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[Psycho_Mantis]

This game was given almost free after some point.
___

YSO predictions

Week 46, 2015 (Nov 16 - Nov 22)

01. [PS4] Star Wars: Battlefront < 120k (average 85k)
02. [WIU] Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival < 60k (average 45k)
03. [PSV] Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book < 40k (average 30k)

BO3 > SW

I knew it.

I guess what's the definition of "in tatters"? I'm presuming Pokemon is considered an exception, but things like Bravely Default's and Fire Emblem Awakening's success don't count either? Btw, other than Ni no Kuni, what RPGs actually sold well on PS3? I think the 3DS actually had better Western sales for their RPGs than the PS3 did surprisingly (although to be fair, I have no idea about European numbers).




Um, Amiibo Festival doesn't release for 3DS though.

Also apparently Amiibos unlock songs in Taiko?
http://gonintendo.com/stories/246874-taiko-drum-master-atsumete-tomodachi-dai-sakusen-more-amiib

From what we know:

FF (obviously)
KH
Souls
Ni No Kuni - 1 million
Tales of Xillia - 230k+ (Tales series did well relative to previous entries)

Also I think the biggest success story in JRPG's in the past years is Persona.

 

[1st Course]

I think It's better to wait for SE Q4 earning before delcaring DQ heroes a bomba based on first week, retail only sales from 2 or 3 countries. I remember a lot of users here shitting on Type-0 western sales but then SE came up and said they are satisfied with the sales.

DQ heroes didn't set the world on fire obviously but it could've met SE expections for all we know.

 

[Darius]

Their shipment numbers surely will look better, but the likelyhood that the rest of the shipment will be sold in bargain bins the same as Type-0 is quite high. Type-0 already didn´t show that there is a big JRPG market on the systems yet. It pretty much flopped for basically beeing a new FF game in US, it surely didn´t hurt that it also included a FF15demo but sales still ended up quite low. A spinoff sure, but still quite bad especially considering that it´s one of the closest to the mainline series and the supposed "hardcore" market on PS4.

 

[Kresnik258]

YSO predictions

Week 46, 2015 (Nov 16 - Nov 22)

01. [PS4] Star Wars: Battlefront < 120k (average 85k)
02. [WIU] Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival < 60k (average 45k)
03. [PSV] Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book < 40k (average 30k)

Are they only predicting the Vita version of Sophie? Does that mean they're expecting it to be the highest selling SKU?

It´s for their recently ended fiscal year (2014.10.1-2015.09.30) according to this summary click. They suffered a sharp decline and according to their forecast they also expect to remain flat in the recently started new fiscal year.

Thanks for sharing. Glad things seem to be going so well for Falcom.

 

[Chris1964]

Are they only predicting the Vita version of Sophie? Does that mean they're expecting it to be the highest selling SKU?

They predict only for top 3 and the only version for Atelier Sophie there was the Vita one. Everyone had this top 3 and with this exact order.
It's not like it's unexpected. It will be PSV>PS4,PS3.

As for Battlefront.
There were 2 other out of reality predictions which I left out.
There are 2 predictions with 120k first week and the rest are all <100k or <<100k, that's why there is so big difference between top and average.
Without these 2 predictions out it becomes

01. [PS4] Star Wars: Battlefront < 100k (average 80k)

 

[Darius]

Thanks for sharing. Glad things seem to be going so well for Falcom.

Since all information was in yen, here some approximated conversions.

Falcom recently ended fiscal year

Operating Profit: (Approx. $5,630,000)
Operating Income: (Approx. $5,605,000)
Current Net Income: (Approx. $3,710,000)

 

[L~A]

DQH sales clearly proves that HW sold what it sold in the West because of the Zelda IP....... which was pretty obvious in the first place.

About the Splatoon bundle... isn't it hiska-kun (or Chris?) who's alrways remining people that impact of such bundles is always felt in the weeks following release? Or did I dream that? Anyway, it's clearly a Christmas bundle. It maybe the cheapest option for someone only interested in Splatoon (despite being the most expensive bundle), but that's only taking into account new. No doubt people buying a Wii U right for Splatoon are either interested in other games so take the SMM bundle, or are only interested in Splatoon and buy the console used.

As for PXZ2, looks like standard drop for a sequel on the same platform, and with the first one getting mixed reception. PXZ2 is aimed at the west (localisation in many more languages than PXZ1). But even in the west, expecting a drop in sales, especially since it comes out 3 days before Fire Emblem Fates...

 

[Pennywise83]

DQH sales clearly proves that HW sold what it sold in the West because of the Zelda IP....... which was pretty obvious in the first place.

That's what I've always said

 

[flohen95]

DQH sales clearly proves that HW sold what it sold in the West because of the Zelda IP....... which was pretty obvious in the first place.

Hyrule Warriors was also priced more sensibly, at least in Europe. I remember getting that game preordered for 34€ from Media Markt, and I think most prices hovered around 40 - 50€ at release compared to Dragon Quest's 60€. But yeah, the IP definitely played in major role in the game's success.

As for PXZ2, looks like standard drop for a sequel on the same platform, and with the first one getting mixed reception. PXZ2 is aimed at the west (localisation in many more languages than PXZ1). But even in America, expecting a drop in sales, especially since it comes out 3 days before Fire Emblem Fates...

fixed

Spoiler

though I guess theoretically that situation could apply to Europe/Australia as well, since it's not like we have a different date right now, we just have no concrete date at all

 

[DarkLordMalik]

Their shipment numbers surely will look better, but the likelyhood that the rest of the shipment will be sold in bargain bins the same as Type-0 is quite high. Type-0 already didn´t show that there is a big JRPG market on the systems yet. It pretty much flopped for basically beeing a new FF game in US, it surely didn´t hurt that it also included a FF15demo but sales still ended up quite low. A spinoff sure, but still quite bad especially considering that it´s one of the closest to the mainline series and the supposed "hardcore" market on PS4.

Seriously. What's with people quick to jump to conclusions over games that are hardly defining for a series?

You expected Type-0 HD, which is a HD Remaster of a game that was available on PSP and had translation released just before the official announcement, to sell more than 100k in Japan and ~200k in US/UK? There was a demo for FFXV, sure. But even when the series was at its peak i.e during pre-FFXIII and before FFXII release, DQVIII was released with FFXII demo and it sold less than 100k in US. Did PS2 also lack the JRPG market?

 

[Darius]

Seriously. What's with people quick to jump to conclusions over games that are hardly defining for a series?

You expected Type-0 HD, which is a HD Remaster of a game that was available on PSP and had translation released just before the official announcement, to sell more than 100k in Japan and ~200k in US/UK? There was a demo for FFXV, sure. But even when the series was at its peak i.e during pre-FFXIII and before FFXII release, DQVIII was released with FFXII demo and it sold less than 100k in US. Did PS2 also lack the JRPG market?

DQ8 sold quite well in US and Europe, despite far more competition in the same genre back then and next gen in form of X360 already available and the others just around the corner, no reason to pull out numbers out of thin air. Type-0 wasn´t released neither in US nor Europe, Type-0 HD is basically a new game for the US and European market.

 

[DarkLordMalik]

DQ8 sold quite well in US and Europe, despite far more competition in the same genre back then and next gen in form of X360 already available and the others just around the corner, no reason to pull out numbers out of thin air. Type-0 wasn´t released neither in US nor Europe, Type-0 HD is basically a new game for the US and European market.

Who pulled the number for DQ8 out of thin air? They were given by Sorine in the NPD thread. He/She listed DQ 8 debut month as <100k although it still managed to outsell DQIX in LTD.

Type-0 HD was a spin-off, not a mainline FF game. It was also designed as a handheld game, nowhere the spectacle and budget as the series is typically known for. The numbers for Type-0 HD are again from NPD. No numbers are being pulled from thin air here.

As per creamsugar, Type-0 HD debuted to >200k on PS4 and XBO and the ratio was 79% on PS4 and 21% on XBO. This is without the UK debut sales which were around 21k for both PS4/XBO. The ratio was the same for both. You can look at the Japan Sales DB for the 100k sales in Japan.

 

[Darius]

Who pulled the number for DQ8 out of thin air? They were given by Sorine in the NPD thread. He/She listed DQ 8 debut month as <100k although it still managed to outsell DQIX in LTD.

Type-0 HD was a spin-off, not a mainline FF game. It was also designed as a handheld game, nowhere the spectacle and budget as the series is typically known for. The numbers for Type-0 HD are again from NPD. No numbers are being pulled from thin air here.

As per creamsugar, Type-0 HD debuted to >200k on PS4 and XBO and the ratio was 79% on PS4 and 21% on XBO. This is without the UK sales which were around 25k for both PS4/XBO. The ratio was the same for both. You can look at the Japan Sales DB for the 100k sales in Japan.

Sales are still bad and I see no reason in focusing just in its debut, it didn´t get into bargain bins for no reason. I already pointed out that it´s a spin-off, but it´s one of the closest to the main series and hardly Theatrythm and the like, be it theme- or budget wise. It would be disingenous to brush off its lackluster performance under this excuse. A comparison with FF7 Crisis Cores lifetime sales would be interesting, considering consoles generally have a higher software attacherate and an advantage. And in this case we mostly have seencombined sales of the PS4+XOne versions.

 

[Pennywise83]

Type-0 sold around 730k units in Japan - that's around 36% of what FFXIII sold. Type-0 was a spin-off but a highly-anticipated one; it was advertised as a sort of handheld reboot for the series after SQEX ditched the FFXIII brand.

 

[casiopao]

Persona 4 Golden did about 33K in its Vita debut when the system was far weaker. FFXHD Vita did around 70K+ in NPD(I recall seeing 73K or so, but was unsure if that was after two months or not).

Matching a Vita port's sales is not that great.

Comparing Final Fantasy sales vs Shin Megami Tensei is simply laughable though especially knowing how much far the mindshare both game owned.

 

[DarkLordMalik]

Sales are still bad and I see no reason in focusing just in its debut, it didn´t get into bargain bins for no reason. I already pointed out that it´s a spin-off, but it´s one of the closest to the main series and hardly Theatrythm and the like, be it theme- or budget wise. It would be disingenous to brush off its lackluster performance under this excuse. A comparison with FF7 Crisis Cores lifetime sales would be interesting, considering consoles generally have a higher software attacherate and an advantage. And in this case we mostly have seencombined sales of the PS4+XOne versions.

Sales are bad? You repating this line again and again even though I have given you numbers. It is in bargain bins because SE overshipped it a lot, like 1 million shipped in a month. It has sold half of it with rest being in bargain bin.

The combined numbers hardly matter when the ratio is 80:20. You remove XBO and you get 180k in NA and 17k in UK for PS4. The 100k in Japan is fot PS4 only.

Lastly SE were more than satisfied with Type-0 sales as mentioned in their quarterly reports.

Type-0 sold around 730k units in Japan - that's around 36% of what FFXIII sold. Type-0 was a spin-off but a highly-anticipated one; it was advertised as a sort of handheld reboot for the series after SQEX ditched the FFXIII brand.

In japan, hence it sold well. The story is different if you talk about western release where it was originally supposed to release for vita.

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

Seriously. What's with people quick to jump to conclusions over games that are hardly defining for a series?

You expected Type-0 HD, which is a HD Remaster of a game that was available on PSP and had translation released just before the official announcement, to sell more than 100k in Japan and ~200k in US/UK? There was a demo for FFXV, sure. But even when the series was at its peak i.e during pre-FFXIII and before FFXII release, DQVIII was released with FFXII demo and it sold less than 100k in US. Did PS2 also lack the JRPG market?

Exactly. The assertion that it was a bomb is even more nonsensical when SE for all accounts is happy with its performance.

 

[kuroneko0509]

Ikenie to Yuki no Setsuna (Project Setsuna) seems to launch on 18th February, thanks to 'leak' from google ads
http://wktk.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/ghard/1447685588/587

 

[Ōkami]

Ikenie to Yuki no Setsuna (Project Setsuna) seems to launch on 18th February, thanks to 'leak' from google ads
http://wktk.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/ghard/1447685588/587

Same day as Street Fighter V and a week before Star Ocean 5.

February should be a busy month, just like last time.

 

[Darius]

Sales are bad? You repating this line again and again even though I have given you numbers. It is in bargain bins because SE overshipped it a lot, like 1 million shipped in a month. It has sold half of it with rest being in bargain bin.

The combined numbers hardly matter when the ratio is 80:20. You remove XBO and you get 180k in NA and 17k in UK for PS4. The 100k in Japan is fot PS4 only.

Lastly SE were more than satisfied with Type-0 sales as mentioned in their quarterly reports.


In japan, hence it sold well. The story is different if you talk about western release where it was originally supposed to release for vita.

The discussion was about the current audience in US and Europe willing to pay full price for such kind of games, besides highly marketed and established IPs like mainline FF and Pokemon in response to bad DQH sales. And you see no problem with having overshipped FFType-0 by such a big margin? SQEX might not be too sad about the amount they shipped since this is basically what they ended up getting the money for and what their statement is based on. The point still is that it underperformed by quite a big margin at retail, which is far more relevant when discussing the userbase.

The game was never announced for PSV and anyway that´s pretty much irrelevant in this matter.

A comparison with Crisis Core, which is an even more evident spin-off.
Crisis Core sold >300k in its US debut on a single system, namely PSP. It actually had some legs and didn´t suffer from beeing thrown in bargain bins immediately.

 

[DarkLordMalik]

The discussion was about the current audience in US willing to pay full price for such kind of games in response to bad DQH sales. And you see no problem with having overshipped FFType-0 by such a big margin? SQEX might not be too sad about the amount they shipped since this is basically what they ended up getting the money for and what their statement is based on. The point still is that it underperformed by quite a big margin at retail, which is far more relevant when discussing the userbase.

Does this even matter here when SE achieved what they wanted? You constantly bring up the bargain bin part when almost every successful game does end up there at one point or another, simply because not all of their copies are sold-though to customers. Fallout 4 shipped 12 million to retailers but it is not like all 12 million will be sold easily.

Another example is COD: Ghosts making 1 billion at launch and that was based on sold to retailers. The game was obviously successful even if it did less compared to the other entries in the series, but we can still find its overshipped copies in bargain bins going as low as $1.

Saying Ghosts bombed or there is no audience for the genre because it can be found in bargain bins years after launch won't make any sense when the company in question made their money and moved on to next entry.

The game was never announced for PSV and anyway that´s pretty much irrelevant in this matter.

It was never announced for Vita but it was thanks to the localization begging by the PSP/Vita users that SE even paid any attention to it. It was logical to assume they will just release the PSP port in English for PSP/Vita but they somehow went for the HD Remaster route with FFXV demo. It was essentially an HD remaster that no one wanted.

A comparison with Crisis Core, which is an even more evident spin-off.
Crisis Core sold >300k in its US debut on a single system, namely PSP. It actually had some legs and didn´t suffer from beeing thrown in bargain bins.

Crisis Core is also a spin-off based on the extremely popular FF VII. There is no comparison with it. Did you even see the hype of Cloud, main hero of FF VII, being a character in Smash Bros.? The reaction to it already shows the power of the FF VII brand and the nostalgic feelings it brings to many of the gamers that grew up playing it. So Crisis Core had to sell really well, and it did for sure.

It is silly for you to compare Crisis Core to Type-0 since the latter is essentially a new FF spin-off

A more apt comparison should be Lightning Returns, which was a spin-off to mainline FF like Crisis Core and was also released recently (2014). Here are its debut sales in NPD.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) < 111K
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (360) < 54K

This was on a user base that was higher than PS4/XBO so how can you define Type-0 HD as a failure?

 

[Vena]

A more apt comparison should be Lightning Returns, which was a spin-off to mainline FF like Crisis Core and was also released recently (2014). Here are its debut sales in NPD.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) < 111K
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (360) < 54K

This was on a user base that was higher than PS4/XBO so how can you define Type-0 HD as a failure?

I wouldn't call that apt. It released months after the launch of the PS4/XB1, which is never a good idea, and its the second sequel to an extremely polarizing brand in the franchise.

Type-0 is a new spin-off brand for Final Fantasy (though old for Japan, new for the west), packaged with a demo to a long awaited FFXV. FFXIII:LR is a sequel to a sequel to a polarizing franchise. Crisis Core and FFXIII:LR are more comparable to one another than either is to Type-0. (Or heck any FFVII spin-off is more relevant to compare to FFXIII:LR than, again, to Type-0.)

Of course, I wouldn't call Type-0 HD's performance bad, I'd call it mediocre to potentially underperforming against loftier expectations (given shipment numbers) but still "fine" with how it performed. We've not heard much of it after the initial shipment figures and quarterly report, so I doubt its performance in the eyes of SE is anything more than that as well. Now what their actual expectations/hopes were for it with Duscae packaging and beyond is lost to the aether because they're obviously never going to tell us. The fact that it did end up getting bargain binned and channel stuffed probably meant someone, somewhere was expecting more. Kind of like the Bayo1 scenario with Sega, and how stuffed channels were. The title made it to a million+ but the performance was ultimately not good enough for them to fund a sequel themselves.

 

[Darius]

We didn´t discuss shipment numbers before you (DarkLordMalik) chimed in, is it really that hard to understand?

ok, Lightning Return a better comparison than the "silly" Crisis Core one, what about FFXIII-2 or did it sell too well to warrant a comparison? lol. I knew why there was no Crisis Core comparison from your part, since it sold notably better, but I really didn´t expect this level of arbitrary bullshit. That´s all for today, bye.

 

[Grakl]

Golden Week is the biggest one, you see a lot of publishers structure game releases to coincide with it. Obon is also probably pretty important.

in term of sales neither GW nor Obon week is comparable to week 51 and 52, in term of releases recently we had a peak during the end of March, which is also the end of the fiscal year.

Great, thanks!

 

[DarkLordMalik]

I wouldn't call that apt. It released months after the launch of the PS4/XB1, which is never a good idea, and its the second sequel to an extremely polarizing brand in the franchise.

This has never affected the sales of games like Kingdom Hearts and other niche games on PS3. Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD and Lightning Returns: XIII were released fairly close to each other and also closer to the launch of PS4/XBO, yet one of them found success while the other sold badly.

Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5 HD both debuted to more than 270k in NPD. I don't really see an affect of PS4 here since the fanbase was already on PS3. It is not like moving to PS4 would have resulted better sales as we saw with ToZ, X|X-2 HD and Dragon Quest Heroes.

We didn´t discuss shipment numbers before you (DarkLordMalik) chimed in, is it really that hard to understand?

ok, Lightning Return a better comparison than the "silly" Crisis Core one, what about FFXIII-2 or did it sell too well to warrant a comparison? lol. I knew why there was no Crisis Core comparison from your part, since it sold notably better, but I really didn´t expect this level of arbitrary bullshit. That´s all for today, bye.

Read your original post and then see why I quoted you highlighting the bolded part.

Their shipment numbers surely will look better, but the likelyhood that the rest of the shipment will be sold in bargain bins the same as Type-0 is quite high. Type-0 already didn´t show that there is a big JRPG market on the systems yet. It pretty much flopped for basically beeing a new FF game in US, it surely didn´t hurt that it also included a FF15demo but sales still ended up quite low. A spinoff sure, but still quite bad especially considering that it´s one of the closest to the mainline series and the supposed "hardcore" market on PS4.

This post was wrong on so many levels.

* Calling Type-0 HD a flop.
* Saying Type-0 HD flopped means there is no JRPG market for PS4, when it didn't.
* Calling Type-0 HD closest to mainline series shows you haven't even played it.

I presented you the sales and figure and compared them to the most recent results yet you continue to ignore them. The sales situation for the series is entirely different in 2014-15 compared to what it was in 2008-2012.

I guess you will only agree to the posts that fit your agenda and narrative, which is to repeat that PS4 lacks a JRPG audience when there is clear evidence suggesting the exact opposite.

 

[Nirolak]

DeNA posted the English text of their IR call clarifying that Nintendo's mobile games are f2p:

Q4
In Nintendo&#8217;s Corporate Management Policy Briefing / Semi-Annual Financial Results
Briefing for Fiscal Year Ending March 2016, I believe they mentioned that some
collaborative apps will require a certain amount of money to be paid in order to
download. Could you tell us more about the monetization method and expected
business scale of the collaborative apps?

A4
During the briefing, pay-per-download was only mentioned as an
example of various possible options for monetization methods. We believe that monetization methods must match the gameplay, and this approach hasn&#8217;t changed.
The apps in our pipeline, for which we currently have an idea of the type of gameplay, will be free-to-play (free-to-start).
We believe that the business scale will depend on the individual app&#8217;s gameplay, monetization points and average revenue per user
(ARPU), and therefore, we are unable to discuss specific details at this time.

http://v4.eir-parts.net/v4Contents/View.aspx?template=ir_material&sid=45510&code=2432

 

[Vena]

This has never affected the sales of games like Kingdom Hearts and other niche games on PS3. Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD and Lightning Returns: XIII were released fairly close to each other and also closer to the launch of PS4/XBO, yet one of them found success while the other sold badly.

Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5 HD both debuted to more than 270k in NPD. I don't really see an affect of PS4 here since the fanbase was already on PS3. It is not like moving to PS4 would have resulted better sales as we saw with ToZ, X|X-2 HD and Dragon Quest Heroes.

Again, poor comparison.

As I said, this was released late AND is a polarizing title in a polarizing series, these were statements in conjunction within a single clause not separate. Launching late/post launch of a new console is not itself automatically a death sentence, its just generally not a good idea (exclusively old console, cross-gen is fine early on) as you're potentially losing core users who tend to be the first to upgrade (and potentially trade/sell-off old hardware).

Its not just "it launched late, but oh other niche titles aren't affected", its that it is not only launched late it is also a polarizing title from a polarizing series with a less than thrilling first sequel. FFX|X-2 is a remaster of a well known and liked property, same can be said of the KH remasters. There is also a large dash of nostalgia/positive reinforcement to consider on these titles, something that FFXIII most certainly does not possess.

Your comparisons are attempting to be far too binary, and as I said, I have no idea why we're comparing a sequel (to a sequel) to a stand-alone spin-off/new branch of FF (packaged with Duscae). Or why Crisis Core (with similar considerations, and on a completely different hardware type) was brought into this.

Again, its performance was mediocre and, seemingly, had a hope/dash of expectation to do better than it did when you look at the shipment volume. Someone was expecting a higher yield, and SE's never going to come out and say: "Well, it met our baseline prognostics but its failed to live up to X." They'll just say the former and then nothing else.

 

[Ryng_tolu]

After 45 weeks, Wii U is at 518,113 unit YTD according to Media Create.

In 2013, Wii U has sold 542,667 in 46 weeks...

So, Wii U need to sell >24,554 this week for back over 2013...

Wonder if will.

 

[Diprosalic]

"free to start" is a much nicer expression than "free to play" seems more honest and less shady.

 

[DarkLordMalik]

Again, poor comparison.

As I said, this was released late AND is a polarizing title in a polarizing series, these were statements in conjunction within a single clause not separate. Launching late/post launch of a new console is not itself automatically a death sentence, its just generally not a good idea (exclusively old console, cross-gen is fine early on) as you're potentially losing core users who tend to be the first to upgrade (and potentially trade/sell-off old hardware).

Its not just "it launched late, but oh other niche titles aren't affected", its that it is not only launched late it is also a polarizing title from a polarizing series with a less than thrilling first sequel. FFX|X-2 is a remaster of a well known and liked property, same can be said of the KH remasters. There is also a large dash of nostalgia/positive reinforcement to consider on these titles, something that FFXIII most certainly does not possess.

Your comparisons are attempting to be far too binary, and as I said, I have no idea why we're comparing a sequel (to a sequel) to a stand-alone spin-off/new branch of FF. Or why Crisis Core (with similar considerations, and on a completely different hardware type) was brought into this.

Well, I am not to blame here

I never wanted to start these comparisons anyways. I have no idea how the Crisis Core comparison even came into play here considering it released in 2007-2008 when the series still retained its popularity. It lost a lot of it with the release of FFXIV 1.0, XIII, XIII-2 and LR: XIII.

I agree that the comparisons don't make any sense so lets leave it as such. I don't want to push this discussion any further, honestly.

Again, its performance was mediocre and, seemingly, had a hope/dash of expectation to do better than it did when you look at the shipment volume. Someone was expecting a higher yield, and SE's never going to come out and say: "Well, it met our baseline prognostics but its failed to live up to X." They'll just say the former and then nothing else.

Mediocre is a completely different word than "flopped" so I agree. It might be lower than expectations but considering the work that was done on it, I don't think it was a costly project. There was zero new content and they even stripped the multiplayer.

 

[Vena]

I agree that the comparisons don't make any sense so lets leave it as such. I don't want to push this discussion any further, honestly.

That's fine with me.

Mediocre is a completely different word than "flopped" so I agree. It might be lower than expectations but considering the work that was done on it, I don't think it was a costly project. There was zero new content and they even stripped the multiplayer.

Type-0 HD was probably incredibly cheap.

Duscae demo probably wasn't, though, demos like that aren't cheap and take time to assemble and ship in even a decent working order (as they have to be compiled, debugged, and QAed) even if they don't need to be pristine. Which is also where I suspect they had pegged higher expectations (and shipments) than reality saw fit.

 

[ZSaberLink]

After 45 weeks, Wii U is at 518,113 unit YTD according to Media Create.

In 2013, Wii U has sold 542,667 in 46 weeks...

So, Wii U need to sell >24,554 this week for back over 2013...

Wonder if will.

Even if it does, isn't it fairly meaningless? 2015 Wii U sales were easily ahead of 2013 until the holiday bundle arrived around 10/30. Then the sales in 2013 kind of ran away with it, especially during December. Barring the Wii U has a miracle holiday again, I think 2015 sales will be above 2014, but below 2013.

 

[Moor-Angol]

Same day as Street Fighter V and a week before Star Ocean 5.

February should be a busy month, just like last time.

seems like publishers are paying attention more on fiscal year end than winter holidays, as it was for 2015, Q1 2016 has a lot of releases
finally they realized that releasing a lot of games just in the last 6-7 weeks of the year is not a smart move?

 

[Sandfox]

Mediocre is a completely different word than "flopped" so I agree. It might be lower than expectations but considering the work that was done on it, I don't think it was a costly project. There was zero new content and they even stripped the multiplayer.

Well it did come with the FFXV demo and to me the game looked like a flop, but I haven't been keeping up with the numbers.

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

Well it did come with the FFXV demo and to me the game looked like a flop, but I haven't been keeping up with the numbers.

DQ8 came with FF12, debuted at a similar number in NPD and had a 1 million LTD in the West.

Its amazing seeing people spin FF Type 0 as a flop when SE themselves wanted to highlight sales and noted its performance.

 

[ZSaberLink]

DQ8 came with FF12, debuted at a similar number in NPD and had a 1 million LTD in the West.

Its amazing seeing people spin FF Type 0 as a flop when SE themselves wanted to highlight sales and noted its performance.

I'm sure Square Enix is fine with the sales, which is good. But it's hard to tell when they're happy vs. not happy with sales unless they flat out say it (just look at Bravely and how they basically sabotaged its sequel despite much better sales, and probably a similarly small budget). Actually in Bravely's case, they said they were happy with Western sales, said they'd consider making middle tier titles, and THEN decided to leave Bravely Second with its minimal budget (the budget they allotted before realizing it'd sell well in the West), and went with Setsuna for PS4 (which unfortunately has no guarantee to sell super well).

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Type-0 HD should have been a 20 dollar game and SE was able to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of it at 60 dollars, they are happy.

 

[Vena]

Type-0 HD should have been a 20 dollar game and SE was able to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of it at 60 dollars, they are happy.

DQ8 came with FF12, debuted at a similar number in NPD and had a 1 million LTD in the West.

Its amazing seeing people spin FF Type 0 as a flop when SE themselves wanted to highlight sales and noted its performance.

You're both underestimating the budget costs of building a working demo, especially in this day and age. Demos for public distribution (especially mid development, rather than vertical slicing an already fully playable, debugged game) are expensive in both man-hours and monetary costs (factoring in further opportunity cost of lost man hours). Type-0 HD on its own is a cheap-o port but it still had work put into to it to make it translate from handheld to HD. Porting was probably simple but textures and other effects would have needed touching up, upgrading, or entirely reworking depending on the engine transition of the port job.

 

[hiska-kun]

According to Sinobi, pre-orders of Zelda Twilight Princess HD started well.

 

[ZSaberLink]

According to Sinobi, pre-orders of Zelda Twilight Princess HD started well.

Interesting... wouldn't have expected that to be honest.

 

[Sterok]

According to Sinobi, pre-orders of Zelda Twilight Princess HD started well.

I've been wondering, what art style does Japan prefer for Zelda? The west seems to like Twilight Princess's grittier style more than Wind Waker's cell shading. Does that hold true in Japan?

 

[sörine]

I don't get why people are comparing DQ8 to FFT0 as if they're on an equal brand footing? One sold amazingly for it's franchise, the other mediocre.

 

[ZSaberLink]

I've been wondering, what art style does Japan prefer for Zelda? The west seems to like Twilight Princess's grittier style more than Wind Waker's ce shading. Does that hold true in Japan?

Wind Waker (742,609) actually sold better than Twilight Princess (552,476) did in Japan, so I thought they preferred that style to be honest... although things may have changed.

Btw, not to strike a controversy or anything, but is there a reason that Square Enix essentially killed Bravely Second themselves after the success of BD, yet greenlit Project Setsuna? I know they made the call on Second's budget before the Western sales, but it's not like the JP sales were bad or anything. Maybe Silicon Studio is somehow expensive despite being a pretty small studio? I never really got this because killing Bravely seems to suggest no interest in that type of game, yet Setsuna clearly does show an interest on the other hand. I don't see why the two series couldn't have coexisted, considering they're on two different platforms/ecosystems.

 

[Ōkami]

TV ads for Star Wars: Battlefront.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHDl8EuE_Ok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcdZusL8xq4

More or less the same as the ones for the west.

 

[madstarr12]

According to Sinobi, pre-orders of Zelda Twilight Princess HD started well.

Pretty cool. Wonder if it's due to the amiibo, or maybe the JP people liked Twilight Princess. It did sell over half a million on Wii, so there's hope for better sales than Bomb Waker.

 

[Pennywise83]

seems like publishers are paying attention more on fiscal year end than winter holidays, as it was for 2015, Q1 2016 has a lot of releases
finally they realized that releasing a lot of games just in the last 6-7 weeks of the year is not a smart move?

Was a smart move releasing plenty of games in March as well? I remember some of them bombed, such as One Piece Warriors 3, Senran Kagura Eestival Versus and Disgaea 5, and the main factor was overcrowding, on top of franchise fatigue.

Mediocre is a completely different word than "flopped" so I agree. It might be lower than expectations but considering the work that was done on it, I don't think it was a costly project. There was zero new content and they even stripped the multiplayer.

Type-0 HD sold well for what it was but SQEX expectations were notably higher - the same is true for FFXIV and FFX HD; perhaps, PS4 and X1 just don't have (yet?) a sizeable audience for the genre which is not surprising given the results of DQH and TOZ from last NPD.

 

[Aostia]

I admit, I am lost about the last few pages with all this SE talk

Btw TPHD will sell as poorly as WWHD considering how WW has always been more popular in Japan imho

Preorders are probably just early adopters keen to secure the amiibo and ost bundle

 

[hiska-kun]

I admit, I am lost about the last few pages with all this SE talk

Btw TPHD will sell as poorly as WWHD considering how WW has always been more popular in Japan imho

Preorders are probably just early adopters keen to secure the amiibo and ost bundle

I remember shinobi saying that pre-orders of Tri-force Heroes started very slow.

I have the feeling that Twilight Princess HD can sell more in par of Hyrule Warriors, rather than Wind Waker HD.

 

[xehanort]

Type-0 HD sold well for what it was but SQEX expectations were notably higher - the same is true for FFXIV and FFX HD; perhaps, PS4 and X1 just don't have (yet?) a sizeable audience for the genre which is not surprising given the results of DQH and TOZ from last NPD.

And how did we know this? All we saw was SQEX announcing 1m for FFT0 HD worldwide.

And I bet FFXHD sold 100k-200k. I believe that is quite good considering it is the 3rd re-release within a year's span.

 

[Pennywise83]

And how did we know this? All we saw was SQEX announcing 1m for FFT0 HD worldwide.

And I bet FFXHD sold 100k-200k. I believe that is quite good considering it is the 3rd re-release within a year's span.

Overshipping.

As for FFXHD and FFXIV, we know for sure that both games were overshipped in Japan. Expectations were low, of course, but this doesn't mean results cannot be disappointing.