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Media Create Sales: Week 1, 2015 (Dec 29 - Jan 04)

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
You seem to fall into this logic quite frequently, someone mentions the 3DS having the larger user base and the type of support it gets and you procede the default argument "But on mobile..."

The thing is Nirolak, that is pretty clear that the person you are responding to referes to the "traditional" gaming market, the developers targetting dedicated handhelds and the reasons why their behaviorin Japan has been smart or not.

Btw, this is not a bashing post in anyway, just an observation.
But that's the thing, these aren't separate entities for the most part.

If these studios are putting niche games on the Vita and using the same tech stack they use to develop their larger aspirations on mobile, that's going to heavily impact their choices.

Just take Level 5 even. They had huge hits on DS and have a huge hit on 3DS, but Wonderflick is headed to every platform except 3DS and they're unveiling a new PS4 game at E3. I'm guessing both of those are using a tech stack that won't work on the platform.

Square Enix made a bunch Vita games recently, several by traditional console/handheld staff, but that's because they're all imports from mobile. The studio that was making FF remakes for the DS is the same one that made the ugly mobile ports.

The team leads for Valk have a new game coming to Vita instead of 3DS, but again that's a mobile title.

We can also look at companies like tri-Ace who have Vita games, but their tech was made with PS3 in mind and made compliant with mobile because that's what people wanted to sign them for.

We had lots of questions about why DQ8 wasn't on 3DS instead of mobile, or at least show up on 3DS eventually. Well, the new version runs on Unity which doesn't work on 3DS.

We can't wall that market off and pretend it doesn't exist to paint a picture that fits "God these dummy companies won't support the 3DS despite the Vita doing poorly."
 

Vena

Member
That is very true. I guess Nintendo is very much the anomaly in the sense that they can (almost) drive a platform on the back of just their software.

What should be worrying to traditional third parties is that collectively they are only barely more influential than Nintendo. It would be fine if they had all managed to cememnt themselves in the mobile world but they largely haven't.

Not for lack of trying, mind.

Squeenix tried, found some success, but Chaos Rings didn't survive long-term.

Capcom... well, they MegaMan-ed themselves with their mobile studio.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
That is very true. I guess Nintendo is very much the anomaly in the sense that they can (almost) drive a platform on the back of just their software.

What should be worrying to traditional third parties is that collectively they are only barely more influential than Nintendo. It would be fine if they had all managed to cememnt themselves in the mobile world but they largely haven't.
But that's where their effort is going right?

We've seen Sega and Square Enix notably increased their success over the years and Namco's performance is similar to that of how they do on other platforms.

Marvelous has one giant hit which is actually better than they do elsewhere.

Konami struggles outside of some moderate to low performing sports games. Tecmo Koei is largely irrelevant and the niche companies aren't charting.

I would say Capcom and Level 5 stick out as the main larger publishers without hits, and Capcom seems to be investing a lot to try and change that.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Not for lack of trying, mind.

Squeenix tried, found some success, but Chaos Rings didn't survive long-term.

Capcom... well, they MegaMan-ed themselves with their mobile studio.
But they have hits. Dragon Quest Monsters, Schoolgirl Strikers, and Million Arthur are all big time earners directly from Square while a variety of titles like Sangokushi Rumble and Lost Zero still bring in money.
 

Eolz

Member
The main problem is that it just isn't powerful enough anymore for this time period.
Indies and other companies can't even run a low-res Unity game on it, and Nintendo already talked about they needed to make it easier for companies to port mobile games on their existing consoles and their next ones.
I'm sure the companies cited above would still be pleased, even eager, to try and continue to make games on traditional handhelds as well (not saying exclusively).
 

Jigorath

Banned
That is very true. I guess Nintendo is very much the anomaly in the sense that they can (almost) drive a platform on the back of just their software.

What should be worrying to traditional third parties is that collectively they are only barely more influential than Nintendo. It would be fine if they had all managed to cememnt themselves in the mobile world but they largely haven't.

Are you talking about only Japan? Because pretty much every major Western publisher is doing just fine completely ignoring Nintendo consoles.

And judging by WiiU sales, Nintendo can't support a platform with just 1st party games. The lack of 3rd party support is crippling the platform.
 

Oregano

Member
But that's where their effort is going right?

We've seen Sega and Square Enix notably increased their success over the years and Namco's performance is similar to that of how they do on other platforms.

Marvelous has one giant hit which is actually better than they do elsewhere.

Konami struggles outside of some moderate to low performing sports games. Tecmo Koei is largely irrelevant and the niche companies aren't charting.

I would say Capcom and Level 5 stick out as the main larger publishers without hits, and Capcom seems to be investing a lot to try and change that.

True. I guess it's the nature of business but it's definitely somewhat confusing that they don't seem to want to stand their ground

In regards to your point about tech:

I think that is one of the most important points to address with the successor and I'm more optimistic about Nintendo going with more orthodox hardware than I am about most other things. Especially with how Nintendo adopted Unity so strongly on the Wii U, and even expressed that they would like to get it on 3DS.

In ragrds to that the 3DS would have been better of in that aspect if it was Tegra based as originally planned, right?
 

Vena

Member
But they have hits. Dragon Quest Monsters, Schoolgirl Strikers, and Million Arthur are all big time earners directly from Square while a variety of titles like Sangokushi Rumble and Lost Zero still bring in money.

I didn't say otherwise, did I? I said Square has some hits, they've also found failure where they had found success in the past (the Chaos Rings example).
 

monpiece

Banned
That's not entirely true in my opinion. You have plenty of 3DS titles selling in small numbers, and developers happy with them. Niche games are not just Gust's & Compile Heart's, there are other developers that release niche games on other platforms as well, and this weekly chart show this properly.

I understand your sentiment, but your post works the other way around. Many niche titles on Vita are selling in small numbers and developers are happy with them. There are big flops in both platforms, games selling according to publishers expectations and games selling more than what they expected.

For them to change, they would need a good reason to do so, yet there isn't a good reason to do so, at least not yet. If we used your arguments (and Oregano's) to convince the publishers to change their positions, the arguments would probably be met with the same lack of enthusiasm as they meet with other forum members. The strongest argument would be "Why not? You will hardly lose anything.", and the answer will be "Why bother changing if we will hardly win anything?"

The strongest argument for choosing platforms for publishers long established in a certain platform is inertia. They have the tools, the expertise and the fanbase in a platform, so there is no reason for them to change.

Take for example a company that is often mentioned: Falcom. Why do they publish their main titles as Vita, Vita/PS3, and now Vita/PS4? Because their audience is not shrinking, the scope of their projects can be supported by Vita/PS3 install bases, their audience come mostly from Sony platforms (PSP) and they use primarly PhyreEngine, that allows easy development for PSP, Vita, PS3 and PS4.

Of course, if they had a big multimedia project up their sleeves, expecting to sell millions of copies in Japan, they would not put it on Vita or PS4. The cost associated with the change would be minimal. But as it is not the case with their current and upcoming projects, the cost would only be an extra cost, and the opportunities small enough to not support the change.

Other studios that used PhyreEngine for games: Compile Heart for Neptunia, Gust for Atelier (before Tecmo), NIS for some games too.

Then, probably these companies have plans in their sleeves if (most likely) Sony has no Vita successor, but they can leave their decision to when it is time to move from Vita. By then, they may have found success on PS4, PC, whatever, so they will stick with these platforms, or they will migrate to an eventual new Nintendo handheld since they know their fanbase will likely adopt it as their main system.

Maybe the best question is always why third party companies do not release more multiplatform games? Indies proved that it is easily doable even with low budgets, they just need to adopt a commercial engine that supports lots of platforms (and they are common nowadays), so the risk of publishing in many platforms is negligible. There are few niche games that justify not publishing in more than one platform.
 

Oregano

Member
Are you talking about only Japan? Because pretty much every major Western publisher is doing just fine completely ignoring Nintendo consoles.

And judging by WiiU sales, Nintendo can't support a platform with just 1st party games. The lack of 3rd party support is crippling the platform.

Oh yeah I'm talking exclusively about the Japanese industry here.

It remains to be seen how much better the PS4 will do with the weight of third parties backing it and that definitely should be worrying to them.
 

jackdoe

Member
I feel that part of the reason why JP developers are putting stuff on the PS4 has to do with retaining talent. Mobile and handheld can make a lot of money, but I can't imagine that the actual development staff feel particularly fulfilled in most cases (especially with mobile). However, I imagine that the PS4 Level 5 project is also a Hino vanity project.
 
I understand your sentiment, but your post works the other way around. Many niche titles on Vita are selling in small numbers and developers are happy with them. There are big flops in both platforms, games selling according to publishers expectations and games selling more than what they expected.

For them to change, they would need a good reason to do so, yet there isn't a good reason to do so, at least not yet. If we used your arguments (and Oregano's) to convince the publishers to change their positions, the arguments would probably be met with the same lack of enthusiasm as they meet with other forum members. The strongest argument would be "Why not? You will hardly lose anything.", and the answer will be "Why bother changing if we will hardly win anything?"

The strongest argument for choosing platforms for publishers long established in a certain platform is inertia. They have the tools, the expertise and the fanbase in a platform, so there is no reason for them to change.

Take for example a company that is often mentioned: Falcom. Why do they publish their main titles as Vita, Vita/PS3, and now Vita/PS4? Because their audience is not shrinking, the scope of their projects can be supported by Vita/PS3 install bases, their audience come mostly from Sony platforms (PSP) and they use primarly PhyreEngine, that allows easy development for PSP, Vita, PS3 and PS4.

Of course, if they had a big multimedia project up their sleeves, expecting to sell millions of copies in Japan, they would not put it on Vita or PS4. The cost associated with the change would be minimal. But as it is not the case with their current and upcoming projects, the cost would only be an extra cost, and the opportunities small enough to not support the change.

Other studios that used PhyreEngine for games: Compile Heart for Neptunia, Gust for Atelier (before Tecmo), NIS for some games too.

Then, probably these companies have plans in their sleeves if (most likely) Sony has no Vita successor, but they can leave their decision to when it is time to move from Vita. By then, they may have found success on PS4, PC, whatever, so they will stick with these platforms, or they will migrate to an eventual new Nintendo handheld since they know their fanbase will likely adopt it as their main system.

Maybe the best question is always why third party companies do not release more multiplatform games? Indies proved that it is easily doable even with low budgets, they just need to adopt a commercial engine that supports lots of platforms (and they are common nowadays), so the risk of publishing in many platforms is negligible. There are few niche games that justify not publishing in more than one platform.

You have completely missed my point.

I have never written that what you are describing is not true. It is. What I was saying is that niche games do exist on 3DS as well, and there is a great amount of them; this on top of big hits and medium-sized games. Sometimes, though, people tend to forget that 3DS also have a lot of small games, and developers are satisfy with how they sold (given that they keep releasing games on the same platform). When I read that comment and the discussion around it, it seems that some people thought that niche games are mainly on PSV with Gusy & co. games, while 3DS has them as well. Period.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
True. I guess it's the nature of business but it's definitely somewhat confusing that they don't seem to want to stand their ground

In regards to your point about tech:

I think that is one of the most important points to address with the successor and I'm more optimistic about Nintendo going with more orthodox hardware than I am about most other things. Especially with how Nintendo adopted Unity so strongly on the Wii U, and even expressed that they would like to get it on 3DS.

In ragrds to that the 3DS would have been better of in that aspect if it was Tegra based as originally planned, right?
Tegra had OpenGL ES 2.0 compliance and I think it started with a fairly significant amount of RAM for the time so I imagine Unity would have worked given it worked on other Tegra devices.
 

Oregano

Member
Tegra had OpenGL ES 2.0 compliance and I think it started with a fairly significant amount of RAM for the time so I imagine Unity would have worked given it worked on other Tegra devices.

That's probanly a good sign for the successor then. It would be really interesting to learn why the Tegra plan got scrapped and they went with the Pica. I believe the prevailing rumour/speculation was that Nvidia was overpromising.
 

Vena

Member
Tegra had OpenGL ES 2.0 compliance and I think it started with a fairly significant amount of RAM for the time so I imagine Unity would have worked given it worked on other Tegra devices.

I think its guaranteed beyond a shadow of a doubt that 4DS will support everything out of the gate. That's one of the biggest issues on the 3DS and its ability to gain software which was, at the time, not Nintendo's intention but we can't change history and nVidia's blunders.

I do have to wonder if the n3DS's framework support won't open up some temporary doors for the time being, though.

Oh sorry I read that as you saying their success was Chaos Rings.

I think that was partially me not being very clear in my wording, so no biggy!
 

monpiece

Banned
You have completely missed my point.

I have never written that what you are describing is not true. It is. What I was saying is that niche games do exist on 3DS as well, and there is a great amount of them; this on top of big hits and medium-sized games. Sometimes, though, people tend to forget that 3DS also have a lot of small games, and developers are satisfy with how they sold (given that they keep releasing games on the same platform). When I read that comment and the discussion around it, it seems that some people thought that niche games are mainly on PSV with Gusy & co. games, while 3DS has them as well. Period.

I was mixing that with other posts of yours and other people that usually quotes Falcom, NIS, CH, etc when talking about where their future projects should be. Most of the market is made of niche games, and every platform has plenty of them. However, it is quite clear that some niche publishers are more well-known and often brought to discussions than the others.
 

Vena

Member
That's probanly a good sign for the successor then. It would be really interesting to learn why the Tegra plan got scrapped and they went with the Pica. I believe the prevailing rumour/speculation was that Nvidia was overpromising.

Its not really a rumor.

nVidia failed in delivering what they had promised in terms of power draw envelope. It was a total clusterfuck.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
I still think moving to PICA instead of PowerVR was a poor decision.

It's true you didn't have the wealth of options you do now, but they were the leading company in mobile GPUs for a reason.
 

Salex_

Member
I feel that part of the reason why JP developers are putting stuff on the PS4 has to do with retaining talent. Mobile and handheld can make a lot of money, but I can't imagine that the actual development staff feel particularly fulfilled in most cases (especially with mobile). However, I imagine that the PS4 Level 5 project is also a Hino vanity project.

I'm really interested in that L5 game. It seems odd that they would have an allegedly big PS4 game debuting at E3 considering their success on handhelds and Wonder Flick was announced for every platform. Did they have the staff to work on YW, Wonder Flick, and that unannounced game at the same time?
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
I'm really interested in that L5 game. It seems odd that they would have an allegedly big PS4 game debuting at E3 considering their success on handhelds and Wonder Flick was announced for every platform. Did they have the staff to work on YW, Wonder Flick, and that unannounced game at the same time?
Wiki lists them as 280 people as of September 2014, but I can't read Japanese to double check.
 

Sandfox

Member
I'm really interested in that L5 game. It seems odd that they would have an allegedly big PS4 game debuting at E3 considering their success on handhelds and Wonder Flick was announced for every platform. Did they have the staff to work on YW, Wonder Flick, and that unannounced game at the same time?

Ni no Kuni did decent in the west. I don't think they can repeat that though so its going to be interesting
 
But that's the thing, these aren't separate entities for the most part.

If these studios are putting niche games on the Vita and using the same tech stack they use to develop their larger aspirations on mobile, that's going to heavily impact their choices.

Just take Level 5 even. They had huge hits on DS and have a huge hit on 3DS, but Wonderflick is headed to every platform except 3DS and they're unveiling a new PS4 game at E3. I'm guessing both of those are using a tech stack that won't work on the platform.

Square Enix made a bunch Vita games recently, several by traditional console/handheld staff, but that's because they're all imports from mobile. The studio that was making FF remakes for the DS is the same one that made the ugly mobile ports.

The team leads for Valk have a new game coming to Vita instead of 3DS, but again that's a mobile title.

We can also look at companies like tri-Ace who have Vita games, but their tech was made with PS3 in mind and made compliant with mobile because that's what people wanted to sign them for.

We had lots of questions about why DQ8 wasn't on 3DS instead of mobile, or at least show up on 3DS eventually. Well, the new version runs on Unity which doesn't work on 3DS.

We can't wall that market off and pretend it doesn't exist to paint a picture that fits "God these dummy companies won't support the 3DS despite the Vita doing poorly."
While the above is a clear possibility that would fit some cases not all of them. Not many of the produced niche games are exactly pushing any tech hard, most of the concepts are basically 6th gen stuff. Nor we don't know (or at least not me) how much of a tool familiarity there's for stuff that are not PS3 or Unity projects.

Not all of the Vita announced games are also exactly mobile friendly games. Do wonder if it's worth the trouble at the end to support such an small user base.

BUt anyways, i apreciate you made your thought process more clear to me. So thanks for that XD
 

Road

Member
mcreate2009-2014soft-ieu29.png


Dengeki Sales: Week 52. 2014 (Dec 22 - Dec 28)

SOFTWARE
Code:
-------------------------------------------------------
| Model | This Week | Week (%) |  FY 2014   | FY (%)  |
-------------------------------------------------------
| 3DS   | 999.795   | 67.10%   | 18.951.193 | 59.10%  |
| Wii U | 182.585   | 8.10%    | 2.611.509  | 8.10%   |
| PS3   | 119.425   | 8.00%    | 4.501.350  | 14.00%  |
| Vita  | 117.083   | 7.90%    | 3.866.979  | 12.10%  |
| PS4   | 59.269    | 4.00%    | 1.422.649  | 4.40%   |
| PSP   | 8.180     | 0.50%    | 601.547    | 1.90%   |
| XB1   | 3.113     | 0.20%    | 115.271    | 0.40%   |
-------------------------------------------------------
| Total | 1.489.450 | 100.00%  | 32.070.498 | 100.00% |
-------------------------------------------------------
HARDWARE
Code:
------------------------------------------------------
| Model | This Week | Week (%) |  FY 2014  | FY (%)  |
------------------------------------------------------
| 3DS   | 189.880   | 60.50%   | 2.563.080 | 56.30%  |
| Wii U | 42.063    | 13.40%   | 479.401   | 10.50%  |
| Vita  | 38.037    | 12.10%   | 684.500   | 15.00%  |
| PS4   | 31.414    | 10.00%   | 482.868   | 10.60%  |
| PS3   | 11.215    | 3.60%    | 254.149   | 5.60%   |
| XB1   | 1.379     | 0.40%    | 43.771    | 1.00%   |
| PSP   | 27        | 0.00%    | 44.187    | 1.00%   |
------------------------------------------------------
| Total | 314.015   | 100.00%  | 4.551.956 | 100.00% |
------------------------------------------------------
Dengeki Sales: Week 51, 2014 (Dec 15 - Dec 21)
SOFTWARE
Code:
-------------------------------------------------------
| Model | This Week | Week (%) |  FY 2014   | FY (%)  |
-------------------------------------------------------
| 3DS   | 1.309.492 | 70.10%   | 17.176.317 | 58.50%  |
| PS3   | 180.864   | 9.70%    | 4.246.968  | 14.50%  |
| Wii U | 171.679   | 9.20%    | 2.275.661  | 7.80%   |
| Vita  | 146.376   | 7.80%    | 3.643.998  | 12.40%  |
| PS4   | 47.552    | 2.50%    | 1.307.196  | 4.50%   |
| PSP   | 7.875     | 0.40%    | 582.607    | 2.00%   |
| XB1   | 3.089     | 0.20%    | 110.111    | 0.40%   |
-------------------------------------------------------
| Total | 1.866.927 | 100.00%  | 29.342.858 | 100.00% |
-------------------------------------------------------
HARDWARE
Code:
------------------------------------------------------
| Model | This Week | Week (%) |  FY 2014  | FY (%)  |
------------------------------------------------------
| 3DS   | 194.229   | 65.00%   | 2.202.864 | 56.10%  |
| Wii U | 37.224    | 12.50%   | 398.686   | 10.20%  |
| Vita  | 29.372    | 9.80%    | 595.075   | 15.20%  |
| PS4   | 28.023    | 9.40%    | 413.883   | 10.50%  |
| PS3   | 8.497     | 2.80%    | 227.502   | 5.80%   |
| XB1   | 1.328     | 0.40%    | 41.128    | 1.00%   |
| PSP   | 25        | 0.00%    | 44.127    | 1.10%   |
------------------------------------------------------
| Total | 298.698   | 100.00%  | 3.923.265 | 100.00% |
------------------------------------------------------

If you do fy2014 week 52 - week 51, the total is way higher than week 52 sales alone.

I think fy2014 week 52 is actually fy2014 week1-2015. Dengeki messed up again.
 

Road

Member
Random, but it is funny seeing Sony being all bff with Capcom:

Deep Down - exclusive, co developed
Street Fighter V - console exclusive, co developed
Revalaitons 2 - publishing Vita version
USFIV - publishing PS4 version

MH would still have been a better get, though...
 

Scum

Junior Member
Random, but it is funny seeing Sony being all bff with Capcom:

Deep Down - exclusive, co developed
Street Fighter V - console exclusive, co developed
Revalaitons 2 - publishing Vita version
USFIV - publishing PS4 version

MH would still have been a better get, though...

Maybe they're doing the "If we can't have MH, we'll just take everything else!" thing.
 

Meier

Member
The YW 2.5 version is crazy. For it to release so close to YW2 and be on track to sell at least 80-85% of it (and likely an even greater percentage than that) is really something else.
 
I honestly can't see DQ8 working on 3DS without downgrades, hell even N3DS would be doubtful, and likely not a good business move anyway.

4DS when it's got a nice amount out there, is the most likely route. Especially as 4-7 were remakes, 8 mobile was just a straight port seemingly.

It'd also be neat seeing what Level-5 might do in such a situation. I don't see Arte Piazza and Cattle Call doing that as AP didn't work on 8 but did 4-7 originally.

Sad that Genius Sonority has been getting the cold shoulder. How much did they have a hand in with Swords? I think James Turner who was their art director and is now at Game Freak, did the art direction so GS did more than just "planning".

Also where on Earth did 8ing come from as a choice for Dragon Quest Swords? Yeah eventually they worked with SE on Battle Road Victory and the two Fullmetal Alchemist games on Wii, but what encouraged the choice? They never worked together prior and I don't think 8ing even did RPGs before. Luckily the just finished Eye Shield 21 with Nintendo (Nintendo? Licensed game? Wat.) prior so they had Wii experience. But I still today can't wrap my head around that. 8ing would sure go on to do LOTS of Wii games, that's for sure.
 

Vena

Member
Maybe they're doing the "If we can't have MH, we'll just take everything else!" thing.

Whats: (7+ million)*($40*0.6) come out to be? ~168 million dollars?

That's about how much MH would cost them, I'd say. +Nintendo money, of course.
 

duckroll

Member
Random, but it is funny seeing Sony being all bff with Capcom:

Deep Down - exclusive, co developed
Street Fighter V - console exclusive, co developed
Revalaitons 2 - publishing Vita version
USFIV - publishing PS4 version

MH would still have been a better get, though...

Is this a sign of Sony going to Capcom to secure exclusives, or is it a sign of Capcom going to various first parties to secure partnerships because they want to lower the risk of developing and publishing console games in general? Remember who published Dead Rising 3. What's the next substantial Capcom console game which doesn't have some sort of first party backing? Is there even one?
 
Probably next mainline Resident Evil, since it's pretty much Capcom's sole remaining "big" home console franchise.

Although, I guess we'll see as one of the hardware vendors could be footing part of the bill for that too.
 

Sandfox

Member
Is this a sign of Sony going to Capcom to secure exclusives, or is it a sign of Capcom going to various first parties to secure partnerships because they want to lower the risk of developing and publishing console games in general? Remember who published Dead Rising 3. What's the next substantial Capcom console game which doesn't have some sort of first party backing? Is there even one?

Capcom probably can't pay(or risk paying) for their own AAA titles anymore. Before these moves started happening we were hearing about how they couldn't afford to make another SF and how games like DD didn't sell enough for a sequel IIRC.
 

Fraxin

Member
are the latest pages jeopardizing 4ds support or trying to figure out their hw plans? or both?

Maybe they're trying to guess if it has a future from looking at the market situation in Japan now. Since from what we're seeing, the age of dedicated game consoles is just getting worse in Japan. I'm wondering if its possible that Nintendo will succumb to Mobile one day.
 

Vena

Member
are the latest pages jeopardizing 4ds support or trying to figure out their hw plans? or both?

4DS will be fine*, we pretty much know what its hardware will be just not specific numbers on specs.

We're discussing the 3DS and the weirdness of how third parties behave around it despite the fact that it is the only thing keeping the industry afloat in Japan at the moment.

I'm wondering if its possible that Nintendo will succumb to Mobile one day.

You're sooner to see Sony collapse into separate entities before Nintendo goes anywhere near mobile outside of interaction apps with their ecosystem or TPC forays.




(*I tell myself every night as I cry myself to sleep.)
 

duckroll

Member
I'm really interested in that L5 game. It seems odd that they would have an allegedly big PS4 game debuting at E3 considering their success on handhelds and Wonder Flick was announced for every platform. Did they have the staff to work on YW, Wonder Flick, and that unannounced game at the same time?

Those are probably not even the only things Level5 are working on. They employ 280 people, and they have two development studios - one in Fukuoka and one in Tokyo.
 

Oregano

Member
I still think moving to PICA instead of PowerVR was a poor decision.

It's true you didn't have the wealth of options you do now, but they were the leading company in mobile GPUs for a reason.

Well I think it depends how late they had to make the switch. DMP probably bent over backwards for Nintendo on short notice including adding a custom extension to the Pica(to make 3D rendering more efficient.

are the latest pages jeopardizing 4ds support or trying to figure out their hw plans? or both?

Kind of both, we were discussing what necessary steps Nintendo should be taking to guarantee support but also that judging from the 3DS it won't matter if the 4DS(or whatever) is the dominant platform.

I think an important note that we discussed earlier is that publishers, such as Square Enix, seem to have preconceptions about userbases that probably aren't entirely true.
 

Aostia

El Capitan Todd
thanks for the replies, I missed the latest pages.
what surpirse me, not only here but in general, is how often we discuss the 3DS while it is the not only best selling console in Japan, but almost the only console selling in Japan.
Please, disclaimer: I'm not saying that is wrong, or that the 4DS success is a lock! Just that it's cuious how it is judged jeopardazing its fate and future, looking how it will end up at 20+ millions in Japan as PS1 and PS2, while all other consoles will probably struggling to sell 15 millions all together :p
 
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