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Media Create Sales: Week 3, 2015 (Jan 12 - Jan 18)
- Thread starter Chris1964
- Start date
Check your PM
And from just twenty minutes of playing, I'm guessing Legend of Legacy will have very good word of mouth.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
What are we expecting for Tales of Zestiria LTD? (ignoring a potential PS4 release).
400k? 500k?
400k? 500k?
ZSaberLink
Media Create Maven
Xillia 2 hit 450K LTD. I assume we're expecting lower for Zestiria right? Maybe closer to Graces F (like 350K)?
Pennywise83
Banned
they probably have enough to continue through the first shipment for years to come.
I made a new thread here. There's a little more info that i will translate later.
If you want the pictures i can send them to you tomorrow.
Famitsu Top 100 2014
http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=977096
If you take into consideration Xillia 2 wasn't a main entry things are worse, right?
Shouldnt the anime games be on the Vita anyway? Thats where the audience for those games have been pushed right? I mean besides the Level 5 stuff.
this is true LOL
Pennywise83
Banned
I doubt Attack on Titan would have sold 370k+ units on PSV (300k vanilla plus 70k+ the expansion). In fact, I doubt it would have been the best-selling (or the second best-selling game) on the system.
Also, 3DS showed to have an audience for anime / manga tie-ins, given the sales of One Piece, Kuroko's Basketball and such.
That's not exactly a good trend for the series IMO.
AoT is mainstream and the 3DS actually tends to get a lot of mainstream anime games.
Pennywise83
Banned
Has the series ever had a trend?
On PS2:
2002-11-28 Tales of Destiny 2 - 762,861
2004-09-22 Tales of Symphonia - 390,414
2004-12-16 Tales of Rebirth - 596,493
2005-07-07 Tales of Symphonia (PlayStation 2 the Best) - 47,873
2005-08-25 Tales of Legendia - 342,779
2005-12-15 Tales of the Abyss - 556,465
2006-11-30 Tales of Destiny - 367,998
2007-06-28 Tales of Fandom Vol. 2 (TIABAJON / RUKUBAJON) - 86,337
2007-06-28 Tales of the Abyss (BEST) - 157,752
2008-01-31 Tales of Destiny Director's Cut - 142,301
Hellraider
Member
For most niche anime series vita is the best option. When you have anime like AoT or One Piece with mainstream appeal your best option is the bigger userbase.
The original games on that list are:
Destiny 2
Rebirth
Legendia
Abyss
Everything else was a port and Legendia is/was considered to be the black sheep of mainline Tales games in addition to Tales of the Abyss being officially announced in the same month Legendia was released and coming out four months later. That list is really a testament to how popular Destiny was though.
Is it a fact that for a niche anime series that Vita is better option?
I've seen it claimed a lot that for a niche game it's better to go to Vita but I've always wondered how that is quantified. Plenty of niche games do well on 3DS.
I guess it's one of those preconceived notions that people have(including publishers) and I wonder how much it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Hellraider
Member
I really don't think publishers care about prophecies or have any bias towards vita. I bet they drool when they see that 3DS userbase and think what they could have sold there. As long as a lot more anime games keep coming to the Vita it's safe to say that Vita is in theory the better option.
Another thing that needs to be said though is that "anime" is quite vague and broad. For example a Kurobas and a Haikyuu game were released on 3DS and were succesful. And then you have something like that fate kaleid game that flopped and I would argue that it would have done a lot better on Vita.
A case by case basis is the correct approach to find the answer to your question, I believe.
Fate kaleid had more than just platform problem causing all the loss in sales here.
Bad reviews,delays,bad mouth to mouth info and the release time is after the anime finish is all huge reason for the bomba.
Pennywise83
Banned
No, it's not a fact.
3DS has plenty of games selling niche numbers, and companies happy with them. Even multi-platform games usually tend to sell better on 3DS, in particular over time (see Samurai Warriors Chronicles 3, which started higher on PSV and then sold better on 3DS the weeks after).
Indeed. So you have a best-selling entry and low-selling entry, and something in between. Tales of sales vary a lot across entries, so it's difficult to talk about a trend. Zestiria is also being released on an old platform, after a not-so-well-received entry, in January. It will sell well for what it is and the investment behind it.
The bolded almost suggests they are somehow being forced to release on Vita. I don't think we've seen any publishers decry the lack of Vita adoption either so I'm not sure they are that concerned about the size of the install bases. Hell Akitoshi Kawazu came out and talked about the selling power of the 3DS and Monster Hunter and then proceeded to make SaGa 2015 a Vita exclusive.
Publishers aren't infallible either and there is definitely preconceived notions about system's userbases that might not be entirely accurate. You only have to look at the amount of franchises that become chibified on the 3DS. Does that really boost sales? I sincerely doubt it.
One last note: I think "a bias towards Vita" misrepresents what I'm suggesting.
Hellraider
Member
We are not talking about anime games anymore, right? I totally agree how stupid the "it's on 3DS therefore got to be chibi" attitude pretty much all publishers have is. Saga vita also makes absolutely no sense. There definitely are some preconceived notions that are not accurate concerning the 3DS. When it comes to most niche anime games as well as anything heavy on fanservice for example I don't think they're wrong for choosing Vita, though.
Well I was using Anime games as a jumping off point to discuss wider trends. I was also just using SaGa to outline that I'm not sure the install base is seen as overly important for the majority of publishers, regardless of whether or not that's a good idea.
In that sense though I think even with niche anime games and fanservice stuff there is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Vita is seen as the place for niche Anime games -> Lots of niche anime games are put on Vita -> An audience base builds for niche anime games -> Niche anime games do well on Vita.
I'm not sure there is anything inherent about Vita that makes it superior for those franchises. It only worked because the assumption that those types of content would be more successful on Vita was already there. Does that communicate more what I'm suggesting?
That's what I meant about it being hard to quantify.
Orniletter
Banned
sörine;148528199 said:
Yeah, I don't ge the negativity either. Bravely Default sold something north of 400k in the West.
There is just no way someone won't try to get some of those sales with LoL . Even half / a third of that would be amazing compared to what most of the games of the companies you mentioned usually do.
Too early to tell.
Those six weeks are the best the system will probably have this year, though, in terms of number of games/franchises released.
Pennywise83
Banned
Principate
Saint Titanfall
BD sold north of 600k in the West
Did it manage an million overall, or are you talking about shipped?
Pennywise83
Banned
It sold a million worldwide. We know by means on NPD data, that it sold 350k units in North America (+ digital sales, that were around 30k in the first month). The game basically sold 400k alone in NA.
Well Bravely Default was released a year ago now and we haven't seen an uptick in 3DS' localisations due to its success. Hell we haven't even an uptick in RPGs for the 3DS in Japan since its success two years ago. The publisher response has been a resounding "who cares?".
Square Enix have even said they're not sure about localising Bravely Second and apart from trademarks they have no given no indications FF Explorers will be released in the west.
I also don't think Legend of Legacy has enough otaku-bait to appeal to localisation firms nowadays.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
I know that I'm talking about where the Pal etc data is coming from.
Orniletter
Banned
BD sold north of 600k in the West
Wow, thats even more impressive all things considered.
Scratch what I said earlier, even a fourth (150k ) would be a good result for those super niche publishers in the west.
I think the only thing that could prevent localization would be if LoL ends up as a shockingly bad game.... but then again, Conception 2 made it over here
Kresnik258
Member
I agree it's definitely an attractive pick-up on the surface, but I'd imagine it depends on a load of other stuff.
XSEED made it seem like FuRyu were a difficult company to work with.
Combined with the fact that the game seems like it's going to sell well in Japan and is imitating a game which performed well in the west, they might be commanding a higher price for it too.
With the usual stuff that gets picked up from these localization houses, they're small-selling titles in Japan from companies who have long-standing relationships with the west. I'd imagine they're cheap to pick up and there's never any problems with getting the coding work done for putting the translation in.
Basically, it'll come down to how much trouble FuRyu are.
That said, I think the game looks excellent and I'd very much like to see it in the west myself, so I quite hope one of the other localization houses (Aksys?) give it a go.
The problem is not exactly that they have any bias towards Vita. The issue is that it is evident that all those games would do better on 3DS with a 100% degree of certainty, but for some mysterious reason, they still insist in publishing games on other platforms.
Pennywise83
Banned
Wow, thats even more impressive all things considered.
Scratch what I said earlier, even a fourth (150k ) would be a good result for those super niche publishers in the west.
I think the only thing that could prevent localization would be if LoL ends up as a shockingly bad game.... but then again, Conception 2 made it over here
Atlus has been just fine in selling 30-40k units over all Etrian Odyssey releases in North America. Rune Factory 4 was a success by selling 50k or so. I guess that if there's enough interest by publishers, LoL will get eventually localized.
Orniletter
Banned
I mean, SE is gonna SE, but the director made some lighthearted jokes in the latest live stream about a character with...a...specific japanese accent and how they made her extra hard on purpose for the translation staff to localize . Thats still not a confirmation...of course....but yeah...
Those are valid points as well. We'll have to keep our fingers crossed that FuRyu won't squander the potential...I guess.
There are three important things that are usually overlooked in the talks about localization: localization fees, the cost of localization and the support the company will give during the localization process.
There are many games that sell 10k copies in the west, but are localized because it is cheap enough to obtain the licenses and localize the assets. Meanwhile, there are games that could sell more than 50k, but there is a licensing hell attached to them, or the costs of localization are higher.
Besides, if the developer is unwilling to give support by not fixing bugs that come from localization, not promising to keep a reasonable schedule, not willing to provide documentation, tools or answering questions, the probability of localization companies working with those developers is low.
A fourth thing that is never considered, but is also important (albeit less), is the relationship with the platform holder. Some may give a better support, better options, less strict rules that makes the lives of localization companies easier or harder.
So, there are lots of things more for the companies to consider than the game selling more than 50k copies in Japan and a handful of forum users being interested on it.
test_account
XP-39C²
How many multiplatform games exist for Vita/3DS?
I think its kinda "funny/interesting" (not sure what word to use) that its even in the question if the 3DS or the Vita version of a multiplatform game will sell the most concidering the huge difference in userbase. I know that the size of the userbase always doesnt mean that much (more importantly is who that owns the systems instead), but still.
unapersson
Member
There are other issues involved though. Do their engines and toolsets support the 3DS or do they have to port them (if they are able to)? Do their developers have experience with this completely different system or do they need to be retrained? Do their developers support such a change? They can't just click their fingers and release something on 3DS. If they make that decision there would need to be a transitional period. If a company easily makes low cost games on a low cost engine then the transitional costs might be too high to take the risk even with the benefits of the higher potential audience.
Pennywise83
Banned
Some IPs / genres / types of game are not affected much by the userbase. If a system with a tiny userbase builds a reputation for, let's say, visual novels (to mention a niche genre), then games within this genre might well sell better than the same games on a system with a larger userbase, but where the focus is on other genre / audience. This is neither funny or interesting; it was happening on PS2 as well, which was the absolute leader of its generation, with some genres / IPs selling better on GBA or even GC.
Anyway, there are some multi for PSV / 3DS. Virtue's Last Reward eventually sold slightly better on 3DS, and this was true for Time Travelers, and likely true for Samurai Warriors Chronicles. Exstetra sold more on PSV, but it sold abysmally on both platforms.
I think it would be more "funny" if PSV and 3DS were more similar in terms of hardware like the HD systems. Many core gamers that are the target demographic for niche games own both systems and the Vita versions is the superior one most of the times. So it's not that surprising.How many multiplatform games exist for Vita/3DS?
I think its kinda "funny/interesting" (not sure what word to use) that its even in the question if the 3DS or the Vita version of a multiplatform game will sell the most concidering the huge difference in userbase. I know that the size of the userbase always doesnt mean that much (more importantly is who that owns the systems instead), but still. Imagine if it was the same situation on PS3 and Xbox 360
It's the same reason why most multi million 3DS sellers aren't on Vita as well... It's not worth the effort if the total number of sold games doesn't increase.
test_account
XP-39C²
That is true, i know, that is why i mentioned "more importantly is who that owns the systems instead" =) I dont find it that surprising, but some comments seems to indicate that its kinda a given that a game would sell more on a certain system because of a bigger install base, instead of recognizing that other smaller platforms might be a better choice for different reasons, at least that is how i understand it. Otherwise i wouldnt have mentioned the "funny/interesting" thing. I was just generally speaking when i mentioned that, just to have pointed that out.
Thanks for the list. Do we have the final sales numbers for those games?
Ehh I think that's overblown as a factor honestly. It might be a factor now four years into the life of the 3DS and 3 three years into Vita's but it wasn't a factor when most of those decisions were made. I'd also point out that the two big Vita Anime games this year(Sword Art Online and Digimon) are both from developers with 3DS experience and the last Digimon game was actually on 3DS.
It definitely is a factor in general, but I feel it's quite small in the scheme of things.
EDIT:
Well multiplatform comparisons can be misleading as I pointed out recently. SWC3 debuted better on Vita but Vita+3DS only equalled SWC2, which has sold better than all Vita musou games IIRC, so I'm not sure you can reasonably suggest Vita exclusive is a better choice than 3DS exclusive.
... and reading back no one has claimed games would sell better on 3DS because of the install base so I'm not sure why you're arguing against that.
test_account
XP-39C²
I think you're misunderstanding what i said. I didnt argue about which platform that is the best choice, i only said that i find it "funny/interesting" that its up for question which version that would sell the most.
Have you never seen the arguement that a platform is better than another because of the big different size in userbase? Like i mentioned, what i said was just generally speaking. Its not necesarily related to anything specfic in this thread.