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

[Nintex]

Member
Maybe this'll finally give Sony a reason to get rid of Kaz. Between the PSP Go, Move and Vita that guy is the albatross around their neck.
 

darkside31337

Tomodachi wa Mahou
[Nintex];33804654 said:
Maybe this'll finally give Sony a reason to get rid of Kaz. Between the PSP Go, Move and Vita that guy is the albatross around their neck.

Weren't they going to make Kaz CEO of Sony come March?
 
Oh absolutely, that would be ideal. There are two problems with that solution though, and they are big ones: 1) Games of that nature take a long time to develop, and can't reasonably be expected to fix this sort of sales problem in the near or even medium term, as we'd be looking at a year or more lag time; 2) Games of this nature aren't made by Sony themselves, so in large part their existance is out of Sony's hands.

Like Nintendo before them, what Sony has control over -- and can do rapidly -- is the price of the system.
The questions is, would Capcom make an exclusive MH deserving of the PSV capabilities, even if it was launched at $169?

In other words, why not bank on the system that already has multiple million sellers and cost much less to develop for?
 

Toth

Member
Geez in context, FF13-2 sales are not bad at all considering the market. Holy cow are sales falling for the consoles ><

Oh and for all those leaping for joy Xilia beat FF13-2 last week, well, Xilia has dropped off the charts :( The RPG market is drying up over there ; ;
 

JGS

Banned
I think Sony will be perfectly fine with keeping the price as is for the long haul although they could drop the 3G price considering it still cost money to use. At a 50 dollar premium, they should have had a Kindle model to follow rather than a cell phone one.

Just like with the PS3, if the sells of the previous gen system continue well, it will sustain losses from the latest gen.
 

orioto

Good Art™
Sony just needs to concentrate on their phones, fighting with Nintendo over a distant second place is worthless

They could have done it nicely if they just managed to study the japanese market...

The psp, as the hugely popular portable it is right now, and was in the last year, has a certain identity and demographic. The Vita appeals to something else entirely.

Should have been something cute and affordable, directed toward student, females.. focused on community, with maybe a psn redesigned to be more of a facebook / hub thing with lots of connectivity, a good camera... I mean i don't know but i can more or less picture what should be a hyped and beloved new psp in 2012 japan..
 

kswiston

Member
Is this the first year that the PS3 will beat the Wii YTD or did they manage to do that last year as well? I know it was close.
 
Nice sales numbers. I thought the 3DS was doomed but it has certainly come back to life.

The price drop + titles made it a great value.

This makes me think the Wii U will be competitively priced.
 
The biggest problem, as alreayd mentioned, is that Nintendo actually had room for a price cut. For two reasons: 1) they have enormous financial reserves and zero debt, and 2) they priced the system well above production cost to begin with, so a price cut simply took a money earner in to a modest money loser. By contrast, Sony has 1) much lower financial reserves and over 8 Billion in secured debt, and 2) launched the Vita at a loss to begin with, so a significant price cut would take a money loser and turn it in to a massive money loser.

Sony left themselves very little wiggle room.

Correct, they don't have many options to juggle. They will need to ride out the first year, trying to get games aimed at the enthusiast crowd announced/released, hoping not to be in a hole by them with sufficient 3rd party support.

They will have to bite that bullet, there's no way that Sony will act the same as Nintendo did with the 3DS, they can't, that's not a feasible option to them.
 

Road

Member
First portable releases of SD Gundam G. First week / LTD:

[GBA] SD Gundam G Generation Advance (Bandai) {2003.11.27} - 125,019 / 230,569*
[NDS] SD Gundam G Generation DS (Bandai) {2005.05.26} - 53,484 / 100,808
[PSP] SD Gundam G Generation Portable (Bandai Namco) {2006.08.03} - 155,634 / 265,264
[3DS] SD Gundam G Generation 3D (Bandai Namco) {2011-12-22} - 90,873 / NEW

*Famitsu.
 

Kazerei

Banned
20./21. [WII] Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo) {2008-04-10} - 43,752 / 3,428,903
Wow. And MKDS is at ~3.8 million. MK7 could eventually break the 4 million barrier.

07./09. [WII] Just Dance Wii (Nintendo) {2011-10-13} - 96,771 / 420,064 (+120%)

+120%! Just out of curiousity, what's the biggest percent increase ever? It's probably searchable with garaph, but my SQL-fu is weak.
 

Opiate

Member
Why didn't Sony just give Capcom like 50 million or whatever it takes to get MH4 exclusive? What's worse: losing 50 mil for the exclusive or having your entire platform tank in a region

The simple answer is that Sony blew all their money already. It's not quite this simple in reality, of course (Sony still has liquidity and can still afford to reinvest in current ventures), but for simple, quick explanations, it's probably a good approximation.

Nintendo has been a conservative, careful company for decades. The result: they have ~11.5 Billion dollars in cash on hand, and 0 dollars in debt. Sony has been spending aggressively for a very long time, running their hardware at razor thin margins or even at a loss, and investing more heavily in third parties. The result: the entire company has ~7.4 Billion in cash, and ~12.9 Billion in debt.

Sony definitely was the goliath when they entered gaming; they had more money and more investment capital than Nintendo did. But prudent financial guidance from Nintendo and extremely aggressive guidance from Sony has, at the very least, leveled the playing field -- or even given Nintendo the advantage.
 

Road

Member
[PSP] Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Battle of Aces (Bandai Namco) {2010.01.21} - 76,088 / 109,290
[PSP] Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny (Bandai Namco) {2011-12-22} - 57,320 / NEW
 
Geez in context, FF13-2 sales are not bad at all considering the market. Holy cow are sales falling for the consoles ><

Oh and for all those leaping for joy Xilia beat FF13-2 last week, well, Xilia has dropped off the charts :( The RPG market is drying up over there ; ;

What? Xillia did tremendously well and is several months old. Of course it wouldn't be in the charts by now.
XIII-2 is a completely different story and has no bigger implications for the RPG market. SE may be dying over there, though... :p
 
Oh absolutely, that would be ideal. There are two problems with that solution though, and they are big ones: 1) Games of that nature take a long time to develop, and can't reasonably be expected to fix this sort of sales problem in the near or even medium term, as we'd be looking at a year or more lag time; 2) Games of this nature aren't made by Sony themselves, so in large part their existance is out of Sony's hands.

Like Nintendo before them, what Sony has control over -- and can do rapidly -- is the price of the system.
Yeah, I agree, but the software needed to be the focus from the very beginning. It's too early to say that Sony doesn't have any key titles waiting to be unveiled but if they don't then the Vita will most likely be in for a rough ride --- regardless of the price.

Sony has to know this though, right? I mean, how could they possibly expect the Vita to be successful in a market where a Nintendo handheld exists without some key third party titles?
 

duckroll

Member
Obviously Vita and 3DS hardware are the big story for the week, but I'm interested in analysis of the smaller stories since the big ones are getting covered ad nauseum.

How good a start is this for Warriors Orochi 2? What are reasonably comparable software figures?

How good a start is this for Gundam 3D?

Warriors Orochi is covered in a previous post, so I'll post about G-Generation. Here are the last few years of first week sales for the series on various platforms:

SD Gundam G Generation DS (DS) - 53,000 (2005-05-26)

SD Gundam G Generation Portable (PSP) - 155,634 (2006-08-03)

SD Gundam: G Generation Cross Drive (DS) - 137,717 (2007-08-09)

SD Gundam G Generation Spirits (PS2) - 252,380 (2007-11-29)

SD Gundam G Generation Wars (PS2) - 175,304 (2009-08-06)
SD Gundam G Generation Wars (Wii) - 35,084 (2009-08-06)

SD Gundam G Generation: World (PSP) - 192,981 (2011-02-24)
SD Gundam G Generation: World (Wii) - 28,119 (2011-02-24)


SD Gundam G Generation 3D (3DS) - 90,873 (2011-12-22)


The series in general averages at about 300k LTD for each entry these days, with the major exception being the first DS release which sold less than 100k lifetime. In the distant past, the series did even better, with the older PS2 entries selling over 400k and over 500k lifetime, and a GBA entry which sold over 200k lifetime.

In general I think the 3DS entry is constrained by a smaller userbase, and being released in the same year where a PSP entry already satisfied the 300k userbase which regularly buys the games these days.
 

Toth

Member
What? Xillia did tremendously well and is several months old. Of course it wouldn't be in the charts by now.
XIII-2 is a completely different story and has no bigger implications for the RPG market. SE may be dying over there, though... :p

Oh? I thought it just came out. How did it sell so much on the week 13-2 came out then?
 

Alrus

Member
Have no idea why Sony wasted billions on this DOA handheld. That money should have gone towards the PS4 and an earlier launch.

Because their investors would have thrown a fit if they didn't try to build up and their arguably very successful first handheld.
 

Jackano

Member
The simple answer is that Sony blew all their money already. It's not quite this simple in reality, of course (Sony still has liquidity and can still afford to reinvest in current ventures), but for simple, quick explanations, it's probably a good approximation.

Nintendo has been a conservative, careful company for decades. The result: they have ~11.5 Billion dollars in cash on hand, and 0 dollars in debt. Sony has been spending aggressively for a very long time, running their hardware at razor thin margins or even at a loss, and investing more heavily in third parties. The result: the entire company has ~7.4 Billion in cash, and ~12.9 Billion in debt.

Sony definitely was the goliath when they entered gaming; they had more money and more investment capital than Nintendo did. But prudent financial guidance from Nintendo and extremely aggressive guidance from Sony has, at the very least, leveled the playing field -- or even given Nintendo the advantage.

Good post here. Short story long story, I laught at the gaming journalists that points out a psvita price drop àlà 3DS. I really doubt sony can do this (a 50~80$ drop) before 2013.
 

JGS

Banned
Sony has always painted me as a company that desperately wants to be where Nintendo is even in the Gamecube days- self sufficient. Nintendo needs 3rd parties far less and their 1st party titles allow them to survive even as people write them off. Nintendo knows software better than hardware and that helps them sell hardware. Sony is kinda the opposite.

Sony wanted to have their franchises to dominate and didn't want to do payouts. They have great franchises too, but they don't have the following of Nintendo's and likely never will.
 

Opiate

Member
Debt doesn't necessarily mean they are financially in trouble though. A lot of companies, especially in certain industries rely on debt to leverage their business and money flow. Because of the size of Sony and the number of products they sell you can't really assume that they don't have the ability to make changes. They could be great payers to lenders for all we know, they just choose to have a portion of their business be dependent on borrowed money.

Absolutely, I didn't mean to imply that they were in troubule of going under, or anything of that sort. I've made that clear in other threads when discussing finances, and I'll do it again here, in big italic letters: Sony is not in danger of going under.

But high debt and low cash and equivalents does reduce liquidity -- and therefore strategic flexibility -- which is what we're talking about here. Debt allows a company to take more aggressive financial risks, but makes it more challenging to change course if those risks don't pay off.

Add in the other important point already stated (that the Vita is already being sold at a loss, unlike the 3DS at launch), and you have a significantly less friendly environment to price adjustment.
 
The simple answer is that Sony blew all their money already. It's not quite this simple in reality, of course (Sony still has liquidity and can still afford to reinvest in current ventures), but for simple, quick explanations, it's probably a good approximation.

Nintendo has been a conservative, careful company for decades. The result: they have ~11.5 Billion dollars in cash on hand, and 0 dollars in debt. Sony has been spending aggressively for a very long time, running their hardware at razor thin margins or even at a loss, and investing more heavily in third parties. The result: the entire company has ~7.4 Billion in cash, and ~12.9 Billion in debt.

Sony definitely was the goliath when they entered gaming; they had more money and more investment capital than Nintendo did. But prudent financial guidance from Nintendo and extremely aggressive guidance from Sony has, at the very least, leveled the playing field -- or even given Nintendo the advantage.

You can't compare the two directly though. Nintendo is only in the videogame business, Sony is so much more than that with cameras, phones, TV's, tablets, Blu-Ray, etc. Yes we can see the big picture but we don't know how those financials break down within each business (although maybe it's in their investor relation packets, I don't follow Sony) so the comparison doesn't work. I truly don't think this a smart way of analyzing Sony Computer Entertainment.

But either way a company would be out of their mind to drop $50 million on the promise of a title these days. Trends change, even MH isn't a guarantee.
 

Mrbob

Member
I think we also have to factor why would Capcom take a pay off for Monster Hunter? With the 3DS they can reuse the same assets from PSP, and the user base is now over 4 million and growing faster than Vita. There is absolutely no business reason to take any Sony money hat at all for a Monster Hunter exclusive.

Of course, Capcom has shown in the past they don't always care about user base when making decisions.
 
Have no idea why Sony wasted billions on this DOA handheld. That money should have gone towards the PS4 and an earlier launch.

Please lent us your crystal ball and give us access to the financial reports you seem to have, so that we can all follow the conversation on equal grounds.
 

kswiston

Member
This holiday is really the last hurrah for the Wii. The Wii U will eat up what little sales the Wii is still getting, especially if it is released earlier than DECEMBER next year. I wonder if the Wii will even reach 13M LTD.

It is crazy how quickly the home console market has faded in Japan. We went from a record selling console last generation with the PS2, to the worst first place performance ever. I doubt things will improve next generation, especially since the 3DS and Vita are powerful enough to accommodate most types of games now. If you are making a title that will sell 75%+ of its copies in Japan, I don't see why you would even consider releasing it on consoles at this point.

Edit: fixed month typo
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I think we also have to factor why would Capcom take a pay off for Monster Hunter? With the 3DS they can reuse the same assets from PSP, and the user base is now over 4 million and growing faster than Vita. There is absolutely no business reason to take any Sony money hat at all for a Monster Hunter exclusive.

Of course, Capcom has shown in the past they don't always care about user base when making decisions.
They could have done the same on Vita with the same (Wii based, not PSP based) assets and the game would still look great in constant 60fps, sharp high resolution, with AA, and with whatever shaders they could add on top (like the shadows on 3DS, HDR, motion blur, whatever else). If they don't want to spend money on the development they don't have to on any platform, they don't have to be "forced" to go to the comparatively weaker one just because they plan somewhat lower end visuals, that's just silly. Hell, this is an expansion type title so people would never have expected it to look much better on any platform, it's only MonHun4 with its ground up development that might increase expectations and MonHun is a franchise that can afford the dev costs anyway.
 

Toth

Member

Nope. Look at where the other PS3 games are placing. 13-2 did a fairly good job of keeping up 'some' momentum. The big sales are coming when the game is released internationally.

I guess WW are the only saving grace for most JPN games. Unless it is acceptable for companies to sell 250k....? (help me sales age!)
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Warriors Orochi is covered in a previous post, so I'll post about G-Generation. Here are the last few years of first week sales for the series on various platforms:

SD Gundam G Generation DS (DS) - 53,000 (2005-05-26)

SD Gundam G Generation Portable (PSP) - 155,634 (2006-08-03)

SD Gundam: G Generation Cross Drive (DS) - 137,717 (2007-08-09)

SD Gundam G Generation Spirits (PS2) - 252,380 (2007-11-29)

SD Gundam G Generation Wars (PS2) - 175,304 (2009-08-06)
SD Gundam G Generation Wars (Wii) - 35,084 (2009-08-06)

SD Gundam G Generation: World (PSP) - 192,981 (2011-02-24)
SD Gundam G Generation: World (Wii) - 28,119 (2011-02-24)


SD Gundam G Generation 3D (3DS) - 90,873 (2011-12-22)


The series in general averages at about 300k LTD for each entry these days, with the major exception being the first DS release which sold less than 100k lifetime. In the distant past, the series did even better, with the older PS2 entries selling over 400k and over 500k lifetime, and a GBA entry which sold over 200k lifetime.

In general I think the 3DS entry is constrained by a smaller userbase, and being released in the same year where a PSP entry already satisfied the 300k userbase which regularly buys the games these days.

I'd say it's good considering that not only the World released just in the end of February and it has been released on a "little" userbase... but also that in the same month Gundam fans had the awesome Extreme Vs. to buy.

...Oh, and considering the competition of the other big 3DS titles.

EDIT: At least, it's far better than the Wii debacles XD
 

waicol

Banned
I'm no Sony fan, but despite the huge drop and the supply constraint of the PSP, isn't this still better than it's 2 first weeks?. The real concern should be the software in fact.

Also Sony and Nintendo knows that handhelds are the systems of choice in Japan since last gen, just look at how pretty much all 3DS games that charted are hardcore games, against the casual ones (except 2) that charted for the Wii. Vita will remain healthy, but Sony will have to kill the PSP if it keeps dropping hard every week, going against their strategy of keep them both.
 

Alrus

Member
Nope. Look at where the other PS3 games are placing. 13-2 did a fairly good job of keeping up 'some' momentum. The big sales are coming when the game is released internationally.

FF XIII-2 sales are terrible, doesn't matter how you spin them.
 

kswiston

Member
I guess WW are the only saving grace for most JPN games. Unless it is acceptable for companies to sell 250k....? (help me sales age!)

Yes for most Japanese titles. AAA titles like Resident Evil and Final Fantasy count on their strong western sales though.
 

Takao

Banned
Dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead doomed dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead doomed dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead doomed dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead doomed dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead doomed dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead ds dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead doomed dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead
 

Kandinsky

Member
Let's hope Sony can fix the Wifi models shortages soon or this might get uglier :/

Vita might be in for a rough stretch. Wonder what Sony will do. Will they sit on the device and do nothing like they did with the PSP and the PS3?

Also, are those MH sales good or bad? I mean going towards a million is always good, but it is the only one of a few games in the top 20 (other than fading franchises like FF and Inazuma) that went down week over week on the biggest shopping week of the season.

MH numbers are terribad, not even a million yet lawl.
 
But high debt and low cash and equivalents does reduce liquidity -- and therefore strategic flexibility -- which is what we're talking about here. Debt allows a company to take more aggressive financial risks, but makes it more challenging to change course if those risks don't pay off.

Add in the other important point already stated (that the Vita is already being sold at a loss, unlike the 3DS at launch), and you have a significantly less friendly environment to price adjustment.

I agree with your statements, but like I've mentioned before the company is simply too big. Looking at quick figures for cash on hand and debt owed is just too broad in scope. That's a global number, so where does that break down regionally? Where does that break down by department? Where does that break down by product line? Hypothetically (and obviously not the case) all of the debt could be due to TV manufacturing and SCE has a ton of cash on hand. We simply do not know.

Price drops can be justified if they truly believe that they can make up for the loss through software and accessory sales increasing. I don't think anyone would believe that's possible (outside of those ridiculous prices on memory cards) but you never know how the company works. Either way, the thing has been out for two weeks any price drop at this point or in the near future and even talk of it is kind of ridiculous in my eyes.
 

Opiate

Member
You can't compare the two directly though. Nintendo is only in the videogame business, Sony is so much more than that with cameras, phones, TV's, tablets, Blu-Ray, etc. Yes we can see the big picture but we don't know how those financials break down within each business (although maybe it's in their investor relation packets, I don't follow Sony) so the comparison doesn't work. I truly don't think this a smart way of analyzing Sony Computer Entertainment.

Yes, it is in the Financial Reports -- or was until very recently, when Sony took measures to obscure their individual business information a la Microsoft, by aggregating them in to business divisions that made it unclear how well each segment was doing individually.

Before that happened in 2009, the Gaming division (as it was known) had lost ~5 Billion dollars just since the launch of the PS3. The PS3 is the worst financial disaster in gaming history, beating both the original Xbox and the Dreamcast.

But I absolutely agree that this comparison isn't perfect, and I tried to couch it as such. It's a rough approximation, not an exact and precise explanation.
 
I'm not very surprised by the Vita numbers (Seem to be somewhat in line with their other launches post-PS2, though for it being the holiday season, it is disappointing), and I don't see Sony taking a brash action any time soon.
Until there is a *must have* title on the platform, the sales will be steady, but low.
The problem I see for Sony is the fact that they really don't have a series that has guaranteed demand anymore. It was MonHun, and we all know where that went.
I'm anxious to see what happens in the realm of title announcements and other services for the Vita. There is a nice flow of titles coming through the Spring.

That, and the fact that the original shipment was so 3G model heavy may have contributed to lower sales.
 
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