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Media Create Sales 12/10 - 12/16 2007

Minsc said:
If third party support doesn't move to the Wii like the DS, and 2008 sees no major 3rd party releases except Monster Hunter 3, is the system's future sales doomed?

Nope - It'll be just fine, as is obvious....it outsells the others by such a margin when available that there's nothing that can reverse such mindshare. However, you'll see a fair few publishers/developers deservedly going bankrupt if they stubbornly ignore the console. :lol
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
PantherLotus said:
To the point, though...anybody notice how bright and colorful and mario-like these titles are? I made a post a long time ago that said exactly the same thing: for 3rd parties to succeed on the Wii, THEY MUST DO THEIR OWN THING, not replicate what Nintendo is doing. I love blue skies and cute characters but it ain't workin for the 3rd parties at all. Oh wow, RE4 and REUC are doing decent? REALLY?

We need less cute shit, although I'm sure they're all very nice, and more serious shit. This first round of COPY NINTENDO MARKETING STRATEGY clearly isn't working for the Wii. Let's see what happens with the next round of games and if the 3rd parties can make basic marketing assessments and make decisions that we called for months ago.

Fighting Games (1v1, not DB)
Strategy Games (JsRPG, ie RotTK)
Racing Games (not kart)
DQ/FF games (not spinoffs)

.


I can buy this argument.
 
More worthless anecdotal numbers, this time from sinobi blog ->

▼Top 5 most preordered games on Amazon.co.jp from 12/19 through 12/25

1 - Wii : Shiren 3
2 - PS2 : Haruhi
3 - DS : Rune Factory 2
4 - DS : Card Hero
5 - PS2 : NiGHTS into Dreams

Oh, and here is the sinobi dude's short commentary (apparently something about SSB Brawl, Shiren 3's momentum, and Haruhi shortages ?...) :

セガダイレクト経由も含めると
そろそろ「スマブラ」に迫ろうかという勢いの「シレン3」がトップ。
PSP版の「涼宮ハルヒの約束」の限定版が発売前に在庫切れとなったことで
品薄が警戒されているのか、PS2版「涼宮ハルヒ」の限定版も人気が再燃、
連日多数の注文が入っている。
 
Wii comparisons - Famitsu: After 56 weeks, Wii is where GBA was at 41.8 weeks (January 4, 2002), where DS was at 54.9 weeks (December 17, 2005), where PS2 was at 72.2 weeks (July 16, 2001), and where PSP was at 107.4 weeks (December 26, 2006).

PS3 comparisons - Famitsu: After 59 weeks, PS3 is where PS2 was at 12.0 weeks (May 21, 2000), where PSP was at 35.8 weeks (August 12, 2005), where GCN was at 57.6 weeks (October 17, 2002), and where Wii was at 12.2 weeks (February 19, 2007).

PS3 is nearly caught up with GCN, though depending on what its weekly sales are like when things go back to normal, it might fall behind again when GCN hits its 2002 holiday bump. It was 2001's GCN holiday bump that put it ahead of PS3 early this year.

schuelma said:
Question- do we usually get a end of year list of LTD's?
Top 100 for the year usually comes pretty quickly.
Pureauthor said:
So unless a certain kind of game bombs on the Wii, it doesn't count? How is this any less self-deluding and idiotic than the '_____ doesn't count' people like to play?
It's less that it doesn't count, as that it doesn't matter as much. If a small game doesn't go far, it makes less impact than if a big games doesn't go far. If I throw something with little force and it doesn't go far, how much blame should I place on the wind?
Pureauthor said:
Like I said, I honestly don't remember DS getting any absolute bombs. If someone could clear this up?
We've got enough software numbers amassed we should be able to narrow things down, at least among games that ever charted at all. How would you define an absolute bomb?
moku said:
I would argue that Blue Dragon on 360 is a bigger third party title released in Japan than anything on the Wii thus far
Well, except for being a Microsoft-published title.
Jammy said:
The Chocobo DS game had to be the biggest S-E flop on that handheld, but everything else on that has been pulling very respectable if not spectacular sales.
Whether you consider them bigger flops or not, there are three other S-E games that seem to have lower lifetime sales than Chocobo Tales: Egg Monster Hero, Heroes of Mana, and Front Mission.

Speaking of Chocobo Tales, interesting sales pattern on that one. Week one (December 11) 29K. Next few weeks it didn't make the Top 30, but was at 78K by the end of the year. The week of January 8th it ranked 28th and was up to 114K total. By the middle of the next year it was at 140K.
Link316 said:
and yet the holiday rush isn't saving the other games so again quality has nothing to do with it
Quality isn't the only factor. That doesn't mean it's not a factor.
Minsc said:
I'd like to think Nintendo enjoys seeing third parties support their system, even if they don't need the support. I mean, if they really don't care, why not just make it a closed system, and prevent third parties from publishing on it all together?
That'd be a pretty big shift from it not being a top priority, to being something they actively work against.
 

Eteric Rice

Member
PantherLotus said:
Has anybody even mentioned that it might possibly be the audience that these 3rd party efforts are being marketed towards?

Opoona
Dewey
Treasure Island Z
We Love Golf
NiGHTS 2
Mario & Sonic
etc

To the point, though...anybody notice how bright and colorful and mario-like these titles are? I made a post a long time ago that said exactly the same thing: for 3rd parties to succeed on the Wii, THEY MUST DO THEIR OWN THING, not replicate what Nintendo is doing. I love blue skies and cute characters but it ain't workin for the 3rd parties at all. Oh wow, RE4 and REUC are doing decent? REALLY?

We need less cute shit, although I'm sure they're all very nice, and more serious shit. This first round of COPY NINTENDO MARKETING STRATEGY clearly isn't working for the Wii. Let's see what happens with the next round of games and if the 3rd parties can make basic marketing assessments and make decisions that we called for months ago.

Fighting Games (1v1, not DB)
Strategy Games (JsRPG, ie RotTK)
Racing Games (not kart)
DQ/FF games (not spinoffs)

It ain't hard fellas. Stop blaming Nintendo, stop blaming the public. They're being presented with the same exact blue-skied world over and over and over again. We need some dark, dramatic, over-the-top shit with actual production values.

I also mentioned a while back that it's mature stuff that's actually selling on the Wii. >_>
 

KINGMOKU

Member
Agent Icebeezy said:
Microsoft's model of embracing and assisting 3rd party should be followed by all.
I said I wouldnt continue in this thread, but I feel this needs to be discussed in more depth.

Microsofts model of embracing, and assisting third-parties was born out of necessity, not becuase they just love those third parties. They couldnt, and still couldnt survive on just first-party games.

Nintendo doesnt need to follow the Microsoft model. Even during lean times such as with the Gamecube, they still made money hand over fist, proving that they dont need third-parties to survive, or even flourish. Microsoft has entered, and participated in the industry exactly how everyone has thought they would, by throwing thier money around. What has this "model of business" got them? Second place, and in the RED by billions, two generations in a row.

Nintendo does help out certain third-parties by extending the use of thier own IP's, or in the case of Smash, placing existing IP's in smash hits titles.

It is not Nintendo's fault that third-party companies got caught holding the bag on multi-million dollar games in the pipe for the PS3. Everyone knows the saying about making assumptions, and now that they have, for the most part fucked up, you want Nintendo to bail them out by paying for part of a games development when Nintendo holds ALL the cards in every market in both the handheld, and home console areana?

Thats foolish to say the least.

Even now when the Wii is destroying all the sales records, and is on the cusp on passing the instal base of both of its competitors combined, some high-profile third-parties refuse to make thier premire titles for the Wii.

It's called the survival of the fittest, and like I said many months ago, you will see some really large third-parties fail, or flounder badly, while vurtial unknowns, or new starts-ups become massive on the back of the Wii becuase of this arrogance.

I have zero doubt in my mind that if a massive third-party title hit the Wii, and was marketed just like it is on either the PS3/360, it would sell boatloads of copies. I could use many examples of certain titles that if shifted to the Wii, would sell imense amount of copies.


As for the several games in question that have "bombed", I agree that perhaps sales of these games sould have been higher, but to somehow use them as a measuring stick for third-party success in Japan is laughable. Talk to me when a game of Metal Gear, or Final Fantasy status goes belly up on the Wii, then we'll have a great debate about how the machine is for exactly.

All I know is that all the high profile Wii third-party titles so far have performed very well in Japan, and around the world. Its the lower, or even lower-middle tier titles that everyone is basing thier assumptions on, and thats foollhardy.
 

Redd

Member
I just dont get it, no more heroes is a well made so called hardcore game that's on the Wii and it sells like shit. Suda must have felt like an idiot standing there with all those unsold games. Like I said I hope it sells well in the US and Europe because NMH deserves better.
 

Mushashi

Member
felipeko said:
I remember some exec saying that just one PS360 game bombing could sink the company miserably. And if they ignore Wii that will happen to some. Of course there's some that can afford to ignore, but very few.

Depends how much companies spend on development for games on the 3 systems, Koei stated fairly recently that HD development was not as expensive as assumed. A financial failure on Wii is still financial failure, Wii is not some guarantee of profit for 3rd parties.
 
sphinx said:
hey, don't mock me. It was a serious question.

If you can't or won't asnwer it is fine, just don't act like an idiot.
It's been more or less answered.

There's a very small market for games emblazoned with the Suda 51 logo. Their games have seen limited success on whatever platform they've released on. What about No More Heroes was going to change that? Would I have liked to seen it sell a lot more? Yeah, that would have been cool, but don't act like it was a certainty seller.

The one that should have been a seller was Chocobo Dungeon. If you're going to say this about any game, Chocobo is it. Tell him ethel.
 
moku said:
All I know is that all the high profile Wii third-party titles so far have performed very well in Japan, and around the world.

Madden didn't perform well. No game is higher-profile than that.

I see your point, but you paint too rosy of a picture. Obviously, 3rd party games CAN sell just fine, or even great on the Wii. But they can also bomb or under-perform, and not just the little guys.

Nintendo should shoulder some of the blame, both for the low sales and the perception of universally low 3rd-party sales. They're not providing some of the opportunities that the competition is to 3rd parties. Namely, the Wii has no demos of any sort, whether that's downloadable or in magazine w/disc form (something the competition's been doing for a decade). And it has no previews through the console, either. I think it's a shame Nintendo's not doing this (yet), because it's the perfect way to reach the supposedly uninformed Wii consumer base.
 

Mushashi

Member
moku said:
It is not Nintendo's fault that third-party companies got caught holding the bag on multi-million dollar games in the pipe for the PS3. Everyone knows the saying about making assumptions, and now that they have, for the most part fucked up, you want Nintendo to bail them out by paying for part of a games development when Nintendo holds ALL the cards in every market in both the handheld, and home console areana?

That may apply to the Japanese market alone, but in the west, other developers can still feasibly ignore Nintendo hardware and make good profits ;)

As observers of the JPN market have been noting for a while, it was slowly contracting before the success of the DS/Wii, wether the DS/Wii will save JPN 3rd parties isn't completely clear imo.
 

sphinx

the piano man
Thunder Monkey said:
It's been more or less answered.

There's a very small market for games emblazoned with the Suda 51 logo. Their games have seen limited success on whatever platform they've released on. What about No More Heroes was going to change that? Would I have liked to seen it sell a lot more? Yeah, that would have been cool, but don't act like it was a certainty seller.

The one that should have been a seller was Chocobo Dungeon. If you're going to say this about any game, Chocobo is it. Tell him ethel.

So basically, pantherlotus' point about 3rd parties "doing their own thing" applies only when 3rd party games sell??. :lol :lol

.- new, attractive original IP
.- non-typical nintendo material
.- coverage in magazines ( it was covered) and with a website regularly updated.
.- Non-crap content, not a PS2 port either.
.- Mature, hardcore oriented material.

and all that was in vain because " Suda 51 "? :lol :lol :lol

is that yours and Panther's reasoning??
 

KINGMOKU

Member
Leondexter said:
Madden didn't perform well. No game is higher-profile than that.

I see your point, but you paint too rosy of a picture. Obviously, 3rd party games CAN sell just fine, or even great on the Wii. But they can also bomb or under-perform, and not just the little guys.

Nintendo should shoulder some of the blame, both for the low sales and the perception of universally low 3rd-party sales. They're not providing some of the opportunities that the competition is to 3rd parties. Namely, the Wii has no demos of any sort, whether that's downloadable or in magazine w/disc form (something the competition's been doing for a decade). And it has no previews through the console, either. I think it's a shame Nintendo's not doing this (yet), because it's the perfect way to reach the supposedly uninformed Wii consumer base.
Maybe I am mistaken but didnt Madden on the Wii perform better then any of its Gamecube counterparts?

Sales-agers? Or am I thinking of Tiger woods?
 

Jiggy

Member
PantherLotus said:
Has anybody even mentioned that it might possibly be the audience that these 3rd party efforts are being marketed towards?

Opoona
Dewey
Treasure Island Z
We Love Golf
NiGHTS 2
Mario & Sonic
etc

To the point, though...anybody notice how bright and colorful and mario-like these titles are? I made a post a long time ago that said exactly the same thing: for 3rd parties to succeed on the Wii, THEY MUST DO THEIR OWN THING, not replicate what Nintendo is doing. I love blue skies and cute characters but it ain't workin for the 3rd parties at all.
Pretty much. Perhaps the blue ocean within the blue ocean is the red ocean by any other standard, if that makes sense.
 

KINGMOKU

Member
norinrad21 said:
The 3rd party support has been down right insulting.

opoona
Dewey
???
??/ gtfo :lol
Thats what I've been saying. I would be the first to state how much trouble the Wii was in regarding third-party sales if had say, Resident Evil bombed(Both games are performing great) or had some big-time third-party megaton bombed.


How big would any of those games be on the 360? They wouldnt even register on the radar, thats how awesome the third-party portfolio is on the 360.

Comparing/contrasting the two is insane right now.
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
sphinx said:
hey, don't mock me. It was a serious question.

If you can't or won't asnwer it is fine, just don't act like an idiot.

I assumed you were the one making a mockery of the subject--using one title as proof that my assertion is false, or asking how its lack of success is related, is an admittance that one has little knowledge of which they are talking.

If you read my post about the general marketing strategy/character design/overall feel of the majority of 3rd party games in Japan for the Wii, and then feel the need to ask why NMH didn't sell, then I most certainly am not the one acting like an idiot. That, to be sure, would be your post.
 
moku said:
Thats what I've been saying. I would be the first to state how much trouble the Wii was in regarding third-party sales if had say, Resident Evil bombed(Both games are performing great) or had some big-time third-party megaton bombed.


How big would any of those games be on the 360? They wouldnt even register on the radar, thats how awesome the third-party portfolio is on the 360.

Comparing/contrasting the two is insane right now.
Exactly.
 
sphinx said:
So basically, pantherlotus' point about 3rd parties "doing their own thing" applies only when 3rd party games sell??. :lol :lol

.- new, attractive original IP
.- non-typical nintendo material
.- coverage in magazines ( it was covered) and with a website regularly updated.
.- Non-crap content, not a PS2 port either.
.- Mature, hardcore oriented material.
He never said those things guaranteed success, but that they minimized chances the games would be run over by a Nintendo-published train.
and all that was in vain because " Suda 51 "? :lol :lol :lol

is that yours and Panther's reasoning??
Given that the title basically followed those suggestions, it performed as well as its closest equivalents did on PS2.
moku said:
Maybe I am mistaken but didnt Madden on the Wii perform better then any of its Gamecube counterparts?
I believe so, but that's not saying much. Wii Madden 2008 performed decently for a game in general, but was on the low side for a Madden in general.
 
sphinx said:
So basically, pantherlotus' point about 3rd parties "doing their own thing" applies only when 3rd party games sell??. :lol :lol

.- new, attractive original IP
.- non-typical nintendo material
.- coverage in magazines ( it was covered) and with a website regularly updated.
.- Non-crap content, not a PS2 port either.
.- Mature, hardcore oriented material.

and all that was in vain because " Suda 51 "? :lol :lol :lol

is that yours and Panther's reasoning??
My reasoning can be summed up in my fathers favorite parable "You can't teach a prostitute to be a princess."

Suda's games always bomb. Regardless of what platform they are on. They either aren't marketed well, or their content doesn't appeal as well as it should.

NMH is already at the top of their first week sellers. The game will either pick up with word of mouth, or fade off into obscurity.

Given their history, would you be willing to say releasing anywhere else would have made much of a difference?
 
moku said:
Maybe I am mistaken but didnt Madden on the Wii perform better then any of its Gamecube counterparts?

Sales-agers? Or am I thinking of Tiger woods?


I'm not sure about Madden, but I doubt it. Madden on the Cube usually put up somewhat respectable numbers. Not in comparison to the PS2 or even Xbox, but much better than most 3rd party games. Tiger Woods, though, sure, it's done very well on the Wii.
 
PantherLotus said:
My point is that coming up with ONE expectedly-bad selling game as an example to refute my point is just bad form. Try again.
He really should be bringing up Chocobo.

That series always performed well enough, but that Wii game just died. That's a scarier prospect then NMH sputtering before leaving the gate.
 
Thunder Monkey said:
He really should be bringing up Chocobo.

That series always performed well enough, but that Wii game just died. That's a scarier prospect then NMH sputtering before leaving the gate.
It performed well a decade ago, selling to a large userbase of FF fans drawn to the system by Final Fantasy VII and waiting for the release of Final Fantasy VIII. Even still, the second Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon sold hundreds of thousands fewer than the first. The landscape is very different now, with Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon Wii being the first FF-related game on a system, from a sub-series in hibernation for 9 years. Though I expected more than that for its first week, too.

A different Chocobo series was also Square's first GBA game back in 2002, but it seems to have failed to chart.
 

Busaiku

Member
Would the Chocobo game on the DS not be a more apt comparison? Or are the similarities too loosely related to draw a proper line between them (haven't played either)?
I remember the DS one failed in its first week, with something like 30k out of a 110k (or 120k) shipment (though I'm not completely sure on the shipment numbers, may have been less). The Wii game had a 100k shipment its first day, with 30% sell-through that day as well.
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
Thunder Monkey said:
He really should be bringing up Chocobo.

That series always performed well enough, but that Wii game just died. That's a scarier prospect then NMH sputtering before leaving the gate.

Chocobo.jpg


really? I'm not sure this passes the "would this look out of place in a NINTENDO game?" test.


How is this different? Just because its a Square Enix game? We all know what it is, and IT IS WHAT WE THOUGHT IT WAS. C'mon people.
 

Xeke

Banned
Kurosaki Ichigo said:
I doubt any 3rd party Wii title made it to top30 this week, but there are a few positions (16, 23, 24, 27) without names yet. I doubt Chocobo is in there, because 27 has to be over 24k.

Anyway, another 3rd party title bombed (Pawapro 14 Final) so its not like you have to look at other week titles.

If you do its even worse, but hey, I'm sure a few people here will spin this into:

- they don't sell because they were undershipped
- they don't sell because they are crappy
- PSP doesn't sell games
- they don't sell because they sell very little every week but they are doing good
- they don't sell because they are not epic enough

Oh, and of course, when we get a yearly list, they will say, look, it did awesome, we didn't see this title cross 10k and now its at 40k!!!! Because, by then, I'm sure they won't remember first shipment numbers.

So Mario & Sonic is first part I guess...
 

Grecco

Member
Mario Bombed! lawl Non gamers on the Wii, reap what you sow blablabla


Now Galaxy is selling oh well Third Party games arent selling. Chocobo was supposed to sell a million units. So was Nights! Doom and Gloom!


Jesus christ make up your mind
 

Deku

Banned
Thunder Monkey said:
My reasoning can be summed up in my fathers favorite parable "You can't teach a prostitute to be a princess."

Suda's games always bomb. Regardless of what platform they are on. They either aren't marketed well, or their content doesn't appeal as well as it should.

NMH is already at the top of their first week sellers. The game will either pick up with word of mouth, or fade off into obscurity.

Given their history, would you be willing to say releasing anywhere else would have made much of a difference?

I think you're rationalizing a failure after the fact. I could hardly find a poster who said outright the game would 'bomb' before it was released though many people seem resigned to it.
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
Deku said:
I think you're rationalizing a failure after the fact. I could hardly find a poster who said outright the game would 'bomb' before it was released though many people seem resigned to it.

Honestly though, it IS much easier to determine mistakes after they're made.
 

felipeko

Member
Thunder Monkey said:
He really should be bringing up Chocobo.

That series always performed well enough, but that Wii game just died. That's a scarier prospect then NMH sputtering before leaving the gate.
If you go by one or a few games, then a scarier prospect is to look what will happen with any game on (non-DS) consoles.

I mean, no franchise will perform better on X360/PS3 than it performed on PS2. That's for sure.

So why people are so picky on Wii?
At least the cost didn't skyrocket.
 

Deku

Banned
felipeko said:
If you go by one or a few games, then a scarier prospect is to look what will happen with any game on (non-DS) consoles.

I mean, no franchise will perform better on X360/PS3 than it performed on PS2. That's for sure.

So why people are so picky on Wii?
At least the cost didn't skyrocket.


I don't think its unfair to measure it by a higher standard considering so many of you presume it heir apparent as king of the console industry, and certainly global sales trend this month and next probably will only solidify that.

The fact that PS3 and 360 charted even less games is not an excuse for the kind of performance we've seen on several Wii titles, that said however, I think there's certainly some very nasty double standard going on.

People laughed at the Wii getting a chocobo game instead of a full blown S-E RPG or something of a more serious nature yet all that seems forgotten now that the focus is on its sales.

Secondly a lot of games were held up in a vacuum. Nights isn't an AAA game, yet people presume it is and act like this is 1998 when Nights (might) have been fresh in the minds of the public. It's been 11 years! Get a grip! The mediocre sales on the Saturn mostly by default isn't going to translate into a large pent up demand for it, yet I visit the Nights threads and the hardcore can't see past their own feet when they talk about this title. This is like a Nintendo fanboy saying Kid Icarus is going to sell a million units right out of the gate. The franchise is long dormat and forgotten even by the many hardcores who came up during the later 16-bit and PlayStation generations.
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
Uh...the expectations for the Wii are high because it still seems the heir apparent to the PS2 throne -- nobody will believe the DS really is it. And personally, I still don't.
 

Xeke

Banned
PantherLotus said:
Uh...the expectations for the Wii are high because it still seems the heir apparent to the PS2 throne -- nobody will believe the DS really is it. And personally, I still don't.

Well when I see a mainline FF, GTA or MGS on the Wii I'll give it the position of the heir but how can people hold it to higher standards when it isn't seeing any of the same games...
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
Xeke said:
Well when I see a mainline FF, GTA or MGS on the Wii I'll give it the position of the heir but how can people hold it to higher standards when it isn't seeing any of the same games...

bingo.
 

felipeko

Member
Grecco said:
Because its going to win this gen. People pick on winners.
Yeah, i get that. But, things like this (franchises falling) just happen. SFC had million sellers like Chrono, Dragon Ball and Street Fighter that didn't hit 1 million on PS1 or PS2. So the problem is not a Wii thing...
Xeke said:
Well when I see a mainline FF, GTA or MGS on the Wii I'll give it the position of the heir but how can people hold it to higher standards when it isn't seeing any of the same games...
I never saw an Mario, Zelda or Donkey Kong on PS1/PS2, and people still called them king.
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
felipeko said:
Yeah, i get that. But, things like this (franchises falling) just happen. SFC had million sellers like Chrono, Dragon Ball and Street Fighter that didn't hit 1 million on PS1 or PS2. So the problem is not a Wii thing...

I never saw an Mario, Zelda or Donkey Kong on PS1/PS2, still people still called them king.

dude are you fucking retarded?
 

Xeke

Banned
felipeko said:
I never saw an Mario, Zelda or Donkey Kong on PS1/PS2, and people still called them king.

Wow.

Put FFXIII on the Wii and if it somehow doesn't sell come back to me, but don't bitch and complain when no name games and half-assed spin-offs don't sell well. Chocobo would have sold much better if the FF fans had some reason to buy the system.

People are going to bitch about crappy Wii 3rd parties sales and they'll bitch if the games that we know will sell well end up on the Wii. How can it win?
 
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