget that Tales of Symphonia was properly advertised (I remember lots of ads on TV, in magazine and stuff... it was everywhere for a while), which helped probably more than the the "starving" of JRPG fans.

Unlike the sequel. Still incredibly bitter that they decided not localise Tales of Grace Wii because a mediocre sequel that was basically sent to die didn't sell according to their expectations. But hey, guess that's another debate altogether, not fit for a Media Create thread.

But I agree that the Tales of series has quite a bit of potential for growth.

RalchAC · May 13, 2014

L~A said:

I've never being a fan of gaming paper magazines, so I don't know. A friend of mine really like them though, and I remember that he showed me some Tales of Xillia preview in June/July.

I don't remember TV ads here in Spain but we are a mid-size market and Sonyland, so it's posible they didn't consider advertising it was worth their money.

About Graces Wii, look at the bright side. At least with that game we got the definitive version, as oposed to Vesperia.

NeonZ · May 13, 2014

L~A said:

The main issue there might have been because, in Japan, Graces Wii sold about the same as Symphonia 2, rather than increasing its numbers.

Media Create Sales: Week 18, 2014 (Apr 28 - May 04)

Junior Member

Member

Banned

Banned

Junior Member

Mrgrgr

Member

Banned

Banned

Member

Banned

Member

Banned

Member

Mrgrgr

Banned

Banned

Banned

Junior Member

Mrgrgr

Member

Member

Member

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!

Banned

Member

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Mrgrgr

Member

Member

Mrgrgr

Junior Member

Banned

Member

Member

Member

is beloved, despite what anyone might say

Neo Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Member

Member