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Media Create Sales: Week 2, 2015 (Jan 05 - Jan 11)

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
The latest Dragon Ball Xenoverse trailer didn't list Xbox 360 or XBO platforms.

Bandai sure waited late to cancel this if they indeed are.
It won't be surprising when other big Japanese games shed Xbox versions in Japan at this point. XB1 sales both hardware and software are dismal.
 

L~A

Member
Two months until Type-0 HD. There is like zero hype for this game.

Then it's safe to call it Hype-0 HD, right?........... No I'm not gonna apologise for that joke.

BD also had five, yes FIVE, different demos on the eshop prior to release, significantly increasing hype and player awareness over many months. The last demo was put on the eshop just 2 days before the game's release. LoL has had ZERO demos. Also note LoL scored well in Famitsu (9/8/9/8), but not as well as BD (10/9/9/10).

Only thing the Famitsu scores show us is that Squeenix got (way) deeper pockets than FuRyu.
 

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
It certainly was!

According to a retailer blogger last month, customers think the Type 0 HD limited edition looks lame and will be opting to buy a regular PS4 with the game instead >.>

I agree it could be better, especially considering the Type-0 art director did the design... Not sure what he was thinking exactly.
 

Sandfox

Member
I agree.

About Tales of: I think they probably wasn't able to match the quality of Vesperia, maybe because there was no "backing" behind the project? Don't know. And they did a mistake in dropping the Radiant series at all.

It would be pretty sad if they couldn't given the sales of Xillia, ridiculous DLC, and the amount of stuff they reused in Xillia 2. They probably just wanted to try certain things with the series when they moved to PS3.
 

L~A

Member
Yeah, the Type-0 PS4 is really a mess. I'm usually ok with most LE designs, but this one is particularly bad...
 

ZSaberLink

Media Create Maven
The issue you're describing goes back further than Vesperia, but the other issues started with the move to PS3 IMO.

Um, Vesperia is now the best recent title? I haven't played anything past it, but Vesperia was really slow at parts story-wise and had issues with the pacing of the actual battles as well. I liked the game, but it dragged on in comparison to Symphonia/Abyss (only 3 I've played).
 

RalchAC

Member
Vesperia was the last good one, imo. After that I felt like I was playing the same game with a swap on skins/origins but seemingly the same central idea retread over and over.

Seeing as how it was on X360, Imma blame Xbox. Damn Xbox! *shakes fist*

I'm playing Hearts right now and in some ways I feel it succeeds doing what Graces failed to do with its story and characters.

So I understand what you're trying to say.

Furthermore, I think another problem is that they seem to have an identity crisis. If you look at Graces -> Xillia -> Zestiria it's a struggle between "what we should change", "what we should not change" and "how to do those changes".

And it's been hit or miss. They had an awesome battle system for Graces. But Xillia's was just decent. In Xillia 2 they vastly improved again. At least now they have one time, so we shouldn't see the same weird changes between entries anymore.

They've done corridors to link cities / dungeons. Then barren valleys. Now an open world.

People liked cell-shading. They decided they didn't like it and should use another style. But they don't have the time / budget / technical expertise to make it look good. It's a mid-tier franchise that wants to become a big franchise but is afraid of using the resources that you should spend when you're building a big franchise.

I think they should have gone with the PS4 IMO, not because it would have sold better, but because it would have given the devs some fresh air. The PS3 is what it is, they've already seen what they can do with that console. Moving to next-gen should have allowed them to do more with less. And maybe even get some technical help from SCEJ, since they'd be one of the few studios early adopting the console.
 

Vena

Member
Um, Vesperia is now the best recent title? I haven't played anything past it, but Vesperia was really slow at parts story-wise and had issues with the pacing of the actual battles as well. I liked the game, but it dragged on in comparison to Symphonia/Abyss (only 3 I've played).

In my opinion it started going down hill after Vesperia.

Most recent best? Abyss 3DS. :p
 

hongcha

Member
Only thing the Famitsu scores show us is that Squeenix got (way) deeper pockets than FuRyu.

New JRPG IPs that get a couple 8s in Famitsu sell more than those that get a couple 10s? Not likely (that was my point). I understand how Famitsu scores are created, I'm talking about their impact on buyers.
 

Sandfox

Member
Um, Vesperia is now the best recent title? I haven't played anything past it, but Vesperia was really slow at parts story-wise and had issues with the pacing of the actual battles as well. I liked the game, but it dragged on in comparison to Symphonia/Abyss (only 3 I've played).

I wouldn't say Vesperia is the best title, since its personal preference, but the 3D Tales games were all building upon each other and then starting with Graces they started making more drastic changes to both the gameplay and overworlds only to ditch them and try something new in the next game.

Xillia feels like it was rushed out the door when it probably wasn't for various reasons and Xillia 2 improves on a lot of things, but its a mixed bag IMO. We also have Graces which most people hated outside of the battle system, and Hearts which seems to have been pretty well received. I'm also not a fan of the way DLC and pre order content is being handled.
 

ZSaberLink

Media Create Maven
Seems like Rodea recently had a press event:
http://www.inside-games.jp/article/2015/01/18/84231.html

This image looks nice at least.
544793.jpg


Can anyone who reads Japanese give some details on what's actually written there?
 

L~A

Member
Media Create analysis for Week1:

In end and beginning of year selling season, 3DS titles led whole market

・ Total software sales were 1.209 million copies, which were 79.72% of last week. Because a gift demand by the last week was settled and no new titles were released, total software sales decreased from last week.

・ Software sales in the end and the beginning of the year selling season (7 weeks from Nov. 17, 2014 to Jan. 4, 2015) were 10.854 million copies, which were almost the same as those of last year (100.36% of last year’s result).
When it comes to sales by each platform, sales of the 3DS increased by 1.582 million copies of last year, which were 127.18% of the same period last year, owing to titles such as “Youkai Watch 2: Founder/Head/Headliner” (2.447 million copies across 3 versions) and “Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire” (2.591 million copies across 2 versions if its double pack was counted as 2 copies per 1 unit).
Those 2 titles occupied nearly 45% of total software sales in the end and the beginning of the year selling season.
Except for the 3DS, the Wii U was the only console which increased from last year (112.95% of last year), but it didn’t cover the decrease in sales of the Wii, so it can be said that only sales of the 3DS were well in this end and beginning of the year selling season.

・ Total hardware sales in the end and the beginning of the year selling season were 1.740 million copies.
Unlike software sales results, they decreased to 83.42% of the same period last year. Even the 3DS system, whose software sold well, decreased to 93.96% of the same period last year. In spite of multiple popular titles, most of their purchasers seem to have their previous installments or other versions, so they already had hardware. And therefore, it seems that they didn’t greatly pull new users.
 

Takao

Banned
So why was Kenka Bancho supposed to bomb, again? Or was that not the consensus.

sometimes a game ain't got no hype

PS2 : Kenka Bancho ( Spike ) { 2005-06-09 } - 41,843 / 108,958
PS2 : Kenka Bancho 2: Full Throttle ( Spike ) { 2007-03-08 } - 43,087 / 85,632
PSP : Kenka Bancho 3: Badass Rumble ( Spike ) { 2008-11-27 } - 48,685 / 141,627
PSP : Kenka Bancho Portable ( Spike ) { 2009-10-29 } - 5,300 / 28,295
PSP : Kenka Bancho 4: Ichinen Sensou ( Spike ) { 2010-02-25 } - 72,923 / 179,354
PSP : Kenka Bancho 5: Otoko no Rule ( Spike ) { 2011-01-27 } - 64,358 / 137,146
PSP : Kenka Bancho Bros.: Tokyo Battle Royale ( Spike Chunsoft ) { 2012-06-21 } - 18,810 / 56,776

KB6 should debut higher than TBR, but it seems like it'll be the worst numbered debut for the series.

The latest Dragon Ball Xenoverse trailer didn't list Xbox 360 or XBO platforms.

Bandai sure waited late to cancel this if they indeed are.

xbox is mentioned in trailer and at the end
 
So why was Kenka Bancho supposed to bomb, again? Or was that not the consensus.

It seems to have done alright on Tsutaya (better than on COMG at least), but it's still charting ahead of games that sold ~20k last week, so it's pretty difficult to judge.

Assuming 20-30k though, it'd be notably less than the last few mainline entries, and only a bit more than the most recent spin-off.

126 PSP Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble 48,685 / 141,627
86 PSP Kenka Bancho 4: Ichinen Sensou 72,923 / 179,354
108 PSP Kenka Bancho 5: Otoko no Rule 64,358 / 160,144

Spinoff:

287 PSP Kenka Bancho Bros.: Tokyo Battle Royale 18,810 / 56,776

It does pose the question of where this audience has moved to in the past 4 years, or have they just gone from console gaming? (That doesn't seem to be the audience Kenka Bancho is targeting, though).
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
It does pose the question of where this audience has moved to in the past 4 years, or have they just gone from console gaming? (That doesn't seem to be the audience Kenka Bancho is targeting, though).

It is highly likely that a portion of PSP userbase dissipated and exited gaming (as well as happened for DS).

While there is assuredly some loss of audience, on a more basic level, many of the people who used to buy the games might just not be interested in the 6th Kenka Bancho game.

It's been four years since the fifth entry came out. It's a long time and standards and tastes change.

Like I suspect the vast, vast majority of people who bought Final Fantasy 7 still play games on one platform or another, but despite this the series has seen a gigantic nosedive worldwide.

Similarly I don't think the reason Call of Duty went down is because their audience left gaming, given the sales of GTA V.

That 10 million+ DS audience that "disappeared" are most definitely on mobile.

And yes, unless you don't consider mobile gaming to be gaming, I doubt most of these people actually cycled out.

It would be pretty implausible when 36 million people are downloading a single mobile game in Japan, which is more than the DS ever sold.
 
That 10 million+ DS audience that "disappeared" are most definitely on mobile.

That's not necessarily true. New gamers come out every generation, and old gamers exit every generation; this is natural.

While there is assuredly some loss of audience, on a more basic level, many of the people who used to buy the games might just not be interested in the 6th Kenka Bancho game.

It's been four years since the fifth entry came out. It's a long time and standards and tastes change.

Like I suspect the vast, vast majority of people who bought Final Fantasy 7 still play games on one platform or another, but despite this the series has seen a gigantic nosedive worldwide.

Similarly I don't think the reason Call of Duty went down is because their audience left gaming, given the sales of GTA V.

Also, change of tastes; this always happens, just look at how sim-games were popular on PS1 and basically failed to replicate even a portion of those numbers on PS2.
 
While there is assuredly some loss of audience, on a more basic level, many of the people who used to buy the games might just not be interested in the 6th Kenka Bancho game.

It's been four years since the fifth entry came out. It's a long time and standards and tastes change.

I wonder if that's happening with the Ukiyo games too. They seem pretty much like spiritual successors to Way of the Samurai, but look like they're going to sell much, much less.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
That's not necessarily true. New gamers come out every generation, and old gamers exit every generation; this is natural.



Also, change of tastes; this always happens, just look at how sim-games were popular on PS1 and basically failed to replicate even a portion of those numbers on PS2.

I think my favorite quote relating to transient genre popularity is this one. To note, he's talking about things like Microsoft Flight Simulator as opposed to Star Citizen.

NYT said:
Q.Q. The highly authentic military shooter, a la Medal of Honor, seems dead or at least inactive.

A. Genres come and go. At one point in time, flight simulators were the No. 1 selling game. Now you can’t give them away. Remember when Air Guitar was big? Now it’s in a landfill in Arizona.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/21/one-on-one-gaming-the-future-with-frank-gibeau/?_r=0

The f2p version of the series was actually a failure to boot.

I wonder if that's happening with the Ukiyo games too. They seem pretty much like spiritual successors to Way of the Samurai, but look like they're going to sell much, much less.
I wouldn't be too surprised.

I feel when you really start hitting limitations based on platforms is when you're a huge selling series (relative to the platform) that simply doesn't have enough customers in your demographic to sell to. Like it would be hard for CoD4 or GTA IV to have done better than they did when they first came out, since there simply weren't enough 360s/PS3s out to sell much more. Similarly a game like Bayonetta doesn't have its audience on Wii U even though there's a number of systems out there. For something small though, especially one that conceptually should fit the market? Most likely driven by what the developer/publisher is doing and their competition in the market.

If I can just play Monster Hunter for 300 hours or these free phone games I find to be a lot of fun, why pick up this niche game I wasn't super passionate about, and if I am still interested, why not get it used for cheap later? It's not like I don't have things to do right now instead.
 

Busaiku

Member
Wasn't Final Fantasy Type 0 reception mixed/negative?
It'd explain why Japanese aren't as hyped, given they have a good idea of what's being offered.
That's not necessarily true. New gamers come out every generation, and old gamers exit every generation; this is natural.
Er, I guess you can say that...
But the market as a whole is much larger than it was during DS/PSP days, so it's hard to say that gamers have "exited".
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Wasn't Final Fantasy Type 0 reception mixed/negative?
It'd explain why Japanese aren't as hyped, given they have a good idea of what's being offered.
Well, it's full price to buy what's a mission based PSP game, except without the co-op games that used that structure offered.

Like the idea of that repetitive, quick-in quick-out setup was to have lots of co-op missions to do without too much time in town, which is different than what a lot of people want out of a singleplayer RPG.

Er, I guess you can say that...
But the market as a whole is much larger than it was during DS/PSP days, so it's hard to say that gamers have "exited".

I feel it's realistic to have some level of churn (on a really basic level people die and new people are born), but yeah, I don't think that kind of churn is going to show up as a non-negligible factor in the overall game market compared to taste shifts, platform shifts, competitive pressure between products, burnout in subtly changing series, and raising standards and expectations over time.

Like I don't think it's reasonable to feel a series isn't successful anymore because all the people who used to play it just stopped playing games. This is especially true when you have a more niche series. I do think that the series could easily become something that doesn't appeal to them anymore though. Like I'm sure a lot of people here played animals-with-attitude platforms as children and young teens and very rarely if at all do so now.

Some developers change their content as their fans get older (see Crash Bandicoot -> Jak -> Uncharted/TLOU, or how Rockstar has been handling their content and who their protagonists are), whereas others don't, and thus need to find audiences among a new generation or be stuck with only those who still like what they did when they were younger. Obviously some series have far less problems appealing to all ages (or at least many ages) than others.
 

Vena

Member
Well, it's full price to buy what's a mission based PSP game, except without the co-op games that used that structure offered.

Doesn't help that what we've seen from it isn't exactly "improved" or very "HD" all that much. That probably has hurt its hype a lot as well.
 

L~A

Member
Well, Type-0 HD was clearly made for the Western market, so I don't think Squeenix even cares how it fares in Japan.

***

The end is nigh... all 3DS XL models have been officially discontinued, except the White One (Nintendo probably shipping the units remaining in their warehouses).

Surprisingly, OG 3DS is still in full production.
 

L~A

Member
Of course. They're not replacing that one in the US, so they still need more units.

Based NoA.

Pretty sure it's already been discontinued... and most of the colours were never sold in NA. Because NA don't like colours, but they also don't like white so who knows what NA folks like :p
 

FoneBone

Member
Looks like we're definitely going down the GBC route of how the two co-platforms will live on in history. Some limited exclusives to the higher tier console but the general boon is the enhanced play. Before it was color, now its the general end-user environment being enhanced and smoother.

That's not the "GBC route" at all. Almost everything on GBC after the first year or so was GBC-only.
 

Oregano

Member
They are simply happy with their ds

I feel this is somewhat true. We've seen(in the west) how well the Frozen DS game did. There's a sizable amount of people who are still evidently willing to play on a dedicated handheld but they haven't upgraded to the 3DS and/or Vita for whatever reason.

In Japan I think it's definitely possible that there's still people playing PSP games who have yet to upgrade. Neither 3DS or Vita have been able to match everything the PSP had.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr

Looking at that I definitely expect this won't be even that kind of a situation.

Honestly I wouldn't be shocked if there was only a single digit (or at least lower double digit) number of N3DS retail exclusives versus approximately half the library of the Game Boy Color releases being Color exclusive.

I could see Nintendo putting out a lot of digital exclusives though like they did for the DSi, but I feel that won't impact much.
 
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