test_account
XP-39C²
I think it is because hardly anyone expected the numbers to be like this. It sells more than what most people were predicting, and 30k+ is a lot better than sub-10k numbers that the Vita usually did.
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Media Create Sales: Week 13, 2013 (Mar 25 - Mar 31)
- Thread starter Chris1964
- Start date
metalslimer
Member
Its kind of hard to say what a baseline is/will be when you have a lineup as inconsistent as Vita's. There are month gap with not a single piece of software.
ragincajun77
Banned
That is my prediction as well. I don't think it will go back to 10K or sub-10K post price-drop. From here on out I would say 15K on the low-end of the spectrum to 30K on the high-end with an average around 22K.
AranhaHunter
Banned
I'm not sure holding back SW is a smart choice at this point. I can see holding back on the price cut, but if they have SW finished, get it out there. Hell they got broken SW finished out of the door before...
Agreed.
People are making excuses, but DQX selling 30K is damn bad. In terms of the DQ franchise, I think only Itadaki and other smaller spin offs have numbers that are comparably bad.
They should have announced these, and more, already. I can't help but feel that momentum is dying, especially with no significant release until the end of May.
Ya, after months of 7-8k, 30k looks pretty good.
EDIT: In a week or two, Vita's 2013 sales should be at 50% of 2012's YTD no? It could stop selling for the next few months and not fall too far behind.
Note the "fixing" part and gloss over at this year's lineup. Also, "wasteland" is a bit hyperbolic, don't ya think?
The 3DS is no excuse for their pityful WiiU efforts so far. Especially if you consider that the 3DS lineup includes a not so small number of fast produced rehashes (Zelda, NSMB2, Mario Kart).
ragincajun77
Banned
Because of the price drop. I know some of you are still not convinced that the price drop will sustain sales, but I am of the opposite belief. Around 20K average from here on out is my guess.
Because it does have small games being released for it.
I don't think it'll go that low after the price drop. But hey, maybe I'm wrong.
I'm being optmistic, for a change. I know that's not how Neogaf rolls, though.
Yeah, was mostly thinking of the western lineup, Japan was a bit better of, but still it´s not like there was a gaming flood on the 3DS.
Bruno MB
Member
After 4 months in the market, this is the only Japanese third-party game (released or announced) for Wii U that is not a port.
It includes the sales of download cards.
It includes the sales of download cards.
Hey, it sold in line with Squeenix's shipments (60-80%), so it's not like it was a bomb from their perspective.
Nothing Nintendo produces is "fast", even rehashes.
Please, shipments are not an indication of expectations, especially in Japan. Stop saying that. In Japan it is very hard to significantly overship something. Retailer demand controls what ships because games cannot be returned. Low shipment usually means either difficulty in producing enough stock, or lack of interest from retailers. It does not represent what the company expects to sell.
grimshawish
Banned
DS/Wii are the biggest pains and really in overall terms the only 'fuck up' I feel that Iwata committed was how long it took for the Wii U to come out. Paid too much attention to the competition without actually competing with them, obviously they left it till 'we can't hold off anymore' which is not a good thing at all.
Still. No one expects anything good, the blood bath is if nothing changes over the next year. Everything is out and the strategies should be in place. Failure is a sign of serious problems within the organisation, whatever the market.
3DS investment should start paying off this year too. If that doesn't show up in their profits then theres obviously issues with Nintendo's strategy, and quite frankly their size and number of platforms.
At this stage, WiiU has more positives in terms of 'changing its trend'. 3DS? Meh in Europe there are good signs outside the UK; but in the US I do think its clear there needs to be serious organisational changes at NoA; they fucked up the second biggest month of the year (incredibly so) and obviously NoE's strategy is working a bit better, once software comes to the WiiU they'll start spending more marketing on it, but not until then.
Lots of releases for the 3DS other than Pokemon this year, but thats a big one. It should do well enough.
Nothing Nintendo produces is "fast", even rehashes.
Fast compared to their other games games. ;-)
zomgbbqftw
Banned
15-18k baseline. Around double the pre-price drop sales.
March sales make Vita a more sustainable platform going forwards, but it is still competing with a 3DS shaped juggernaut. Sony really need to get some big title announcements going for Vita or the momentum they have built up will amount to nothing.
Looking at last month datas, I'd say something like 89-90 and 115-117 would be a good estimate, not too conservative but not too optimistic either.
This isn't true. It just means it wasn't an unexpected bomb.
It's just nice to see a change for once, you know
It's still far from being safe and the next weeks the drops will continue, but man: we were at below 10k and almost below 5k at one point, it's great to see a system selling for once
A success of a dedicated gaming handheld system is a success for all of us, even if it's a small one
I'm pretty sure stores don't order their shipments when a title is released for a platform. Not sure how selling through most of the first shipment negates a game from being a bomb. Doesn't it simply mean that the title wasn't overshipped? Maybe retailers were apathetic, leading to the small shipment in the first place.
metalslimer
Member
It depends on the software. Massive droughts will cause any platform to reach those numbers and Sony needs to announce a lot of games soon, but even 3ds has challenges with 3rd parties., so it will be an uphill battle.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Shipments are demand based in Japan since there is no price protection offered by publishers retailers are loath to over-order. Better to order less and reorder than get a massive shipment and find you can't shift it.
Ah. Okay. So, if my understanding is correct, the sales will be around 3.7-3.8 million if we include the digital?
or I guess not
Yeah, the only exception to this rule would be titles retailers anticipate will be "evergreen" titles, usually portable mainstream/casual stuff on Nintendo platforms. Retailers are more eager to order a larger shipment when they feel confident they can eventually sell it all, and that there won't be a need to drop the price, and they are afraid if they don't order enough they might run out of stock and be stuck without a restock losing sales to other stores in the process.
This generally never applies to core games though!
Velcro Fly
Member
Glad for Luigi. Glad that the Vita is continuing to sell.
G&W and DQX not selling much doesn't really surprise me. One is the port of an MMO and the other never looked that good to me personally. I've never got the appeal of Wario mini game games.
Think the Wii U seriously needs something, whether it is a steady release of games or a price drop or maybe even both. It's floundering out there. I think the biggest problem is the inconsistent release of games. I think they can turn it around like they did with the 3DS but there may be rushed games pushed out the door to fill in the gaps at times. Still not sure when I'm going to buy one here in NA
G&W and DQX not selling much doesn't really surprise me. One is the port of an MMO and the other never looked that good to me personally. I've never got the appeal of Wario mini game games.
Think the Wii U seriously needs something, whether it is a steady release of games or a price drop or maybe even both. It's floundering out there. I think the biggest problem is the inconsistent release of games. I think they can turn it around like they did with the 3DS but there may be rushed games pushed out the door to fill in the gaps at times. Still not sure when I'm going to buy one here in NA
Wow at Dragon Quest X being beaten by Muramasa (which should have sold 20k at best according to a few people here....not to talk about the Vita hardware which should have been back to 10k level after Soul Sacrifice).
At this point we're seeing Vita getting traction on the japanese market while Wii U is in deep trouble.
At this point we're seeing Vita getting traction on the japanese market while Wii U is in deep trouble.
My original point was that it's not the bomb that Game and Wario is. And it ain't like overshipments are that rare either. Combine that with the other factors going against it, and I doubt Square Enix ever thought it was going to do much to their bottom line (compared to their...other problems).
test_account
XP-39C²
Indeed. Even 20k would have been seen as a noticeable improvement, in my opinion.
Yeah, Vita's YTD for 2012 was 690,839. If Vita sells about 10k next week, then it is about exact half of the 2012 YTD.
No, your point was that it is not a bomb for the publisher if the sell-through is at 60%, which is complete rubbish. Don't shift goal posts. A publisher's sales expectations for a product has nothing to do with the shipment of the product. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't talk about it. You are being corrected by multiple people for a reason.
ULTROS!
People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Time to eject both from their seats, then.
ULTROS!
People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Isn't Tank! Tank! Tank! (fitting name) an original IP for the Wii U?
test_account
XP-39C²
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Well it's up to Nintendo, but they were unnecessarily aggressive with the Q3 currency gains, when a lot of other Japanese companies decided not to declare the gains because the market is unpredictable Nintendo went ahead and uprated all of their foreign assets and declared the gain.
Usually you find that companies do this to hide other problems, Panasonic did it and declared a Q3 net profit which sent their shares up 10% on the day, but as the results were digested and the analysts all worked out that it was a currency gain and a one off tax credit that pushed them into profit the gain was pared.
I fear Nintendo will fall into the same trap this quarter, in an effort to hide losses and poor results they will pump up their currency gains to unsustainable levels and show some kind of meagre net profit to cheer investors and then project a 100bn operating profit for 2013/14 and bury their heads in the sand.
pieatorium
Member
It's a port of an arcade game
AranhaHunter
Banned
Looking at other numbers in the OP:
LM2 will likely do 600K+, probably 700K+, and 500K+ is a certainty
OP2 Vita will sell over 100K, OP2 PS3 may get to 400K for a total of 500K+. Still a big drop from OP, but it would probably be worse without the Vita version. I think OP2 PSV is a lot higher than most here expected and bodes well for future PS3/PSV dual releases. We'll see if GE2 has a similar PSV share
On the other hand, Pro Baseball 2013 didn't sell well on Vita, assuming a similar drop that the PSP and PS3 versions got, the total for the PSV version would be a negligible 30K or so
Curious to see the drop for SS next week
There's a Wii game on the charts!
MarvelousAQL is becoming more and more relevant with new and good IPs that are selling relatively well. That is good to see.
Basically it affects every Japanese company, but more so the ones that declared currency gains in the last quarter.
I was gonna say something like that, but you were much more succinct in the way you said it. Thanks.
LM2 will likely do 600K+, probably 700K+, and 500K+ is a certainty
OP2 Vita will sell over 100K, OP2 PS3 may get to 400K for a total of 500K+. Still a big drop from OP, but it would probably be worse without the Vita version. I think OP2 PSV is a lot higher than most here expected and bodes well for future PS3/PSV dual releases. We'll see if GE2 has a similar PSV share
On the other hand, Pro Baseball 2013 didn't sell well on Vita, assuming a similar drop that the PSP and PS3 versions got, the total for the PSV version would be a negligible 30K or so
Curious to see the drop for SS next week
There's a Wii game on the charts!
MarvelousAQL is becoming more and more relevant with new and good IPs that are selling relatively well. That is good to see.
Basically it affects every Japanese company, but more so the ones that declared currency gains in the last quarter.
I was gonna say something like that, but you were much more succinct in the way you said it. Thanks.
michaelius
Banned
No kidding Muramasa+SS+Kagura are already sitting around half of their total 2012 sales from MC top 500.
If S-E knew a year or two ago that the Wii U version of DQX was going to shift all of 33k units in its first week, they may not have bothered with the port.
ULTROS!
People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
No. It's a port from arcades. There never was a console version before, but the arcade is fairly old
GetemMa
Member
that's 2 days of sales.
That's not a Japanese third party game...Oh, didn't know that.
ZombiU then, that's an original IP.
No need to be so adamant.
It's just an opinion (perhaps misguided, but still an opinion).
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Not sure if serious, lol.
The sales are bad but hardly unexpected, or disastrous, while the game was never going to do anything for the platform, I don't know why you'd expect it to. Well, you probably didn't and are just making up a point.
This so called mainline DQ was already the worst performing DQ because while being mainline it's a radical departure for the series, much like FFXI, which also didn't do nearly as good as others in hard numbers. I'm sure you know this already, yet chose to ignore it. Either way, it doesn't matter to SE if they sell more new copies of the game, what matters is if they can keep a few hundred thousands of subscribers.
Of course, if people migrate to a version that's on a platform that isn't dead like the Wii (WiiU more or less is at the point, DQX wasn't going to turn that around, your implication that should have been the case is ridiculous to say the least) they could potentially achieve this goal easier but it's hardly going to be the cause of the game's downfall.
If WiiU ever starts doing well the game will still be there for people to over time upgrade to this version, if they wish to (which they may not, it's the same game and content on the same servers with sharper but otherwise not heavily enhanced visuals, that's all). It's not like it's a desirable spin off or a several years later port or remake of a DQ game considered a classic. It's a niche game for a particular audience, the console MMO audience, and it seems most of those bought it already as the game did well with its original release, for the type of game it is, not for a DQ game, for reasons explained.
Of course it has absolutely no bearing on future installments. DQIX did great, DQXI can too, if they don't fuck it up (in a way that has nothing to do with a MMO offshoot that obviously only bears the X for marketing).
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Rubbish. It's a worse bomb than Wario given the DQ pedigree it has behind it.
No need to be so adamant.
Opinions are fine, but conclusions drawn from incorrect facts can confuse other people who might think it is accurate. Shipments are in no way a representation of what a publisher wants and expects a product to sell. If they were, then every game in Japan would be a success, since retailers cannot return unsold stock.