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Media Create Sales: Week 45, 2014 (Nov 03 - Nov 09)

L~A

Member
You thought Koei-Tecmo was milking its Warriors series to death? Well, looks like they've decided to go even further than that.

Introducing... Samurai Warriors 4-2.

No kidding..

I wonder what KT is expecting for the 16th or so Warriors game in the past 12 months. And for the 8 others (minimum) they're gonna release in 2015.
 

mao2

Member
You thought Koei-Tecmo was milking its Warriors series to death? Well, looks like they've decided to go even further than that.

Introducing... Samurai Warriors 4-2.

No kidding..

I wonder what KT is expecting for the 16th or so Warriors game in the past 12 months. And for the 8 others (minimum) they're gonna release in 2015.
Interesting... the article says that it isn't a sequel but another Samurai Warriors 4 with a new Story Mode focusing on the generals. I suppose that means each character will have his/her own story like in the previous games?
 

Kathian

Banned
Abenomics has failed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30077122

Who'd a thunk that providing the rich with free money and taxing the poorest through consumption would have a negative effect on the economy?

Looks like the further tax hike will be delayed;

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/11/05/editorials/hike-consumption-tax/#.VGnyh_msUbI

Consumer spending has continued to fall year-on-year for six months, with expenditures in September down 5.6 percent from a year ago as prices have risen faster than wages due to the tax hike and higher cost of imports

Will be interesting to see the effect of all this on sales next year.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Square Enix has announced two new Final Fantasy games for iOS/Android.

The first is Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius, which is a Final Fantasy game by Alim, who make the wildly successful mobile game Brave Frontier. This is extra interesting since Brave Frontier is not only majorly successful in the local market, but by and far the best performing Japanese iOS game in the West to boot.

The second is Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Space-Time, which is a new Final Fantasy Legends title.

The "second phase" update for Final Fantasy Agito is about to come out as well (or it did just come out, not sure).

There's no media for either title yet, so I'll follow up with more details when they come out.

Edit:

To note by "Final Fantasy Legends" it's the Japanese name for Dimensions and not SaGa.
 
Square Enix has announced two new Final Fantasy games for iOS/Android.

The first is Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius, which is a Final Fantasy game by Alim, who make the wildly successful mobile game Brave Frontier. This is extra interesting since Brave Frontier is not only majorly successful in the local market, but by and far the best performing Japanese iOS game in the West to boot.

The second is Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Space-Time, which is a new Final Fantasy Legends title.

The "second phase" update for Final Fantasy Agito is about to come out as well (or it did just come out, not sure).

There's no media for either title yet, so I'll follow up with more details when they come out.

Edit:

To note by "Final Fantasy Legends" it's the Japanese name for Dimensions and not SaGa.

Time for SQEX to milk FF on mobile as well!
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
It means the same thing these days. Mobile games have been getting front/back page treatment in Famitsu for a few weeks now.
Good point!

How many active FF SQEX has on mobile phones? 10? 15?
I guess it depends what you mean by active.

If you're talking solely about continually updated f2p service games, it's a lot lower than everything they've released in aggregate, as they have a large back catalog of one time payment apps.

It's kind of like how EA has ~860 mobile apps, but only really is running about 12 or so.

I can get either list if you like.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
So, for service games...

Internally Published Active:
-FINAL FANTASY AGITO (rpg and dating)
-FINAL FANTASY VII G-BIKE (endless driving/combat... I think)
-FINAL FANTASY WORLD WIDE WORDS (word game)
-PICTLOGICA FINAL FANTASY (picross)

Internally Published Effectively Inactive:
-FINAL FANTASY ALL THE BRAVEST (Last updated June 2013)
-THEATRHYTHM FINAL FANTASY (Last updated December 2012)

Externally Published Active:
-FINAL FANTASY Record Keeper (Mobage, rpg)

Externally Published Effectively Inactive:
-FINAL FANTASY AIRBORNE BRIGADE (Mobage, last updated April 2013)

As of today there would be five then, with three upcoming (the GREE one, the Alim one, and Legends). I'm not sure if Square Enix is publishing the Alim game or if the reverse is true.
 

hiska-kun

Member
Youkai Watch 2: Shin Uchi's pre-orders are already closed in Bic Camera, because of its popularity.

予約は終了致しました
034728EB-C4E9-4E9A-B60C-CA6164221FA4_zpsr1tluvfc.jpg
 
So, for service games...

Internally Published Active:
-FINAL FANTASY AGITO (rpg and dating)
-FINAL FANTASY VII G-BIKE (endless driving/combat... I think)
-FINAL FANTASY WORLD WIDE WORDS (word game)
-PICTLOGICA FINAL FANTASY (picross)

Internally Published Effectively Inactive:
-FINAL FANTASY ALL THE BRAVEST (Last updated June 2013)
-THEATRHYTHM FINAL FANTASY (Last updated December 2012)

Externally Published Active:
-FINAL FANTASY Record Keeper (Mobage, rpg)

Externally Published Effectively Inactive:
-FINAL FANTASY AIRBORNE BRIGADE (Mobage, last updated April 2013)

As of today there would be five then, with three upcoming (the GREE one, the Alim one, and Legends). I'm not sure if Square Enix is publishing the Alim game or if the reverse is true.

That's a lot of titles in the same franchise being readily available on the App Store / Google Play. Add all the portings, and you will triple those numbers. The fact that a title is "inactive" also means not much, since if one looks for a FF titles, he will see every of them. SQEX is going to saturate the mobile market with FF even before it could say to have succeeded to a large extent in it.

Youkai Watch 2: Shin Uchi's pre-orders are already closed in Bic Camera, because of its popularity.

At this point, a 1m+ debut is not out of mind. 3DS got its 6th million seller this year (with YW, YW2 and YW2.5 all in the club).
 
Youkai Watch 2: Shin Uchi's pre-orders are already closed in Bic Camera, because of its popularity.
i've always wondered, why do pre-orders get closed?

At this point, a 1m+ debut is not out of mind. 3DS got its 6th million seller this year (with YW, YW2 and YW2.5 all in the club).
1m was always guaranteed with the holiday + movie imo

with how popular it is and still growing, i think quite a few people would wait out for this game and double/triple dippers is a given going by how yw2 has performed.
 
Last year 3DS million sellers:
  • Pokémon X / Y
  • Monster Hunter 4
  • Tomodachi Life
  • Dragon Quest VII
  • Luigi's Mansion 2
  • Puzzle & Dragons Z

+ Animal Crossing: New Leaf, that sold 1m throughout the year.

This year 3DS million sellers:
  • Pokémon Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire
  • Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate
  • Super Smash Bros. for 3DS
  • Yo-kai Watch 2: Ganso / Honke
  • Yo-kai Watch 2: Shinuchi

+ Yo-kai Watch, that sold 1m throughout the year.
 

Perfo

Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
FFEX will bomb hard, but I ask you... why S-E abandoned FFTA series? It was pretty successfull if I remember correctly.
 

hiska-kun

Member
Tsutaya says that Winning Eleven 2015 sold less than expected.
But hardware sales for PS4 almost doubled, compared to last week.
Dengeki Bunko sold more than expected, stock problems in some shops.
Pre-orders for Pokemon are huge, Alpha Sapphire is more demanded. A lot of people who reserved the game are around the 20th. Probably they were kids when they played the original.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
FFEX will bomb hard, but I ask you... why S-E abandoned FFTA series? It was pretty successfull if I remember correctly.
Basically they only want to invest in things they think at least have the potential to be huge hits.

In magical la-la land, FFEX could someday sell as well as Monster Hunter. FFTA's theoretical cap is much lower, so the staff was all put on FFXIV instead.
 

L~A

Member
^

I think it got the Master Chief bundle.

Big increase!!

It may be amazing!

By the blog

trolling about one?

Wii U sold over 100k last week, w00t!! *cough*

Anyway, insane for YW2.5... The success of that franchise really reminds of a bubble ready to burst, like one of those crazy start-up getting insane results and then suddenly disappearing... except that YW definitely isn't going to meet such a fate. Insane.

I wonder how those 1m+ people buying YW2.5 will feel when they realise they've just bought the same game 4 months later. I mean, surely people realise it's just an updated version... right? Ha ha.

I really can't wait for the western release, not just because I find the game/franchise really interesting, but also because I want to see how successful it'll be overseas.

Pokémon should do very nicely, both at launch and during the holidays. Can't wait for the line pics... you're going to take some, hiska-kun?
 
Basically they only want to invest in things they think at least have the potential to be huge hits.

In magical la-la land, FFEX could someday sell as well as Monster Hunter. FFTA's theoretical cap is much lower, so the staff was all put on FFXIV instead.

Why did they greenlight things like FFVII G-Bike or Theatrhythm FF Curtain Call, then?
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Why did they greenlight things like FFVII G-Bike or Theatrhythm FF Curtain Call, then?

Theatrhythm sticks out to me as the main deviation in my mind.

G-Bike is akin to a mobile runner combined with an action thingy and some of those make a lot of money, even more so around the time they would have greenlit this.
 

hiska-kun

Member
Pokémon should do very nicely, both at launch and during the holidays. Can't wait for the line pics... you're going to take some, hiska-kun?

Since the game is released on Friday I have school... :(
Buuut, Tsutaya in Shibuya will open its doors at 7:00 a.m. for Pokemon. So I'm going to take a look before going there. :D
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Theatrhythm sticks out to me as the main deviation in my mind.

G-Bike is akin to a mobile runner combined with an action thingy and some of those make a lot of money, even more so around the time they would have greenlit this.

I think what really stuck out was Drakengard 3.
 

L~A

Member
Since the game is released on Friday I have school... :(
Buuut, Tsutaya in Shibuya will open its doors at 7:00 a.m. for Pokemon. So I'm going to take a look before going there. :D

Aww, I was afraid of that. I believe it's the first Pokémon (mainline) game not to be released on a Saturday in ages, right? Reminds me of Dragon Quest VII 3DS that was released on a Thursday, in order to come out on the 7th of that month.

It's definitely going to have some impact on 1st-day sales and lines, but it'll all pick up during the week-end.
 
Theatrhythm sticks out to me as the main deviation in my mind.

G-Bike is akin to a mobile runner combined with an action thingy and some of those make a lot of money, even more so around the time they would have greenlit this.

There are more than one deviation, which invalidate the idea SQEX is greenlighting only games with a huge potential. For example, Chaos Ring III (the IP was already declining and the F2P experiment didn't really succeed) and its PSV version; Bravely Default (new IP, successor of a 200k game) and Bravely Second; The World Ends with You: Solo Remix; Deadman's Cross; Melpharia March; Dragon Quest X Online; and let's pretend that its Western output does not follow this "rule" :)
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
I think what really stuck out was Drakengard 3.
Yoichi Wada really liked Nier, so I feel that was definitely an executive pet project. Yoko Taro wasn't hired on for any additional projects after that came out.

There are more than one deviation, which invalidate the idea SQEX is greenlighting only games with a huge potential. For example, Chaos Ring III (the IP was already declining and the F2P experiment didn't really succeed) and its PSV version; Bravely Default (new IP, successor of a 200k game) and Bravely Second; The World Ends with You: Solo Remix; Deadman's Cross; Melpharia March; Dragon Quest X Online; and let's pretend that its Western output does not follow this "rule" :)
Well, you're mixing a few things here.

1.) Bravely Default to me was their planned successor to FF remakes on DS. It was originally Final Fantasy 4WoL2, the first of which was made by the people who did the remakes and is a call back to the era of FF they were remaking. To me this was them hoping to get a million plus per entry series out the door, and they did. I don't think they see that same kind of potential in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, as otherwise they'd presumably be making it.

2.) Chaos Rings 3 strikes me as a market test for the idea of releasing a retail product on both handhelds and mobile and seeing if they can accumulate total sales that are attractive. Their huge shipment versus what the game sold suggests that they had grander expectations than they reached. I would not be surprised if they never release another pay-for Chaos Rings title.

3.) The World Ends with You: Solo Remix feels like a title they were using to help promote a future entry in the TWEWY series, and the sequel teaser at the end of the game suggests they planned to do just that. Similarly they put TWEWY characters in KH3D, released a remastered music album, and launched a second social game you left out. Toward the end of only focusing on bigger projects, TWEWY seems to have since died judging by the utter silence on this front.

4.) Deadman's Cross and Melpharia March were definitely meant to be big earners. They were going after the mobage "card" game audience and the Plants vs. Zombies audience respectively. Being failed products doesn't make them not fit the strategy. Square Enix has since simply refocused their efforts on other f2p titles.

5.) Dragon Quest X Online is absolutely part of their strategy. They list it as major HD games, high profit margin MMOs, and high profit margin smartphone games (which are increasingly and now primarily f2p titles). I'm not even remotely sure what you're trying to get at with this one. Final Fantasy XI, despite being one of the worst selling FF's ever, was one of the most profitable for a long time (this was a 2012 article) and may still be unless FFXIV has overtaken it.

I'll address the "FF saturation" thing in a few hours, but I have to do some work in the meantime.
 
Since the game is released on Friday I have school... :(
Buuut, Tsutaya in Shibuya will open its doors at 7:00 a.m. for Pokemon. So I'm going to take a look before going there. :D

your school is in Shibuya? which one?




about Youkai Watch 2.5 : is that really just an updated version ? As far as I understand it's tied to the movie which will be launched the week after, so I presume the story is different from YW2
 
Well, you're mixing a few things here.

1.) Bravely Default to me was their planned successor to FF remakes on DS. It was originally Final Fantasy 4WoL2, the first of which was made by the people who did the remakes and is a call back to the era of FF they were remaking. To me this was them hoping to get a million plus per entry series out the door, and they did. I don't think they see that same kind of potential in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, as otherwise they'd presumably be making it.

Bravely Default was a low-budget project, with basically no budget for advertising (the team had the task to promote it, what a joke). It succeeded because it was a good product and something people wanted from an handheld jRPGs, but I find it hard to believe that SQEX thought it had a huge potential. They would have advertised more, and they would have not waited Nintendo to pick up the project for the Western localization.

2.) Chaos Rings 3 strikes me as a market test for the idea of releasing a retail product on both handhelds and mobile and seeing if they can accumulate total sales that are attractive. Their huge shipment versus what the game sold suggests that they had grander expectations than they reached. I would not be surprised if they never release another pay-for Chaos Rings title.

The market for pay-to-play mobile games is dying, even in Japan, and that's why I think SQEX didn't think Chaos Rings III had a huge potential. This is another game that deviates your thought about SQEX's business model; even if it was overshipped, they didn't send to retailers 1m units :p it was always bound to get a mild reception.

3.) The World Ends with You: Solo Remix feels like a title they were using to help promote a future entry in the TWEWY series, and the sequel teaser at the end of the game suggests they planned to do just that. Similarly they put TWEWY characters in KH3D, released a remastered music album, and launched a second social game you left out. Toward the end of only focusing on bigger projects, TWEWY seems to have since died judging by the utter silence on this front.

Maybe, but what if a new TWEWY game comes out? SQEX would not expect huge sales from it, and rightly so.

4.) Deadman's Cross and Melpharia March were definitely meant to be big earners. They were going after the mobage "card" game audience and the Plants vs. Zombies audience respectively. Being failed products doesn't make them not fit the strategy. Square Enix has since simply refocused their efforts on other f2p titles.

This is true for Melpharia March, but Deadman's Cross was never meant to be huge; its artstyle is too much offputting and so distant from every heavy hitter we've had so far in the mobile market.

5.) Dragon Quest X Online is absolutely part of their strategy. They list it as major HD games, high profit margin MMOs, and high profit margin smartphone games (which are increasingly and now primarily f2p titles). I'm not even remotely sure what you're trying to get at with this one. Final Fantasy XI, despite being one of the worst selling FF's ever, was one of the most profitable for a long time (this was a 2012 article) and may still be unless FFXIV has overtaken it.

Sorry, I was meaning the 3DS project.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Bravely Default was a low-budget project, with basically no budget for advertising (the team had the task to promote it, what a joke). It succeeded because it was a good product and something people wanted from an handheld jRPGs, but I find it hard to believe that SQEX thought it had a huge potential. They would have advertised more, and they would have not waited Nintendo to pick up the project for the Western localization.
Yeah, I do think they got disinterested in it eventually. Around this time they also announced Chocobo Racing which they actually killed off, and still had a Dragon Quest Slime Morimori game coming out.

I do feel its success is why it ultimately continued though. They saw some potential, and finally greenlit a sequel around September 2013.

The market for pay-to-play mobile games is dying, even in Japan, and that's why I think SQEX didn't think Chaos Rings III had a huge potential. This is another game that deviates your thought about SQEX's business model; even if it was overshipped, they didn't send to retailers 1m units :p it was always bound to get a mild reception.
Right, I don't think they actually expected that much out of this game in particular, but wanted to use a barometer of feasibility of this kind of release in the first place if they had a higher budget title.

Maybe, but what if a new TWEWY game comes out? SQEX would not expect huge sales from it, and rightly so.
If they were willing to release another TWEWY game, I would say they were becoming more open minded instead of increasingly conservative with releases. However, that'd I'd still need to see actually happen.


This is true for Melpharia March, but Deadman's Cross was never meant to be huge; its artstyle is too much offputting and so distant from every heavy hitter we've had so far in the mobile market.

This one they had a big interview about. The art style was to appeal to the West more: http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/28/55...square-enixs-first-step-in-reaching-a-broader

Deadman's Cross is Square Enix's 'first step' towards a broader mobile market
By Alexa Ray Corriea on Mar 28, 2014 at 9:30a

According to Shinichi Tatsuke, producer on Square Enix's mobile role-playing game Guardian Cross, his new zombie-themed spin-off Deadman's Cross is the first step in the company's endeavors to broaden its mobile audience on a global scale.

Tatsuke told Polygon the company's goal is to "provide an unmatched level of graphical quality and an engaging depth of story that only Square Enix can" on mobile, with Tatsuke's latest title designed specifically with Western audiences in mind.

---

Sorry, I was meaning the 3DS project.
For MMOs I generally feel they just want to increase the overall subscriber base the same way that Capcom has 500 platforms for Monster Hunter Frontier, even if they don't expect each individual entry to sell a zillion copies.

They also have a cloud smartphone version which I can't imagine gets a lot of subscribers, but it still adds to the base of players they earn income from and can help keep people engaged while they're on the go.
 
So, yeah, what I can get from this nice debate is that SQEX is still willing to put out middle-sized project. Those are converging towards the mobile market, of course.
 
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