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[Madouu]

Many people in the announcement thread thought that it would pave way for Yakuza to be a multiplatform. One person even said it would move 20-30k WiiU's lol.

There's always one or two people who have very unrealistic expectations, it doesn't mean much, most people that follow the MC threads at least knew it wouldn't perform well at all.

Now I agree that in the "not performing well" category, there's sub-categories. And it seems that it's not even going to meet our very low expectations of 10k units moved LTD...

If it actually moved 20k units LTD, which is still a number characteristic of a release not performing very well, I think it would've still been a good sign for future Yakuza titles on the Wii U considering the tiny userbase, no yakuza following and this same title doing 60k on the PS3.

 

[Aquamarine]

Sonic Lost World should perform pretty well in western territories, in Japan I'm not too sure about that.

What you're saying basically is that the Wii U is starved for content and Nintendo is willing to take anything without looking too much into the substance of those titles, they're not really in a position to choose right now.

Nobody's in their right mind, even the Nintendo that designed the Wii U would expect the release of a HD Yakuza game that performed badly on the PS3 to perform well on a platform with a tiny userbase and no fans of the series...

I really don't think there would have been a Yakuza game on the Wii U at all if Nintendo didn't specifically request it (and used the leverage from their three-game Sonic contract to make Sega agree).

 

[Snowden's Secret]

Can someone fill me in on the importance of the Yakuza HD ports? Seeing a lot of weight being placed on it, but I'm not sure why (it's just an HD collection, right?)

Thanks in advance

 

[Chris1964]

MonHun? Sonic Racing?

According to who?

 

[Peff]

Can someone fill me in on the importance of the Yakuza HD ports? Seeing a lot of weight being placed on it, but I'm not sure why (it's just an HD collection, right?)

Thanks in advance

It's pretty much the only japanese third-party release left for the Wii U, other than the Power Up upgrade for Romance of the Three Kingdoms XII and the recently announced Monster Hunter Frontier G.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Nintendo presumably wanted to be able to tout having a Yakuza game.

Sega was willing to test the waters with a port of the HD port of the first two games.

The idea behind it is pretty clear, even if one disagrees with the premise: The owners of the Wii U may not have played these titles before, let's see if the Wii U expands the audience for Yakuza titles. It's the same premise as a lot of third party titles.

The conclusions to be drawn are the Wii U installed base either doesn't contain a substantial audience for Yakuza titles or the audience for Yakuza titles within the Wii U installed base has access to the title on another system already.

The end result is poor Yakuza sales.
The consequence is no more Yakuza on the Wii U.

You can replace Yakuza with a different title in either Japan or any other market; Need for Speed, Batman, even the oft-maligned and ill-conceived Mass Effect 3 port, the same logical procession likely still occurs.

 

[Madouu]

I really don't think there would have been a Yakuza game on the Wii U at all if Nintendo didn't specifically request it (and used the leverage from their three-game Sonic contract to make Sega agree).

I think Nintendo asked for a title and that's the only thing Sega were willing to offer (understandably since any other port would've failed just as badly, if not worse). I don't think Nintendo would specifically request Yakuza 1 & 2 HD, but of course I have no definitive proof of that.

Why do you think Nintendo specifically requested Yakuza 1 & 2 HD when they know it performed badly on the PS3?

 

[Kid Ying]

My expectations for Yakuza 1 & 2 HD were really, really low, yet it managed to do even worse than I thought. It had an atrocious first day sell-through rate (below 10%). I want to think that retailers finally learned the lesson when it comes to Wii U software sales, especially for third-party ones, so its shipment must be small which makes this even a bigger bomb. I guess that being the main event of that SEGA direct wasn't enough to garner interest among Wii U users lol



That's not a crazy prediction at all. I don't know if it will reach that high level of sales, but I won't be surprised if it gets really close to that mark (~350k).

P.S. king zell, I miss your weekly posts with pictures of new releases.

I dont think overshipment is a problem. I cant possibly imagine retailers ordering many copies of injustice or sniper elite. Till now, the only serious case of overshipping was revelations and that was understandable, since it was a big release.

And people do much noise for nothing. No one expected yakuza to do better and revelations bombing was much worse for the wiiu. Yakuza is an unwanted port on an unwanted platform. Thats about it. The only thing i want is to see it selling enough copies to enter the dengeki, cause the last unwanted games didnt even do that.

Also, i dont understand the "everyone played already" excuse. If everyone that has a wiiu has a ps3, theres no reason to port the games for the wiiu, since its the same audience that will play no matter what. Yakuza should not be made on the wiiu. Thats it

 

[Coldnoodle]

According to who?

Furthermore, “Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) G HD Ver.”, which was our first title for the new home video console “Wii U” that was launched in December 2012, also became a smash hit. However, its package sales were generally soft.

http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/data/result.html

And Sonic Racing sold 300,000 units on Wii U.

http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/pdf/release/tanshin_hosoku_20130510_e_final.pdf

Those are probably the only two third party ''success'' stories on Wii U.

I'm interested to see how Disney Infinity, Skylanders and Rayman Legends will do.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Also, i dont understand the "everyone played already" excuse. If everyone that has a wiiu has a ps3, theres no reason to port the games for the wiiu, since its the same audience that will play no matter what. Yakuza should not be made on the wiiu. Thats it

That's somewhat the crux of the situation though for any of these multiplatform/third party games.

To the third party publisher the question is: What is the point of the Wii U SKUs? (And if there's no point, then to them really what is the point of the Wii U at all?)

If it doesn't increase the audience for a title in some manner and/or doesn't drive a transition of the audience from the current platforms... then one really can't justify an SKU.

 

[Kid Ying]

i would say maybe if you consider the suposedly download sales (which i believe, since its always on the top 10 download) you could say DQ10 was a sucess, but considering that probably all of those sales were from people that already bought the game and were just upgrading, Sqenix didnt bring a lot of new people to the game by releasing for the wiiu, so i dont think you could say it was a sucess.

 

[Cosmo Clock 21]

http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/data/result.html

And Sonic Racing sold 300,000 units on Wii U.

http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/pdf/release/tanshin_hosoku_20130510_e_final.pdf

Those are probably the only two third party ''success'' stories on Wii U.

I'm interested to see how Disney Infinity, Skylanders and Rayman Legends will do.

But we know 3G HD performed in line with P3rd HD in Japan (aka poorly). And that it was outsold 3:2 by the 3DS version in the states where a home console SKU mattered the most.

 

[crinale]

But we know 3G HD performed in line with P3rd HD in Japan (aka poorly). And that it was outsold 3:2 by the 3DS version in the states where a home console SKU mattered the most.

To be fair Monster Hunter P3rd is the best selling third party game of all time in Japan, so HD version performed well in spite of rather small ratio (10% of original version).

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

But we know 3G HD performed in line with P3rd HD in Japan (aka poorly). And that it was outsold 3:2 by the 3DS version in the states where a home console SKU mattered the most.

3rd HD did 400k+ iirc. Ultimate is 400k+ but with both SKU's, WiiU is around 200k+ iirc.

 

[Snowden's Secret]

It's pretty much the only japanese third-party release left for the Wii U, other than the Power Up upgrade for Romance of the Three Kingdoms XII and the recently announced Monster Hunter Frontier G.

But that doesn't mean anything about Yakuza's performance specifically? That's us just putting symbolic importance on it (similar to Pikmin 3 being some sort of supposed "system seller" simply because it was Nintendo's first major release in almost a year).

 

[crinale]

But that doesn't mean anything about Yakuza's performance specifically? That's us just putting symbolic importance on it (similar to Pikmin 3 being some sort of supposed "system seller" simply because it was Nintendo's first major release in almost a year).

Nintendo has dedicated like 1/3 of its Direct time once for Yakuza HD, so people expected that would be something big.

 

[Kid Ying]

It honestly doesnt mean much. I think revelations was much more of an indicative than Yakuza. In fact, i dont think Yakuza is an indicative at all, except that people didnt want the game.

And the direct was just nintendo trying to hype something that didnt deserve it. Just like they do with a lot of other games that will do jack shit. The next one will be epic mickey (which i still think will perform better than yakuza).

 

[michaelius]

Well but with so few releases shouldn't that userbase pick up games they wouldn't be normally buying ?

 

[Cosmo Clock 21]

3rd HD did 400k+ iirc. Ultimate is 400k+ but with both SKU's, WiiU is around 200k+ iirc.

Uhh, 3G is at 2mil combined SKU. So both HD versions did about a tenth of their original counterparts.

 

[EDarkness]

Nintendo presumably wanted to be able to tout having a Yakuza game.

Sega was willing to test the waters with a port of the HD port of the first two games.

The idea behind it is pretty clear, even if one disagrees with the premise: The owners of the Wii U may not have played these titles before, let's see if the Wii U expands the audience for Yakuza titles. It's the same premise as a lot of third party titles.

The conclusions to be drawn are the Wii U installed base either doesn't contain a substantial audience for Yakuza titles or the audience for Yakuza titles within the Wii U installed base has access to the title on another system already.

The end result is poor Yakuza sales.
The consequence is no more Yakuza on the Wii U.

You can replace Yakuza with a different title in either Japan or any other market; Need for Speed, Batman, even the oft-maligned and ill-conceived Mass Effect 3 port, the same logical procession likely still occurs.

The head guy came out little while after the announcement and pretty much said this was nothing important and shot down the idea of more support. So who the hell were they trying to get to buy this game? Really? Anyone who may have been interested in the game can just stick with what they had on Playstations because there won't be any new games coming from the series on Nintendo platforms. What was the point of telling potential customers that in the beginning?

 

[Nirolak]

Well but with so few releases shouldn't that userbase pick up games they wouldn't be normally buying ?

It depends.

If they only own a Wii U, yes, but I think one thing that can get ignored is that many of these people likely own another platform as well, and in a drought, will simply buy games on their other systems instead.

Most people don't have to settle for what's available on one specific platform, especially if it is brand new, and thus games won't necessarily get a big boost for being on a platform with few games.

 

[mao2]

I think Nintendo asked for a title and that's the only thing Sega were willing to offer (understandably since any other port would've failed just as badly, if not worse). I don't think Nintendo would specifically request Yakuza 1 & 2 HD, but of course I have no definitive proof of that.

Why do you think Nintendo specifically requested Yakuza 1 & 2 HD when they know it performed badly on the PS3?

According to Media Create, Yakuza 1&2 HD Edition sold 92,438 copies on the PS3. That's a pretty decent number for a HD port isn't it?
http://geimin.net/da/db/2012_ne_mc/index.php

 

[Kid Ying]

The head guy came out little while after the announcement and pretty much said this was nothing important and shot down the idea of more support. So who the hell were they trying to get to buy this game? Really? Anyone who may have been interested in the game can just stick with what they had on Playstations because there won't be any new games coming from the series on Nintendo platforms. What was the point of telling potential customers that in the beginning?

I'm not saying that this couldn't damage some potential sales, but it's not like everyone cares much. I knew that and almost bought it (didn't because i've already played those games, but playing the demo made me feel nostalgic). Some people care if the game will care for future support, but most of them wants to play the game that already exists (in this case, almost no one want's it, but you get the idea).

And it's not like Wiiu owners have nothing to buy and need to buy something to play on it. They could buy something for other console, for their 3DS, or, if you look at the top 50 you can see what Wiiu owners are buying and want to buy: nintendo games.

 

[BlackJace]

According to who?

I was under the impression that both exceeded. If that's not the case, forgive me.

 

[shinra-bansho]

The head guy came out little while after the announcement and pretty much said this was nothing important and shot down the idea of more support. So who the hell were they trying to get to buy this game? Really? Anyone who may have been interested in the game can just stick with what they had on Playstations because there won't be any new games coming from the series on Nintendo platforms. What was the point of telling potential customers that in the beginning?

Nagoshi was very upfront about it being an "experiment" to see whether there was a market for Yakuza on the Wii U hardware, with very low expectations. He didn't commit one way or another to there being future Yakuza games on the system as far as I'm aware; it seemed pretty clear he/Sega wanted to see how the userbase responded. Being non-committal to a flailing system isn't the same as ruling it out.

Again, you don't need to agree with the idea of this experiment, but it was quite clear that they wanted something cheap to produce that could test the waters and see if further investment was worthwhile. And it clearly isn't.

 

[prwxv3]

first day sellthrough

[3DS] One Piece: Romance Dawn - Bouken no Yoake - 30% (100k initial shipment)
[3DS] Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-Kun SP: Rantou Kyousoukyoku - 30%
[3DS] Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger: Game de Kaburincho!! < 10%
[WIU] Yakuza 1 & 2 HD for Wii U < 10%

I guess they are not getting yakuza 3,4,5 now.

 

[cw_sasuke]

I guess they are not getting yakuza 3,4,5 now.

Chibi Yakuza incoming using Hatsune Miku - Project Mirai (3DS) art style to be announced as their big 3rd party game at the next Direct.

 

[guek]

Again, you don't need to agree with the idea of this experiment, but it was quite clear that they wanted something cheap to produce that could test the waters and see if further investment was worthwhile. And it clearly isn't.

But if you disagree with the idea behind the experiment, you also disagree with your conclusion. There is no conceivable way a port of a year old HD remaster of a game that came out years ago was going to do well. That's not to say I fault Sega and co for thinking the wii u is a poor investment but using this game's performance as rationale is pretty idiotic.

 

[Spiegel]

But if you disagree with the idea behind the experiment, you also disagree with your conclusion. There is no conceivable way a port of a year old HD remaster of a game that came out years ago was going to do well. That's not to say I fault Sega and co for thinking the wii u is a poor investment but using this game's performance as rationale is pretty idiotic.

There's not doing well and there's selling <10% in the first day.

It's not the same thing for publishers.

 

[metalslimer]

Its not the fact the game didn't sell well. Sega probably expected that. Its the fact that its another game that cant sell its shipment and leaves a ton of copies on the shelves. The shipment was probably less than 15k. Its another reason on a long pile of reasons that there is no need to support Wiiu. There is no excuse for a less than 10% first day sales for this kind of game.

 

[Kid Ying]

Its not the fact the game didn't sell well. Sega probably expected that. Its the fact that its another game that cant sell its shipment and leaves a ton of copies on the shelves. The shipment was probably less than 15k. Its another reason on a long pile of reasons that there is no need to support Wiiu. There is no excuse for a less than 10% first day sales for this kind of game.

Why Sega should care that much? If they knew the game was going to do jack shit and overshipped the game, then, theyre geniuses. The retailers that should know better after a lot of bombs.

I still think this means nothing more than the fact that there will be no more games from yakuza for the wiiu.

 

[StreetsAhead]

And now we know how NCL intends to advertise The Wonderful 101 in Japan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl_xUBaVUfA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXTOV1azklM

 

[guek]

Its not the fact the game didn't sell well. Sega probably expected that. Its the fact that its another game that cant sell its shipment and leaves a ton of copies on the shelves. The shipment was probably less than 15k. Its another reason on a long pile of reasons that there is no need to support Wiiu. There is no excuse for a less than 10% first day sales for this kind of game.

If they expected the game to sell poorly then what's the point at all? Also, don't throw around numbers as conjecture unless they're in any way reliable.

The problem is with talking about being disappointed with something that was supposedly expected to fail spectacularly is it's impossible to know what those internal expectations were to begin with. You really think they only shipped 15k units? Then fuck, why does it matter whether they sold 1k or 15k, it would have still been a complete waste of everybody's time. At what point would yakuza on wiiu suddenly have become "worthwhile?" At 15,000 units?! That's idiotic.

Some games are sent to die and then there are games like this that really has no reason to exist at all.

 

[metalslimer]

Like i said, there is a difference between not selling well and what this will do. At worst they probably expected to break even on the port, and if it did better than so be it. Publishers look at the pattern of the majority of 3rd party games underperforming relative to stock shipments and steer clear. Is the biggest disaster for wiiu? No, but it certainly isn't helping and likely wont go unnoticed. You can say that's dumb, but thq used Deadly Creature sales to end Wii support and EA used Dead Space Extraction

 

[Kid Ying]

On regard of yakuza sales, i have one more thing to say. i know miiverse comunities mean nothing, but now, yakuza comunnity got 680 people. injustice at the same time of its release was at like 800 people, and injustice didnt even showed up on the top 50.

I mean, theres a possibility that the game sold reaaaally bad. Doesnt look like there was any interest on it at all. I dont believe that we might see the game out of the top 50, but man, doesnt look like we will see much higher than the 47 position.

 

[guek]

Like i said, there is a difference between not selling well and what this will do. At worst they probably expected to break even on the port, and if it did better than so be it. Publishers look at the pattern of the majority of 3rd party games underperforming relative to stock shipments and steer clear. Is the biggest disaster for wiiu? No, but it certainly isn't helping and likely wont go unnoticed. You can say that's dumb, but thq used Deadly Creature sales to end Wii support and EA used Dead Space Extraction

Surely you see the difference between those two games and something like yakuza HD. I'm saying it's dumb to be disappointed at something you knew or should have known was going to disappoint. There are just some games that shouldn't be used as a barometer when it comes to a market's viability. It's like saying MS and Sony platforms should stop getting resident evil games since RE:R did mediocre.

 

[schuelma]

So W101 just got its own Direct, commercials are out, and a demo is live.

Still think Nintendo mishandled things initially, but they appear to be giving it a decent push now. We will see how it does..

 

[Road]

SOFTWARE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|System | This Week  | Last Week  | Last Year  |     YTD    |  Last YTD  |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  ALL  |    657.000 |    957.000 |  1.261.368 | 24.894.000 | 28.742.000 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

If I were you people, I'd be more concerned about the shittastic software sales overwall. I mean, unless you don't mind playing mostly social, browser games. =P

3.8 million behind and MH4 is still one month away. By the way, Capcom needs to boost the shipment. I wonder if being so close to Pokémon X/Y is being a problem for manufacturing carts.

 

[metalslimer]

Surely you see the difference between those two games and something like yakuza HD. I'm saying it's dumb to be disappointed at something you knew or should have known was going to disappoint. There are just some games that shouldn't be used as a barometer when it comes to a market's viability. It's like saying MS and Sony platforms should stop getting resident evil games since RE:R did mediocre.

Well yes i agree with you, but my point was more that 3rd parties will look for anything to justify them not supporting this system. Would a success have swayed EA to make more games? No, likely not but maybe yakuza 3 and 4 could have made their way over and maybe this leads to more games. At some point some game has to do well to get 3rd parties back on board and the more games that bomb even if its obvious makes it that much harder

| ALL | 657.000 | 957.000 | 1.261.368 | 24.894.000 | 28.742.000 |

Well the ps3 is winding down, the wiiu is non existent, psp has basically nothing left, and vita is a niche platform. When there is only 2 systems with a healthy amount of support its not surprising. The DS had pokemon last year

 

[Kid Ying]

I think W101 has no place to go but up. Looks like the direct was very well received and the game is gathering attention (for all the right reasons). Now lets just wait to see if the people will respond nicely to it. I dont think those ads are great, but they are better than nothing. Nintendo needs to air them a lot.

Also, its the first nintendo game with a demo on the japanese eshop. Hope it pays well for them and they start to do more. I guess they knew W101 looks like a game that needed to be played.

 

[jj984jj]

So W101 just got its own Direct, commercials are out, and a demo is live.

Still think Nintendo mishandled things initially, but they appear to be giving it a decent push now. We will see how it does..

It's about to come out, this isn't a new thing with Nintendo.

 

[metalslimer]

I think W101 has no place to go but up. Looks like the direct was very well received and the game is gathering attention (for all the right reasons). Now lets just wait to see if the people will respond nicely to it. I dont think those ads are great, but they are better than nothing. Nintendo needs to air them a lot.

Also, its the first nintendo game with a demo on the japanese eshop. Hope it pays well for them and they start to do more. I guess they knew W101 looks like a game that needed to be played.

I still dont see it doing well, but i feel somewhat better about its chances. It seems really late to come in with a game like this and try to hype it. An anime should have happened months ago. Still dont see it hitting 100k

 

[schuelma]

It's about to come out, this isn't a new thing with Nintendo.

I realize that, but I still maintain that this is the type of game that would have been better served with a more traditional ad push starting months ago.

 

[CrisKre]

If I were you people, I'd be more concerned about the shittastic software sales overwall. I mean, unless you don't mind playing mostly social, browser games. =P

3.8 million behind and MH4 is still one month away. By the way, Capcom needs to boost the shipment. I wonder if being so close to Pokémon X/Y is being a problem for manufacturing carts.

Thankfully monhun and Pokemon will save the day.

 

[jj984jj]

I realize that, but I still maintain that this is the type of game that would have been better served with a more traditional ad push starting months ago.

All new IPs would, Nintendo does not care. I remember one of the worst cases was Soma Bringer, we literally didn't have anything but a few screens until about 2 weeks before it came out.

 

[metalslimer]

All new IPs would, Nintendo does not care. I remember one of the worst cases was Soma Bringer, we literally didn't have anything but a few screens until about 2 weeks before it came out.

Better than excitebots being announced with like 3 weeks to go, but i assume you meant japan only. Nintendo will never get a core ip to the size of zelda again because they dont know how to advertize games that dont already have a following

 

[Pie and Beans]

So W101 just got its own Direct, commercials are out, and a demo is live.

Still think Nintendo mishandled things initially, but they appear to be giving it a decent push now. We will see how it does..

If Nintendo was ever serious about bringing their guns to bare on making this game a success, it required the full celebrities around the world treatment wearing Wonder Eyes masks and playing it in some Wii U styled living room and blanket bombing big TV shows with it, Pikmin, and a price-drop. Standard gameplay advert is pretty bog standard budget advertising really, ironically when people complain "JUST SHOW GAME".

I'm glad the people giving in to maximum hype today will definitely have a great game to enjoy, but the unpleasant "why is no-one buying this?!" come down will be an equally fresh experience for that sudden and new subset of Platinum fanbase members.

 

[schuelma]

I'm glad the people giving in to maximum hype today will definitely have a great game to enjoy, but the unpleasant "why is no-one buying this?!" come down will be an equally fresh experience for that sudden and new subset of Platinum fanbase members.

I've read this sentence three times now and I am not sure what it means. Are you subtly criticizing Wii U owners for being excited? Are you looking forward to the game bombing?

 

[jj984jj]

Better than excitebots being announced with like 3 weeks to go, but i assume you meant japan only. Nintendo will never get a core ip to the size of zelda again because they dont know how to advertize games that dont already have a following

I didn't mean just Japan, but I was talking more about new IPs.

 

[Pie and Beans]

I've read this sentence three times now and I am not sure what it means. Are you subtly criticizing Wii U owners for being excited? Are you looking forward to the game bombing?

Misery loves company! Now fresh-faced warriors can enjoy the "Vanquish sold... what..." experience. Thankfully Rising was more of a net win in quality AND sales, but theres always the sour "how long is this company going to be around if this keeps up..." after-dinner mint for most Platinum outings, now paired with WiiU woe.