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Media Create Sales: Week 51, 2011 (Dec 19 - Dec 25)

marc^o^

Nintendo's Pro Bono PR Firm
If you look back, that Gundam game actually did worse than an entry in the same series on PSP while it had a smaller userbase than the 3DS currently employs.
It also had less competition. Nintendo needs 3rd party games to perform well. This is why they won't release long time announced games in Q1, or why they didn't release many 1st party games at 3DS launch. If you're not Monster Hunter, it's hard to compete with big Nintendo franchises.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Week 2 Comparisons:

Dissidia: Final Fantasy: 176,385 / 666,000
Final Fantasy XIII-2: 118,816 / 643,033
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: 108,519 / 595,000
Final Fantasy Type-0: 122,286 / 594,540
 
RE: Revelation and KH will cement what you said. 3DS is the new PSP (on top of being the new DS).

I think perhaps the most interesting debate/showing will be if 3DS can capture the casual market again. Todomachi collection(SP) and Animal Crossing will be tests to see but I wonder if they will be able to recapture the Brain Training/Wii Sports audience again. I think there is plenty of potential but Nintendo needs to be smart about it. If they made a Brain Training 3DS that advanced things and perhaps brain teasers and image puzzles utilizing 3D I think it could still have appeal. Especially building and emphasizing the social aspects with streetpass and Online. Considering Nintendo's laziness with the Animal Crossing series I have my doubts but I think Animal Crossing could become Nintendo's Farmville so to speak depending on the amount of effort they put into it. If they were to make some big advancements with the 3DS version, capitalize on streetpass and online communication with other users and offer DLC then they could have a big hit with lots of $$$ rolling in but like I said that probably is expecting too much. I also suspect that Nintendo is unsure of Animal Crossing's appeal and why it is as popular as it is/was which is why they are reluctant in making big changes. I don't think the majority of GAF could explain what exactly makes it so appealing and popular, tbh.

Another big audience that is somewhat missing/lacking on the 3DS is the puzzle aspect. The Puzzle genre used to be pretty big on handhelds and games such as Tetris DS and Clubhouse games. It may be that they are waiting a little bit later in the system's lifetime to try and market towards that audience or perhaps they are going to ignore it completely.
 

Wazzim

Banned
They are losing money on the hardware already, drop the revenue without reducing the costs and they will lose even more money. They will start with a bigger hole to dig themselves out of.

Yeah but the money lost on US sales is (and has been with every console released after the introduction of the strong Euro) always more. In fact, I think they are making money on the European sales and only losing out on the US and Japanese ones (we'll never know).
Your option of delaying the EU launch instead of the US one does not sound logical to me.
 

GCX

Member
The difference between the VITA and the PSP is that the PSP had it's own market and wasn't really a competitor to the DS, Nintendo went for a different market with the DS (it wasn't even a GBA successor at first!) and the PSP had an underserved market created by the GBA; so it got games like KH, MGS, MH, etc etc. It didn't even matter that the PSP launched a year later, because the handhelds weren't really competing against each other.

I think that the Smartphone and Tablet penetration in the market that the DS had, made Nintendo go back to the old market, you can see that Nintendogs 3DS wasn't a success like Nintendogs DS was, because the 3DS is not designed for that market, and that market went to look for it's gaming experiences elsewhere.

The problem with VITA is that Sony misread the situation and made a handheld that has very similar performance to the 3DS (bu bu but Uncharted) but failed to grab the 3rd party games (KH, RE, MGS and MH are all going to 3DS), part due to Sony's overconfidence and part because of launching late.

It doesn't help that there is virtually no design behind the VITA, it's a PSP with another analog stick (real analog sticks this time) and a last minute addition of a back touchscreen that isn't convincing anyone, it doesn't work as a R/L 2/3 replacement, and it ends being a useless gimmick (besides Little Deviants, I haven't seen anything interesting from that screen). There is nothing new or groundbreaking about the VITA, it is a boring handheld.

To me it's doomed, and I'm sorry to enter the Doom Train, but the fact that Nintendo went after the same market as the PSP and DS, and the fact that Sony did not secure relevant exclusives, doesn't have hardware selling games (GT Portable is not going to sell the handheld), is letting B teams do the games (bu bu but Bend) instead of their best teams makes the handheld effectively irrelevant.

The only salvation it has, as hardware, is to get hacked to the max, because it just doesn't have the software to be a real competitor in the handheld space. I see another NGP (now I know why it had this codename!) here, and I expect it to be completely irrelevant as any other non Nintendo and non PSP handheld before it.
I think you have a lot of valid points.

Nintendo has clearly repositioned themselves in the market compared to the DS/Wii generation. With the surge of smartphone and tablet gaming they have taken a step back in their casual gaming revolution and give more attention to more hardcore oriented games.

That leaves Vita in an odd position since Nintendo has taken bold steps in securing franchises like Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest. Both consoles are after the same customers and that makes it a very different situation compared to last gen.
 

Sadist

Member
Mother of god

I kind of expected the Vita to sell over a 100k with Everybody's Golf still in the top 20. But man, I didn't think this would happen. Does anyone have sales figures for PS2/PSP/PS3 itterations of Everybody's Golf?

3DS having a good week though. Super Mario 3D Land is performing better than I expected, MK 7 as expected. I do wonder if MH Tri G will reach the one million mark next week. 1.2 million sold should be manageable by the end of March.
 
Mother of god

I kind of expected the Vita to sell over a 100k with Everybody's Golf still in the top 20. But man, I didn't think this would happen. Does anyone have sales figures for PS2/PSP/PS3 itterations of Everybody's Golf?

3DS having a good week though. Super Mario 3D Land is performing better than I expected, MK 7 as expected. I do wonder if MH Tri G will reach the one million mark next week. 1.2 million sold should be manageable by the end of March.

It should be manageable by the end of January
 
I do not believe the Sony staff will tolerate such a move, they already lost billions with the PS3. They'd rather pull the plug on the Vita then go spent even more money on something that will most probably won't make back enough cash to come break even.

Yeah, Sony's been eating something like a quarter billion dollars for each fiscal quarter of the PS3's life (~428b¥ in operating losses for the division since 06Q3). They have billions more in debt than they have cash, and it doesn't look like they're going to pull a profit for this fiscal year.

It would be incredibly self-destructive for them to drop the price on the Vita. They're already losing money (so it is said here) on each unit, so a drop to 3DS level would equate to $80,000,000 in losses beyond what they're already losing per million units sold. Sony would need to sell a lot of software per Vita sold, likely a software:hardware ratio unprecedentedly high, to overcome those losses and enter even normal money-losing mode.

I hate to say it, but Sony's best bet seems to be trying to treat Vita like a luxury-level device and pouring some more resources into the now-profitable (it is, right?) PSP, keeping it alive for a couple more years until the Vita can hit what the market seems to see a normal dedicated gaming portable price point to be, but at a profit. I think Sony's in a painful position.
 

Wazzim

Banned
Upcoming releases in Japan (does not look good)
Code:
01/19	WipEout 2048
01/26	Tales of Innocence R
02/02	Ragnarok Odyssey
02/09	Gravity Daze
	Sumioni
02/16	Kyoukugen Dasshutsu ADV: Zennin...
02/23	@Field
	Little Busters! Converted Edition
	Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus
	Reality Fighters
(shamelessly stolen from Gamefaqs)
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Upcoming releases in Japan (does not look good)
Code:
01/19	WipEout 2048
01/26	Tales of Innocence R
02/02	Ragnarok Odyssey
02/09	Gravity Daze
	Sumioni
02/16	Kyoukugen Dasshutsu ADV: Zennin...
02/23	@Field
	Little Busters! Converted Edition
	Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus
	Reality Fighters
(shamelessly stolen from Gamefaqs)

Eh, Tales of Innocence has good possibility of doing 100k.
Gravity Daze could do 100k to, I think it could surprise most of us.
Ragnarok...not so much, even if the game looks very good (THE COLORS! THE ACTION! *__* )
All the other, even if NG stlightly less, have bomba written all over their faces

It's not right that Vita has to survive against the 3DS Q1 lineup. Absolutely not right. Really.
 
Makes you wonder why Sony were so determined to release the PSVita in Japan first, it has certainly not been warranted (based on these launch numbers).
 
Eh, Tales of Innocence has good possibility of doing 100k.
Gravity Daze could do 100k to, I think it could surprise most of us.
Ragnarok...not so much, even if the game looks very good (THE COLORS! THE ACTION! *__* )
All the other, even if NG stlightly less, have bomba written all over their faces

It's not right that Vita has to survive against the 3DS Q1 lineup. Absolutely not right. Really.

Yeah, it's got some shadow to walk through before the library picks up, but I think Sony will be content on letting it tread water (which it's done in the past) while more releases become available. I'm just hoping it doesn't sink. I'm not expecting a rash maneuver from them a la price-cut.

Admittedly, I plan on buying 5 of those titles myself, so I can't argue that it's a bad list.
 

Cipherr

Member
Why not? Is it the little kids who get Ipads and Ipod Touches for christmas? Or is it the consensus that the fact that it's a handheld 'must' mean it's not worth more than $200?

No, its not that, Ill tell you why. Because the market has rejected it. Period. We can talk all day with sparkles in our eyes about the majestic hardware, the increased capabilities and the like, but that doesnt mean SHIT when consumers vote 'No' with their wallets. $200+ is bad bad bad territory for handhelds. Period.
 

NateDrake

Member
Those launch numbers will look amazing compared to the rest of the world.

Really? I think Vita's launch lineup is good enough to get strong sales in US for a little while. It may have a drought from April to E3 but I don't think US/EU sales will be lower than these figures.
 

Paracelsus

Member
Really? I think Vita's launch lineup is good enough to get strong sales in US for a little while. It may have a drought from April to E3 but I don't think US/EU sales will be lower than these figures.

If Japan refuses a portable console you can pretty much skip the western launch.
 
Really? I think Vita's launch lineup is good enough to get strong sales in US for a little while. It may have a drought from April to E3 but I don't think US/EU sales will be lower than these figures.

Listen... I love Uncharted. I really do.
But it is not a system seller, man.
The Vita is not going to fly off shelves because of an Uncharted game that isn't even from Naughty Dog.
And outside of that, they really have nothing else on the horizon that will appeal to the Western audience.
 
Listen... I love Uncharted. I really do.
But it is not a system seller, man.
The Vita is not going to fly off shelves because of an Uncharted game that isn't even from Naughty Dog.
And outside of that, they really have nothing else on the horizon that will appeal to the Western audience.

Yup, Uncharted has never been a huge seller. It's not going to drive Vita sales. Call of Duty, however, is a system seller and if that were a launch title, I wonder how that would affect sales for US?
 

Spiegel

Member
Eh, Tales of Innocence has good possibility of doing 100k.
Gravity Daze could do 100k to, I think it could surprise most of us.
Ragnarok...not so much, even if the game looks very good (THE COLORS! THE ACTION! *__* )
All the other, even if NG stlightly less, have bomba written all over their faces

It's not right that Vita has to survive against the 3DS Q1 lineup. Absolutely not right. Really.

Everything on that list is going to bomb badly just like those post launch/pre-pricedrop 3DS games did in spring/summer. The cheaper competition and lack of big name games combined with the high price are going to make impossible for the Vita to create a good ecosystem for <200k sellers.
 
Yup, Uncharted has never been a huge seller. It's not going to drive Vita sales. Call of Duty, however, is a system seller and if that were a launch title, I wonder how that would affect sales for US?

If it were a good version.
And if it had cross play with the PS3, including sinking of trophies and stats.
And if it was reasonably priced.
It would probably sell a good number of copies.

However, that is neither here nor there.
There is no Call of Duty planned for launch, and one likely won't come until late next year.
 

Mafro

Member
Whatever happened to Call of Duty Vita? I remember people were completely misunderstanding the audience and were convinced that COD alone would lead to the Vita beating the 3DS in the west.
 

Laguna

Banned
I thought it was really hard to replicate PSP sales even before Monster Hunter was announced.

1)One of PSPs strongpoints was that it got alot of "classics" or compilations, ports and remakes of popular franchises btw. games with a certain cult-status. Be it the Parodius Collection, quite a lot mainline Tales of ports, Suikoden 1+2 or Star Ocean 1+2 etc.pp., MegaMan PowerUp/X, Ape Escape, Valkyrie Profile, Steet Fighter Alpha, all the Falcom ports those weren´t huge sellers by any means but the sheer number of those games with quite a reputation.

2)One other relatively big part were Gundam and Dynasty Warriors games. It´s unbelievable in what frequencies those games were released on PSP but almost all of them belong to the best selling PSP games.

3)The next category would be the Anime licenced (especially "dating sims") games btw. Otaku specific demographic. They didn´t sell that well in the beginning but they pulled off really decent numbers the last years and there are an incredible amount of those games on PSP. Similar to 3D games like MH also these kind of games had a big advantage on PSP (anime squences, synchronisations).

4)Big SQEX support, especially Crisis Core but also their other projects.

5) original software and games that rode the MHwave like Phantasy Star and GodEater.


Right now it doesn´t look like they can bank this much on 1) the portfolio is pretty much dried up in this department, so it will lack the same quantity. Atleast there still are Persona4, Ys4, FFX and so on. 2) Dynasty Warrion Next didn´t sell well so far on Vita and I think these franchises are losing their pull. 3) Right now there aren´t many announced,obviously it will change in future but this time there is no problem with cartridge capcity on other platform for Anime sequences, synchronzations.
 
Whatever happened to Call of Duty Vita? I remember people were completely misunderstanding the audience and were convinced that COD alone would lead to the Vita beating the 3DS in the west.

It'll happen.
But Call of Duty Vita was nothing more than Sony saying that Activision has promised a CoD title for the Vita.
Nothing exclusive.
No launch title.
Just a CoD down the line...
Yeah...
 

NateDrake

Member
Listen... I love Uncharted. I really do.
But it is not a system seller, man.
The Vita is not going to fly off shelves because of an Uncharted game that isn't even from Naughty Dog.
And outside of that, they really have nothing else on the horizon that will appeal to the Western audience.

I won't argue that. Most of the launch lineup are entries to franchises that, more or less, bombed in America on the PS3. No reason to expect them to magically become popular on Vita.

I just feel Vita will launch strongly here and then die in mid-March. If we don't get NPD Vita figures from Sony in March, April, etc. then we know it bombed.
 

[Nintex]

Member
They can't do much about it but they know the most important software comes from Japan, if they want the crumbles of that pie they need an userbase, as small as it's shaping up to be.

Sony's proposition in the handheld market is nuts. The Japanese developers won't line-up to develop for what many consider to be a mini-PS3. After all the trouble Japanese developers had developing PS3/Xbox 360 games there isn't much to build on.
 
I won't argue that. Most of the launch lineup are entries to franchises that, more or less, bombed in America on the PS3. No reason to expect them to magically become popular on Vita.

I just feel Vita will launch strongly here and then die in mid-March. If we don't get NPD Vita figures from Sony in March, April, etc. then we know it bombed.

Well, it'll certainly sell to the tech heads and such that always buy new hardware as soon as it's out...
Though, that pretty much puts it in the same situation as the PSP here.
And that is not a good situation...
 

Takao

Banned
I just feel Vita will launch strongly here and then die in mid-March. If we don't get NPD Vita figures from Sony in March, April, etc. then we know it bombed.

Good or bad Sony doesn't release NPD numbers. PS3 had its best November this year and Sony didn't release numbers. Vita could be pushing a million a month (I wish) and Sony likely wouldn't say much other than "Amazing momentum!".
 
[Nintex];33812108 said:
They seemed quite surprised and pissed when Nintendo got in bed with Capcom.

Makes you think Capcom were privy to some early PSVita information (hardware) and thought better of it.

I'm assuming Sony did approach Capcom.
 

Man God

Non-Canon Member
I don't even know how much better Sony could have done to make the launch bigger without Mon Hun. Ape Escape isn't huge anymore and even a prestige port like ICO probably wouldn't have done much.

FF X Vita maybe, but that's out of Sony's control entirely.
 

matmanx1

Member
Way to early to be predicting doom and gloom for the Vita in Japan but it certainly looks like the product will suffer for at least the short term. Nintendo's (and let's face it, the PSP's) competition is just way to strong at this point.

Good job to Nintendo for fixing what was wrong with their product launch. The market seems to be responding and 2012 should be a good one for the 3DS. I do wonder what holiday 2012 will look like though, especially for first party Nintendo titles. After all the big guns they have hitting through the first half of 2012 what will be left? MonHun 4 will kill of course, so I'm not at all concerned for the 3DS's future. I just wonder what software Nintendo is going to be offering for Holiday 2012.

The Vita's future is a cloudy one indeed. The software seems for the most part, very western focused. I think Sony would absolutely love to gain traction for the Vita in NA and EU because of the huge userbase potential but can they do it? I like the launch lineup and the machine certainly has great potential but it's software that drives hardware sales and we don't know what Sony has planned for the Vita after the first part of 2012.
 
Way to early to be predicting doom and gloom for the Vita in Japan but it certainly looks like the product will suffer for at least the short term. Nintendo's (and let's face it, the PSP's) competition is just way to strong at this point.

Good job to Nintendo for fixing what was wrong with their product launch. The market seems to be responding and 2012 should be a good one for the 3DS. I do wonder what holiday 2012 will look like though, especially for first party Nintendo titles. After all the big guns they have hitting through the first half of 2012 what will be left? MonHun 4 will kill of course, so I'm not at all concerned for the 3DS's future. I just wonder what software Nintendo is going to be offering for Holiday 2012.

The Vita's future is a cloudy one indeed. The software seems for the most part, very western focused. I think Sony would absolutely love to gain traction for the Vita in NA and EU because of the huge userbase potential but can they do it? I like the launch lineup and the machine certainly has great potential but it's software that drives hardware sales and we don't know what Sony has planned for the Vita after the first part of 2012.

Animal Crossing
Paper Mario
Tomadachi Collection
New Casual IP
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Animal Crossing
Paper Mario
Tomadachi Collection
New Casual IP

Paper Mario and Animal Crossing will probably be out still in the first half of the year. As well as Luigi's Mansion 2.
But there's still E3, so...COME ON RETRO, ANNOUNCE DONKEY KONG LAND RETURNS, COME ON!!!!
 
Way to early to be predicting doom and gloom for the Vita in Japan but it certainly looks like the product will suffer for at least the short term. Nintendo's (and let's face it, the PSP's) competition is just way to strong at this point.

Good job to Nintendo for fixing what was wrong with their product launch. The market seems to be responding and 2012 should be a good one for the 3DS. I do wonder what holiday 2012 will look like though, especially for first party Nintendo titles. After all the big guns they have hitting through the first half of 2012 what will be left? MonHun 4 will kill of course, so I'm not at all concerned for the 3DS's future. I just wonder what software Nintendo is going to be offering for Holiday 2012.

The Vita's future is a cloudy one indeed. The software seems for the most part, very western focused. I think Sony would absolutely love to gain traction for the Vita in NA and EU because of the huge userbase potential but can they do it? I like the launch lineup and the machine certainly has great potential but it's software that drives hardware sales and we don't know what Sony has planned for the Vita after the first part of 2012.

I suspect a 2D Mario, maybe Animal Crossing, plus some casual stuff (Brain Training/Big Brain Academy) + whatever other surprises.
 

[Nintex]

Member
I suspect a 2D Mario, maybe Animal Crossing, plus some casual stuff (Brain Training/Big Brain Academy) + whatever other surprises.

Maybe New Super Mario Bros. Mii, like Super Smash Bros. is for both 3DS and Wii U but we can't be sure. In fact we don't know what Nintendo is planning for Q4 2012 untill we get a good look at the Wii U launchdate and line-up.
 
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