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NPD Sales Results for February 2012 [Up 3: Kingdoms Of Amalur, Syndicate, Asura]

Kusagari

Member
Why do PS3 owners buy WRPGs at such a lower rate than 360 owners?

It's an interesting phenomena that has happened with Dragon Age, Fallout, Oblivion/Skyrim, and now even more drastically with Amalur.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Why do PS3 owners buy WRPGs at such a lower rate than 360 owners?

It's an interesting phenomena that has happened with Dragon Age, Fallout, Oblivion/Skyrim, and now even more drastically with Amalur.

Well, first we had KotOR, Fable, and Morrowind on the Xbox 1, and then Oblivion and Mass Effect rather early on the Xbox 360.

We followed up with timed exclusive DLC for Fallout 3 and a year of exclusivity for Mass Effect 2.

Through this, I feel they kind of built the audience there.
 
Why do PS3 owners buy WRPGs at such a lower rate than 360 owners?

It's an interesting phenomena that has happened with Dragon Age, Fallout, Oblivion/Skyrim, and now even more drastically with Amalur.

Xbox might have been built on Halo but it pulled WRPG's with it in Morrowind and Fable, Oblivion and Mass Effect were 360 eclusive for a while too, the base was already there before Falout and Dragon Age etc came.

beaten!
 

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
Tangential question:

Any indication of a new PS3 bundle any time soon? I'd like to upgrade to a new slim with a big HDD, but now seems like a bad time to do that.
 

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
Why do PS3 owners buy WRPGs at such a lower rate than 360 owners?

It's an interesting phenomena that has happened with Dragon Age, Fallout, Oblivion/Skyrim, and now even more drastically with Amalur.

Same reason PS3 owners buy JRPGs at a higher rate than 360 owners?
 

Tookay

Member
What always separated RPG's from a lot of other games where the story telling. In the late 90's and early 00's a lot of people would always say FF 7,8,9,10 or other RPG was as good as any movie. What gave RPG's the head start when it came to story was that the gameplay was very start and stop so they could insert the cut-scenes without disrupting the flow.

But now all genres have caught up in terms of story telling and telling a story through gameplay. No one really says playing FF13 or any RPG was as good as any movie. Games like UnCharted have taken over that mantel.

FF hasn't been the leader in presentation for almost a decade and it hasn't been anything great in terms of gameplay either. Its a good RPG but the gimmick of excellent presentation and predominant gameplay for the genre is over. Other RPG's have better gameplay other genres have better presentation.

I agree. There's nothing "special" about the brand anymore. It doesn't mean quality, it doesn't mean storytelling prowess, cinematic proficiency, or technical wizardry...

It's just there. Which is a shame.
 

Kusagari

Member
Same reason PS3 owners buy JRPGs at a higher rate than 360 owners?

Is there any real indication of that outside of FF? Then again, are there any multi platform JRPGs that came out at the same time on both systems? I can only think of some minor stuff like Resonance of Fate.

I just found it kind of weird since PS3 owners clearly embrace other western games on a similar level with 360, but the WRPGs always sell far, far better on 360.
 
I also feel like, starting with FFX, the series started to devolve into something that was far less appealing to western audiences. The focus on the cheeseball melodrama, characters that looked like circus freaks, presenting women in such a vulnerable light...it just seems like FFX took the series in a radical direction from the past that simply didn't jive with the west.

I really wish they'd go back to their roots a bit.
 

Tookay

Member
I also feel like, starting with FFX, the series started to devolve into something that was far less appealing to western audiences. The focus on the cheeseball melodrama, characters that looked like circus freaks, presenting women in such a vulnerable light...it just seems like FFX took the series in a radical direction from the past that simply didn't jive with the west.

I really wish they'd go back to their roots a bit.

8ORyM.png


I mean, it's been pretty much always there. It's just that the bump in graphics revealed how silly some of these concepts were.
 
I also feel like, starting with FFX, the series started to devolve into something that was far less appealing to western audiences. The focus on the cheeseball melodrama, characters that looked like circus freaks, presenting women in such a vulnerable light...it just seems like FFX took the series in a radical direction from the past that simply didn't jive with the west.

I really wish they'd go back to their roots a bit.

Uh there was plenty of cheesy melodrama and circus freaks in the earlier gamse
 

Wazzim

Banned
Is there any real indication of that outside of FF? Then again, are there any multi platform JRPGs that came out at the same time on both systems? I can only think of some minor stuff like Resonance of Fate.

I just found it kind of weird since PS3 owners clearly embrace other western games on a similar level with 360, but the WRPGs always sell far, far better on 360.

The PS3 never had something in the WRPG realm that could attract those WRPG players, it did however attract JRPG players at the beginning of the gen because of the PS brand (people expected it to have lots of JRPGs).

As for anecdotal evidence: most people I know with a 360 seem to play more WRPGs next to shooters while PS3 players seem to play more sport games and shooters.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Late, but...

I don't understand the critical attitude towards Final Fantasy.

I loved FF13. I think people who did not enjoy it, are people who simply do not enjoy the same JRPG experiences anymore.
I do not feel the same way at all. While I didn't dislike it, I found the game rather average. It's very unfortunate that I finally starting having some fun with the game in late postgame (only to be done in by killing turtles over and over and making turtle soup). It focused more on the stuff I didn't place a lot of importance on in an FF and somewhat lacked variety, and thus it ended up being middling for me. I've played a lot of other (Japanese-developed) RPGs this generation on both consoles and portables and enjoyed them far more than I did FFXIII.

With that said, I envy people who say it's the worst game they've played (I've played a lot of games that I'd consider far far far worse than FFXIII; at least FFXIII is competent and playable). Heck, I envy people who say that it's the worst game they've played this generation (Sonic 2006 for me). Though I have to wonder if comments like those are hyperbole since FFXIII is really not a bad game.

The battle system in XIII and XIII-2 is one of the best turn-based battle systems I have ever experienced.
I wish I could say the same. CSB (Command Synergy Battle - the name of FFXIII's system) isn't one of my favourite systems in FF, unfortunately. :/
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Quite a few people have said that; don't know if it's the format..or something.
It looks to me like this:

Pi8pD.png

(^image^)

Don't know if it looks different to others.

Thanks man, really appreciate the effort.

This is how they (still) show up on my iPad thru secondapps:

Hardware
Xbox 360 - 262K
Nintendo Wii - 228K (-50%)
PlayStation Vita - 225K (PR Math)
Nintendo DS - 135K

Press Releases
 
Since nintendo gave us the LTD top ten for Wii games and since we already had it in last september by Nintendo Power, we can know how performed the big Wii games for the last holiday (and a little more).

Super Mario Galaxy: 660k
Mario Kart Wii: 660k
Just Dance 2: 520k
New Super Mario Bros. Wii: 500k
Wii Sports Resort: 400k
Wii Fit Plus: 260k
Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 150k
Wii Fit: 30k
Wii Play: 20k
 

Cheebo

Banned
Honestly, looking at how beautiful the Vita screen is for quality 2D content, I'm amazed we haven't heard about more 2D games.

A new Castlevania or Final Fantasy in 2D with stunning artwork would look spectacular on the machine, and I'd enjoy that a lot more than in 3D and it'd take a lot less longer to make.

Studios need to embrace 2D far more.

Vita won't get a mainline Final Fantasy or hell even Castlevania over 3DS as long as it keeps the stench of being a failure out of the gate in the market place like it has currently.
 
Microsoft Store foreshadowing a price cut?
They have started beating the "best year ever" drum lately and PS3 is outdoing the 360 in YoY performance. Maybe it's nothing but haven't seen a sale on every sku at once since the holidays.
All 4 main sku's are on sale.
$180
$250
$250
$350

If that ended up being the new prices that would suggest to me that they are going to be trying to phase out the bare bones 4gb model and try to drive people towards the Kinect bundle or hard drive unit which becomes a much better deal.

Figured this could go in the thread since it's mainly about price cut speculation/sales talk and this sale just so happened to come shortly after NPD results came out.
 
20-50 cut is a bit meh on the main boxes imo if thats what they do go for, but the kinect bundle cuts are pretty huge, 150 off across the board should definatley get some serious attention.
 
Well, first we had KotOR, Fable, and Morrowind on the Xbox 1, and then Oblivion and Mass Effect rather early on the Xbox 360.

We followed up with timed exclusive DLC for Fallout 3 and a year of exclusivity for Mass Effect 2.

Through this, I feel they kind of built the audience there.

Pretty much this, two years of nothing but test games and Nintendo games on the Wii, you try a big "hardcore" title? Not going to go anywhere when you don't build the base... Same thing happens when you put Wii Sports type games on Kinect and Move... a million becomes a good mark, like CoD on Wii hits a million is good sales, but not compared to other consoles.

Essentially where I'm going with this is I agree 100% Xbox was the WRPG console, then 360 pushed it hard early life, PS3 missed out on a lot of those or got poor ports since most were originally PC/360 titles, while the opposite happened with JRPGs PS3 got the quality, if you want a base you have to get developers to push it, and that's the hardest thing cause sometimes try as you might it won't happen. So essentially people need to set their expectations relative to the base built there.
 
360 and PS3 are way at the top of the pack. I'm actually kinda impressed at how close the PS3 is getting to the 360. The holidays always paint a much different picture.

3DS is still doing fairly well, but Vita's debut is pretty weak. It'll drop pretty far over the coming months, I think.
 

Perfo

Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
Final Fantasy and jRPGs in general already lost momentum in the west, there's no chance to win the giant fanbase back in a couple of years right now. What Square Enix needs to do, is focusing on mantaining the core audience with them by releasing frequently good AAA main title FFs (and with good I mean extremely good games). They need good critical response, and sales that sticks around a solid 2,5-3,0 ml worldwide. Then, maybe one day, when interest for Japan, japanese games and jRPGs will rise again here, they can try again to sell themselves as the best jRPGs makers around. They now need to get rid of Versus XIII as quickly as possible and focus all their attention on delivering for end of 2013 a Final Fantasy XV (or reboot) that fills that role.
 

hamchan

Member
I also feel like, starting with FFX, the series started to devolve into something that was far less appealing to western audiences. The focus on the cheeseball melodrama, characters that looked like circus freaks, presenting women in such a vulnerable light...it just seems like FFX took the series in a radical direction from the past that simply didn't jive with the west.

I really wish they'd go back to their roots a bit.
I think it's more like the series started taking too long to come out at a reduced quality. FFX sold well and was well received everywhere, same with XI and XII. It's only this gen they've started failing.
 
Well, first we had KotOR, Fable, and Morrowind on the Xbox 1, and then Oblivion and Mass Effect rather early on the Xbox 360.

We followed up with timed exclusive DLC for Fallout 3 and a year of exclusivity for Mass Effect 2.

Through this, I feel they kind of built the audience there.

xbox 360 is definitely the core audience. Would also explain PS3 sales being lower in Skyrim etc.
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
FF is like my favorite brand, and I don't have any interest in 13-2. I'm not even sure why. 13 was disappointing, but it wasn't terrible. It just.... was. Square did nothing to sell me on 13-2. It just... is.

I don't have Amular yet, but I want it. And Amular > FF13-2 by a wide margin. How do people feel about that?
 

Aostia

El Capitan Todd
I saw this:
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/09/npds-top-25-includes-at-least-eight-3ds-games/

It seems NPD source: 8 3DS titles in top 25:

Mario&Sonic
Revelations
MarioLand
Spyro
Mariokart
Lego star wars
Fifa
Lego pirates

If I remember correctly, Marioland and Kart sold more than 100K (Nintendo PR)


Question: how reliable is the 225K listed in the OP for Vita debut? I mean, I know that it is a PR math, I would just like to know how big is the range of possible mistake
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Question: how reliable is the 225K listed in the OP for Vita debut? I mean, I know that it is a PR math, I would just like to know how big is the range of possible mistake

Accurate. though it annoys me how not everything matches what I'm looking at. don't know where the disconnect comes from
 

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
I can't wrap my head around FF13-2 bombing so bad. It is a much better game than FF13. Why didn't it sell?

Because people hated FFXIII. Same reason the Prisoner of Azkaban movie did worse than Chamber of Secrets, same reason Resistance 3 did much worse than 2. People generally are inclined to avoid sequels to shit games/films.

XIII-2 might be a better game, but people won't know that until they play it and that didn't happen because the first game put them off buying. Quality of a sequel is much less important sales-wise than the quality of the game before.
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
This.

Even if the follow up is a much better game, people rarely return to a franchise if the prior game is awful.

Probably, we'll see something awfully similar with Epic Mickey 2, given the awful legs it had after the Holidays.
 

d1rtn4p

Member
Glad to see Syndicate bombing... Companies need to quit using the term "re-imagine" to cover turning a franchise into a generic shooter...
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Shame about Syndicate since it's probably the best fps campaign+co-op since halo reach.

Really? Online co op too? That right there might have sold me on this one at the bomba rate of 20.

Reading it more, it's not campaign co op. Deal breaker as I need online co op games for my good friend who lives out of state. Would hit maybe at 5 now since I have little interest in it as it is. Not that it looks like a bad game.
 
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