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[BenjaminBirdie]

My argument is that you won't see any more of the OPPOSITE, which would be titles like Blue Dragon that are crafted for the Japanese audience then flipped for the US.

I think it's silly to draw that conclusion until Blue Dragon roundly flops ass in the rest of the world. If it does well, however, that would be all the motivation any developer needs to at least give it a shot.

 

[klee123]

Oh, I'm not saying the game did exceptionally either... but come on. What do people expect, it's still on Xbox 360. Lost Planet wasn't ever going to do that well in Japan, it's clearly being made primarily for the western market (like Dead Rising).

I reckon they wanted to appeal to the Japanese audiences too otherwise they wouldn't have hired Lee Byung Hun to model as the main character. I mean, if US was Capcom's main target, then they could have modelled Wayne by a nobody and save a crapload of money during the process. I highly doubt the average American would even know who the heck Lee Byung Hun is.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

I think it's silly to draw that conclusion until Blue Dragon roundly flops ass in the rest of the world. If it does well, however, that would be all the motivation any developer needs to at least give it a shot.

I would agree with you were it not for the PS3 and Wii.

 

[BenjaminBirdie]

I would agree with you were it not for the PS3 and Wii.

So, you figure they'll just be multiplatform? I still don't think that if Blue Dragon performs well in NA, developers will ignore 360 is a viable JRPG platform.

 

[Yamauchi]

Nintendo needs to ship more Wiis.

 

[starship]

Nintendo needs to ship more Wiis.

Nintendo is on track to ship more than 1m Wiis by the end of the year.

 

[GreenNight]

Nintendo is on track to ship more than 1m Wiis by the end of the year.

His statement still stands. Nintendo needs to ship more.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

So, you figure they'll just be multiplatform? I still don't think that if Blue Dragon performs well in NA, developers will ignore 360 is a viable JRPG platform.

Well here's the thing.

The XBOX 360 reminds me a lot of the GameCube in Japan. It's not the popular system, and as such it's userbase won't grow as steadily.

When Tales of Symphonia debuted for the Cube in Japan, there was a lot of bitching because it wasn't released on the more widely accepted PS2. I think this sort of situation will translate to the 360. in the case of JRPGs:

Any game made 'exclusively' for the 360 will eventually be flipped to a console with a higher userbase (ie: the Wii and PS3 natively) which will discourage developers with even bothering to waste the resources starting a project on the 360 to begin with.

Any multiplatform games that debut simultaneously will sell like gangbusters on the more popular system, and only to the marginal diehard 360 fanbase on the XBOX 360.

Basically, if the 360 has to compete directly with any other system in Japan for a title, it will be thumped easily, discouraging developers a la the GameCube last gen.

There are other variables that must be considered (The European and North American market, Microsoft moneyhats, Capcom, etc.) but these will be exceptions and not the rule. As far as Japanese-centric development I really do believe Microsoft's bed has been made.

 

[donny2112]

Look at PSP go... Highest week?

Highest week since last year at this time.

19 Dec - 25 Dec 2005
PSP: 161,332


YTD / LTD

NDS: 8,182,409 / 13,829,358
PSP: 1,780,498 / 4,463,454

Wii: 823,311 / 823,311
PS3: 385,831 / 385,831
360: 177,266 / 247,793

 

[starship]

His statement still stands. Nintendo needs to ship more.

But they can't, you know how difficult a worldwide launch is?
I think Nintendo is on pace to ship 1.1m in Japan by the end of 2006 which is even higher than what they promised before.

 

[jarrod]

My argument is that you won't see any more of the OPPOSITE, which would be titles like Blue Dragon that are crafted for the Japanese audience then flipped for the US.

The danger in that thinking is that it doesn't allow for the sizable western audience to whom Japanese content also caters. Blue Dragon's going to probably sell pretty well here too, it's not like these games have just Japan to count on.

I reckon they wanted to appeal to the Japanese audiences too otherwise they wouldn't have hired Lee Byung Hun to model as the main character. I mean, if US was Capcom's main target, then they could have modelled Wayne by a nobody and save a crapload of money during the process. I highly doubt the average American would even know who the heck Lee Byung Hun is.

Well sure, Capcom's making their games to appeal worldwide and that'd include Japan. I suspect Hun would be quite a draw in other Asian markets too (where Xbox suppossedly does quite a bit better and where Capcom evidently is looking to grow their business significantly), it's quite an assumption his hiring was centered on the JP market alone and to then leap to it's decent (for Xbox) software sales in the region equating to failure.

This was a new unproven brand on a successor to one of Japan's most unpopular machines. Meanwhile it sold the same as Armored Core 4, which is in basically the reverse situation.

 

[ethelred]

* Portable Ops' sales are really impressive. I'm really glad that some big publishers are still able to get some really successful games on the PSP when they put in strong efforts. And I hope a few more keep trying despite its lagging fortunes.

* So are Tales of the World's sales. Looks like Namco was right in going with the PSP -- the fanbase is there, and they're rewarding the series' move there.

* Still the big disappointments: Mega Man Star Force and Chocobo & the Magic Picture Book. Both games have done well under what I expected (or at least hoped, with Chocobo), even though we don't have solid numbers yet... and while I don't know what Square Enix was expecting with Chocobo, we DO know what Capcom was expecting for Mega Man, and they can't be at all happy with this.

* I can't wait to see an updated LTD on Final Fantasy III. :lol

* Dawn of Mana... ugh. Sigh. Well, I theorized in last week's thread about the possibility of Seiken Densetsu 4 getting outsold by Children of Mana, and unfortunately, it looks like that's what's going to happen. :/

 

[charlequin]

Well here's the thing.

The XBOX 360 reminds me a lot of the GameCube in Japan. It's not the popular system, and as such it's userbase won't grow as steadily.

When Tales of Symphonia debuted for the Cube in Japan, there was a lot of bitching because it wasn't released on the more widely accepted PS2. I think this sort of situation will translate to the 360. in the case of JRPGs:

Any game made 'exclusively' for the 360 will eventually be flipped to a console with a higher userbase (ie: the Wii and PS3 natively) which will discourage developers with even bothering to waste the resources starting a project on the 360 to begin with.

The difference I see is that ToS hit GameCube in 2003, well after it came out and long, long after PS2 was firmly ensconced in its inarguable leadership position. This spate of jRPGs is hitting the 360 well before PS3 (the hardware-comparable competing system) has a meaningful installed base. It's not likely to be cost-effective to port any of the 2007 RPGS on Xbox to PS3 right away.

 

[jj984jj]

That's what Capcom gets for pushing it with 3 version of the game at the same time.

 

[NintendosBooger]

How can anyone applaud the sales of any of these systems or games at this time of the year when they're obviously grossly inflated as a result of the holidays? A lot of those new titles wouldn't crack triple digits during a regular week.

 

[ethelred]

How can anyone applaud the sales of any of these systems or games at this time of the year when they're obviously grossly inflated as a result of the holidays? A lot of those new titles wouldn't crack triple digits during a regular week.

Because we evaluate games based on how they sell, not under vague hypothetical scenarios in which they would have sold less but didn't because they actually sold more in reality.

 

[cw_sasuke]

mega man looks like a ****in gba game...its capcoms fault...

 

[ethelred]

mega man looks like a ****in gba game...its capcoms fault...

Er, no, it doesn't. Any video of the battle system makes it very clear the game is way, way beyond the GBA. They implemented the 3D cel-shading extremely well in those.

 

[Arsenal]

My argument is that you won't see any more of the OPPOSITE, which would be titles like Blue Dragon that are crafted for the Japanese audience then flipped for the US.

I think that will depend a lot on how BD is received in the west.

 

[NintendosBooger]

Because we evaluate games based on how they sell, not under vague hypothetical scenarios in which they would have sold less but didn't because they actually sold more in reality as a result of a holiday boost.

Fixed.

And who's "we"?

 

[ethelred]

I don't understand a single thing being discussed in this thread.

Fixed.

Yes, games sell more during the holidays. You've stumbled upon a secret bigger than the Da Vinci Code. Bravo, Sherlock.

I think we all expect this and understand this. I think publishers maybe do, too, and that's why they release some of their major titles around that time, or try system relaunches around that time... but I'm not quite sure.

The end result, of course, is that the games still sold whatever they sold, and the games are a success regardless of the factors which led them to that point.

 

[Pureauthor]

Fixed.

And who's "we"?

Anyone who has a functioning brain stem.

 

[cw_sasuke]

Er, no, it doesn't. Any video of the battle system makes it very clear the game is way, way beyond the GBA. They implemented the 3D cel-shading extremely well in those.

but its only the battlescreen - they should just put more effort on their ds project look at se....its like a whole genration difference -.-

 

[Clever Pun]

Does the DS have the most sales for a console in a single year? What's the next closest?

 

[MrSardonic]

Does the DS have the most sales for a console in a single year?

yes...by a very long way (~3.5m more than the next closest)

What's the next closest?

PlayStation sold ~5m in 1997

 

[Il Comodino]

here others numbers

http://www.vgcharts.org/japweekly.php

Hardware: Console Week Weekly Total
DS 108 508,750
(+57%) 13,944,500

Wii 4 286,500
(+185%) 859,000

PSP 107 106,250
(+106%) 4,644,250

PS3 7 101,500
(+40%) 420,500

PS2 356 69,750
(+65%) 21,818,000

X360 55 30,500
(+69%) 281,000

GBA 301 6,500
(+73%) 16,640,750

GC 276 1,750
(+40%) 4,015,250

 

[Jammy]

How does ioi have such a big discrepancy for his PS3 numbers?

 

[Barf_the_Mog]

This holiday season in Japan will ensure that the PSP will have at least another solid year...things look a bit hazy for 2008, though. :-/ I've gotten over blaming the Japanese people for not buying the system, but this week does give me hope for 2007.

 

[Barf_the_Mog]

How does ioi have such a big discrepancy for his PS3 numbers?

He ioi-zed the numbers given from preliminary reports......yeah, I can't believe it either.

 

[qirex]

* So are Tales of the World's sales. Looks like Namco was right in going with the PSP -- the fanbase is there, and they're rewarding the series' move there.

I think a lot of people [myself included] looked at the massive selection of Playstation and PS2 RPGs and assumed that the PSP would be a killer RPG system which it never really became. I'm still hoping it turns out that way, with all the space on UMD and the great screen I've been surprised there aren't more.

 

[jeremy1456]

Well here's the thing.

The XBOX 360 reminds me a lot of the GameCube in Japan. It's not the popular system, and as such it's userbase won't grow as steadily.

That's actually a terrible comparison, no offense.

The Gamecube came very close to selling 1 million units in it's first year alone, mainly because of smash bros. melee.

Xbox 360 has just barely hit 200,000 on it's 2nd year.

EDIT: Gamecube was a disaster in Japan, but I don' teven think there's a word to describe the 360's performance.

 

[qirex]

EDIT: Gamecube was a disaster in Japan, but I don' teven think there's a word to describe the 360's performance.

"Solid but not spectacular"

 

[Odysseus]

EDIT: Gamecube was a disaster in Japan, but I don' teven think there's a word to describe the 360's performance.

Oh, there's a word.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Between just Wii/PS3, weekly split is 78.4/21.6. Lifetime split is 68.1/31.9. If Wii stops selling and PS3 continues at this rate, it catches up February 1, 2007.

If Wii can sell as much (or more) next week, it will be around 1.1 million in Japan; making that 4 million worldwide goal a lot more possible than it seemed from the last few weeks. It's also now possibly ahead of GameCube at the same time of year after its launch, but since we don't have MC weeklies for that time period it's a bit of an apple/oranges affair and we have to wait for Famitsu to catch up. After the week of December 17, 2001 Famitsu had GCN at 795,207. After the week of December 24, 2001 Famitsu had GCN at 1,064,457. GCN actually had higher numbers the second of those weeks, while the usual trend is a bit down... I don't know if it was a supply issue or what.


Ahaha. Now that there's only one week of sales remaining for the year proper, the stat of how well a system will have to sell compared to the previous year to reach the same yearly total is looking a bit ridiculous.

GCN: 402.5%
Wii: N/A
GBA: 1625.9%
GBASP: 918.4%
GBM: 895.0%
DS: 325.6%
DSL: N/A
PS2: 321.8%
PS3: N/A
PSP: 154.4%
Xbox: 3912.6%
X360: -593.4%

GBA total: 921.3%
DS total: -408.1%

Nintendo portables: -197.7%

Nintendo consoles: -4969.9%
Sony consoles: 230.1%
Microsoft consoles: -528.7%

Nintendo total: -346.8%
Sony total: 134.1%

Consoles total: -221.9%
Portables total: -211.4%

Total total: -213.0%

Look at PSP go... Highest week?

Not quite, but close. Launch week PSP was 160,019. Last year on the equivalent of this week (12/19/2005) was the highest week: 161,332.

Where's my Pacman chart?

Heh. No proper Pac-Man chart this week. Thanks to nothing being over 50%, it reverts to a regular pie chart with Pac-Man black background and blue text.

http://joshuajamesslone.name/gamecharting/pacchartweekly.php?date1=2006-12-18
Individually there are console and portable Pac charts, though.
http://joshuajamesslone.name/gamecharting/test11pacconsole.php
http://joshuajamesslone.name/gamecharting/test11pacportable.php

How can anyone applaud the sales of any of these systems or games at this time of the year when they're obviously grossly inflated as a result of the holidays?

We're not in a vacuum. We have past holiday numbers to compare to.

 

[LevelNth]

I wonder if the PSP can crawl it's way past the Saturn's Japan LTD to become the most successful second place system ever. It'd be a pretty impressive feat considering the asstacular software sales and the unprecendented DS mania.

How much more does it have to sell, I don't quite remember the Saturn's total? 1-2m or so?

 

[Odysseus]

I wonder if the PSP can crawl it's way past the Saturn's Japan LTD to become the most successful second place system ever. It'd be a pretty impressive feat considering the asstacular software sales and the unprecendented DS mania.

How much more does it have to sell, I don't quite remember the Saturn's total? 1-2m or so?

Saturn outsold the N64 over there?

 

[LevelNth]

Saturn outsold the N64 over there?

I thought it did, just barely. I could be remembering wrong. Both are really close LTD regardless.

 

[Aadil]

Wii killed Pacman :O

 

[jj984jj]

Wii killed Pacman :O

It has to be done like this now:

 

[HisshouBuraiKen]

It has to be done like this now:

Needs about -45 degrees rotation, but well played

 

[jarrod]

Sega Saturn = 5.740.000
Nintendo 64 = 5.540.000

...it's worth noting though that there were other 3rd party Saturn variants (JVC V-Saturn, Hitachi Hi-Saturn, etc) which would probably push Saturn's total base over 6 million.


As for PSP, I dunno... it really depends on how the next year plays out. It needs a little over a million to beat SEGA's own Saturn figures, but year on year figures for it seem to be declining in what should now be the prime of it's cycle. I think it'll be more frontloaded when we look back, more like GameCube.

Saturn itself probably could've sold another 1-2 million in Japan had SEGA not prematurely killed the machine (in all sectors, from retail, to media to developer support) to make way for Dreamcast. A real shame there.


edit- And as for most successful 2nd place system ever... no chance in hell is PSP going to beat out either PS3 or Wii for that title.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

That's actually a terrible comparison, no offense.

The Gamecube came very close to selling 1 million units in it's first year alone, mainly because of smash bros. melee.

Xbox 360 has just barely hit 200,000 on it's 2nd year.

EDIT: Gamecube was a disaster in Japan, but I don' teven think there's a word to describe the 360's performance.

You're sticking too closely to my example. I wasn't talking about GameCube marketshare vs. 360 marketshare. I was talking about 3rd party developer interest in the 360 being akin to GameCube.

 

[jarrod]

You're sticking too closely to my example. I wasn't talking about GameCube marketshare vs. 360 marketshare. I was talking about 3rd party developer interest in the 360 being akin to GameCube.

That's still faulty logic though, as marketshare's one of the prime motivators for developer interest. If GameCube was 4-5 million units ahead of PS2 in 2001 worldwide (rather than 10 million units behind), developer interest in the platform would've been quite different.

 

[Jammy]

All of this Wii demand/buzz/sales makes me hope some Japanese developers get some sense knocked into them and make some damn RPGs for the system. DQSwords looks great, FFCC: The Crystal Bearers should be great if it's online, and Sword of Legendia hopefully is a worthy part of the Tales series, but there should be so much more for a system getting these types of sales.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

That's still faulty logic though, as marketshare's one of the prime motivators for developer interest. If GameCube was 4-5 million units ahead of PS2 in 2001 worldwide (rather than 10 million units behind), developer interest in the platform would've been quite different.

But it wasn't, which is why developer interest was as stagnant as it was.

I see where you're going with that example, but the 360 LTD has been eclipsed by two competitors in less than a month. In fact, the Wii sold more than the 360's LTD in Japan THIS WEEK.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

I did not expect numbers until tonight... Easter came early?

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

I did not expect numbers until tonight... Easter came early?

Easter 2006 never left. It's like a time machine.

 

[RaijinFY]

btw, is there the Famitsu numbers from last week?

 

[jimbo]

Wow at Wii numbers. Wow at 360 doing 17k again. And the PS3 is steadily going up.(do not care about handhelds)

Does anyone know what the prices are for the 3 systems, including core and premium versions for the PS3 and Xbox 360?

 

[donny2112]

btw, is there the Famitsu numbers from last week?

I think they'll come out late tonight.