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[AlphaSnake]

My God. Sony needs to use this momentum and drop the price just a tad on the PSP and it'll surely begin selling side-by-side and perhaps even outsell the DS here and there. Seriously, for a unit with mediocre software performance, this thing is selling absurdly well in Japan.

 

[Stumpokapow]

The point of me bringing it up is that taking a a genre that Japan didn't like, on a launch system with a small userbase, published by a pub that does poorly in Japan, wasn't really that great, etc, etc, etc would only have netted terrible sales to begin with. So yelling `See! Red Steel bombed in Japan!`` says nothing.

Well, you'll notice I only first mentioned Red Steel in reply to a poster saying "Red Steel did well". Which it didn't.

I`m not saying 3rd party devs should look at the Wii and ignore the bombs that have occurred on the system, but saying `Wow, Chocobo bombed, ok, Pull support!`` is ridiculous long term. It`s just like I wouldn't advocate all developers completely pulling out on the PS3 in Japan. Yeah it`s not market leader and yeah high profile titles bomb on the system, but if you have a title that works on the system from a development and sales standpoint, why not go for it? The DS can`t house EVERY title.

I've never claimed that and I don't think that. I don't agree with (for example) ethelred on this issue. I believe if the poor trend continues, this may eventually be a reality, but I don't yet believe that the bombs amassed are a huge indicator.

how about comparing them to PS1 titles in its first year?

Don't have access to the data to do this, although I did post examples of B/C calibre XBOX360/first year DS/GCN titles a page or two back to show that 10k is bad, no matter what the platform.

From now on I will try to be more balanced then.

Like I said, if I came out as insulting rather than simply critical, I apologize and it's largely due to the fact that I'm replying to ten people at once. My tone was intended to be critical without being rude or insulting. So while, yeah, trying to be more balanced would be a good thing, I didn't mean to be harsh.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

Well, you'll notice I only first mentioned Red Steel in reply to a poster saying "Red Steel did well". Which it didn't.

And I`m saying It did. It did a million worldwide at least. how is that bad? Because of 45K in Japan?

 

[jarrod]

Chocobo is more in the "disappointing / Children of Mana" category than the "megabomba / Heroes of Mana" category. The sentence that due to an ambiguous clause included Chocobo with Soul Calibur Legends is incorrect. I meant to list five titles that were disappointing relative to their statures, with Soul Calibur Legends as an example of an exceptionally poor showing, but it ends up reading like a list of five titles that are exceptionally poor.

Well, I'd certainly categorize Chocobo as disspointing... but it's not a "bomb" per se. At least not nearly on level with the other 4 notables (Z+W, Golf, NiGHTS, SCL).

But again, I'd say there's no real pattern here. For every bomb we've got on Wii, there's other games that sold moderately well (Powapuro, Biohazard, DQ Swords, etc). Which again, seems to be how it went on DS, PS2 and just about every major JP games platform...

 

[Stumpokapow]

I'm all for that but blaming the Wii userbase for not buying those under performing games is against my logic because of how big the userbase has become. I think third parties are the one to blame for not giving the public what they want.

I think it's a mix.

Third parties are to blame for low quality, I absolutely agree. Nintendo is also to blame for fostering a climate where sales are cool/casual enough and tie ratios are low enough that B/C level titles are getting F level sales. (I don't want to drag the US in here, but the US tie ratio versus the PS3 tie ratio is an example. On the PS3, B/C level titles are doing B/C level sales. AAA titles are doing B/C level sales. On the Wii, AAA titles are doing A level sales, but B/C level titles are doing F level sales--again, don't want to derail too much into the US)

And I`m saying It did. It did a million worldwide at least. how is that bad? Because of 45K in Japan?

Poster 1: Want examples of games that did well in Japan? Red Steel, ... (others)
Stumpokapow: Red Steel did poorly in Japan
DeaconKnowledge: There are reasons for that.
Stumpokapow: Yeah, there are. But it still did poorly in Japan.
DeaconKnowledge: It did well worldwide.

I know it did well worldwide. I never said it did poorly. I only mentioned it in response to another poster claiming that the Japanese market was rewarding high-effort titles (which he described Red Steel as) with high sales. Japan did not reward Red Steel with high sales.

I only mentioned it to refute that first post, not to make any independent claim of my own.

 

[Innotech]

I'll see your 'effort' and raise you a 'We Love Golf', "Chocobo Mysterious Dungeon', and "NiGHTS'.



It was a joke, as my smiley indicated. The truth is - I don't know. And I don't care. I care that those games aren't selling. That's all.

NiGHTs is a VERY niche game, and We love Golf is competing in a very crowded market of several previous golf games. As for Chocobo dungeon, was that sufficiently advertised? Do people even know it was released?

 

[ziran]

I don't think B and C tier projects bombing on Wii really is the problem for 3rd parties in Japan, because I doubt they expected them to sell well. As is plainly obvious now, the biggest problem they face is the massive failure of PS3 to sell anything like respectable numbers over the key buying season, or sell decently for the year, and none of its sw sold well. With such increased dev costs, this is something they must be shitting themselves about, because PS3 sw really isn't selling well anywhere.

When you bank on a system like PS3 being your main money earner, and reality unfolds the way it has, you're going to be in massive trouble. 3rd parties' problems are entirely from banking on the wrong horse. The titles which can realistically be considered close to major on Wii, i.e. DQS, REUC and RE4Wii, have performed well. Had these bombed, then yes, there would be a clear inability for 3rd parties to sell sw on Wii, but they didn't so there is no specific Nintendo bias conspiracy amongst the mass market. It's up to 3rd parties to find out what consumers want from them in this new market in Japan, not Nintendo's responsibility at all, because there is no concrete definition of what constitutes a hit. Nintendo has been experimenting and found a winning formula, for them, but what that is cannot be packaged in a way to be handed to 3rd parties to say, 'here, do this'.

3rd parties have to find their own way on Wii, as they have on DS, and Nintendo is obviously working on getting as many top level games from them as possible, but it's going to take time. MH3 will only be the beginning, even Wada from Square-Enix has now realised what Wii has become. Over this next year announcements will be coming, but again, it's not Nintendo's responsibility to have those games sell, because they're busy enough as it is, it's entirely upon the shoulders of the 3rd parties. The market has changed at the hands of consumers wanting the change, not a specific developer.

Home console gaming can be huge in Japan, but it's up to each 3rd party to find out what they can use from their own strengths to create big sw sales, not by attempting to copy verbatim what Nintendo is doing, because if they do this they will probably fail.

 

[PantherLotus]

how about comparing them to PS1 titles in its first year?

you know, NOT the greatest selling console of all time.

 

[Pureauthor]

NiGHTs is a VERY niche game, and We love Golf is competing in a very crowded market of several previous golf games. As for Chocobo dungeon, was that sufficiently advertised? Do people even know it was released?

Wanna check what NiGHTS 1 sold in Japan? Go on, guess.

Anyway, reasons for why a game sells bad doesn't change the fact that it sold bad.

you know, NOT the greatest selling console of all time.

Something the Wii is apparently on track to become. Woohoo.

Amyway, stump already told you - he doesn't have the data for that.

 

[Kurosaki Ichigo]

you know, NOT the greatest selling console of all time.

Wii is actually the greatest selling console of all time first year.

Its not fair FOR PS2 to be compared with it. Let alone PS1.

 

[Innotech]

And I`m saying It did. It did a million worldwide at least. how is that bad? Because of 45K in Japan?

Halo 3 is a failure confirmed.

 

[PantherLotus]

Wii is actually the greatest selling console of all time first year.

Its not fair FOR PS2 to be compared with it. Let alone PS1.

that's actually a decent point. except for the not fair part.

 

[Innotech]

Wanna check what NiGHTS 1 sold in Japan? Go on, guess.

Anyway, reasons for why a game sells bad doesn't change the fact that it sold bad.



Something the Wii is apparently on track to become. Woohoo.

Amyway, stump already told you - he doesn't have the data for that.

are you seriously comparing the handheld hungry Japanese current market with the more traditional console supporting one of a decade ago? Seriously?

 

[Pureauthor]

I don't think B and C tier projects bombing on Wii really is the problem for 3rd parties in Japan, because I doubt they expected them to sell well.

No, the shipment numbers clearly show they didn't expect the titles to perform well. The problem is that the titles performed even worse than their meagre expectations.

are you seriously comparing the handheld hungry Japanese current market with the more traditional console supporting one of a decade ago? Seriously?

With that logic, how am I supposed to claim any console game bombed?

Oh, it's okay, Japan shifted to handhelds. So obviously it wasn't going to perform massively.

That's lousy reasoning.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Well, I'd certainly categorize Chocobo as disspointing... but it's not a "bomb" per se. At least not nearly on level with the other 4 notables (Z+W, Golf, NiGHTS, SCL).

But again, I'd say there's no real pattern here. For every bomb we've got on Wii, there's other games that sold moderately well (Powapuro, Biohazard, DQ Swords, etc). Which again, seems to be how it went on DS, PS2 and just about every major JP games platform...

I'd agree that the DS certainly exhibited these symptoms, but the PS2 I'll beg to disagree.

I really do believe that if you go through the first year titles, here's the conclusions you'll find
- Overall sales are similar.
- Wii sales are more concentrated in the top end. Wii top title beats PS2 top title no questions.
- The average 7/10 title was doing better on the PS2 than it is on the Wii.

The third is my whole point.

This whole conversation started when several posters jointly made the claim "If third parties want good sales, they should make good games and do good marketing." The problem is not that good games with good marketing are not getting good sales. They are.

Average games with average marketing are not getting average sales. They're getting poor sales. If Wii Love Golf, Nights, Zack and Wiki, Trauma Center, Soul Calibur Legends... were all 30-50k, I'd have no complaints. Not that that would make them successes, but I think they'd be historically doing alright.

I listed PS2, PSP, Xbox360, etc titles that I felt were hitting at their weight class. On the Wii, I'm not seeing that.

are you seriously comparing the handheld hungry Japanese current market with the more traditional console supporting one of a decade ago? Seriously?

I expect the people in last place to say "We're selling well relative to the fact that we're not selling well". I don't expect the people in first place to say that.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

Poster 1: Want examples of games that did well in Japan? Red Steel, ... (others)
Stumpokapow: Red Steel did poorly in Japan
DeaconKnowledge: There are reasons for that.
Stumpokapow: Yeah, there are. But it still did poorly in Japan.
DeaconKnowledge: It did well worldwide.

I know it did well worldwide. I never said it did poorly. I only mentioned it in response to another poster claiming that the Japanese market was rewarding high-effort titles (which he described Red Steel as) with high sales. Japan did not reward Red Steel with high sales.

I only mentioned it to refute that first post, not to make any independent claim of my own.

Fair enough. I was under the impression that the argument was the Red Steel did poorly period, not just in the Japanese bubble. (Though I would still argue that it did well considering the theme, setting, genre, and region)

 

[HK-47]

I wasn't really talking about small companies such as indie developers. I meant smaller guys like Taito (and they were bought by SE). Looking at the larger picture, the fact that Bioware was bought by EA and Activision took control of Blizzard within six months of each other should be pretty alarming.

Vivendi took control of Activision, not the other way around.

 

[Innotech]

No, the shipment numbers clearly show they didn't expect the titles to perform well. The problem is that the titles performed even worse than their meagre expectations.



With that logic, how am I supposed to claim any console game bombed?

Oh, it's okay, Japan shifted to handhelds. So obviously it wasn't going to perform massively.

That's lousy reasoning.

Well I guess the answer must be that Wii owners in Japan have better standards than Sony fans did *shrug*

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

Average games with average marketing are not getting average sales. They're getting poor sales. If Wii Love Golf, Nights, Zack and Wiki, Trauma Center, Soul Calibur Legends... were all 30-50k, I'd have no complaints. Not that that would make them successes, but I think they'd be historically doing alright.

I expect the people in last place to say "We're selling well relative to the fact that we're not selling well". I don't expect the people in first place to say that.

I don`t recall hearing of any campaign for Nights, TC or Z&W in Japan, and only a minimal one for We Love Golf. Source to dispute?

 

[birdchili]

given the market is way more split on wii than it was on the ps2 during the early years - expecting comparable game sales for comparable installed bases is rather optimistic. given that wii has targeted "teh casuals" from the outset, expecting fewer game sales per console sale seems obvious.

also - the whole third party thing is so very different compared to the ps2, where sony was hardly a force in the first year software-wise. you *have* to compete with nintendo. you'd have to compete with them if they were a third party. you've got a bunch of wii-owning gamecube/nintendo fans who are "loyal" to various series, but a bunch of the nintendo games are just flat out quality and people pick them over other games - for most buyers this has nothing to do with the games being from nintendo. the games are being judged. it doesn't help that most of the third party stuff currently available on wii probably started development in the past year or two.

as the installed base grows, the gamecube-fan-effect will diminish, and inevitably the owners will have more diverse tastes, allowing for more devs to be successful. expecting wii to be ps2 for software sales is nutty.

 

[gimz]

so when did the Wii become the new PS3 now?

"wait till the third parties AAA titles come out for the wii, and they will pick up the sales" :lol

Also Used Games are being sold in Large quantities. no one is buying new PSP games cause Nothing ins being released. Repeat USED GAMES. they do not show up on charts.

even they are buying used game, they are still not helping the game companies

actually, i thought it was illegal to buy used game in Japan? or was it something else?

 

[AnimeTheme]

so when did the Wii become the new PS3 now?

"wait till the third parties AAA titles come out for the wii, and they will pick up the sales" :lol

Well said
:lol :lol

 

[Stumpokapow]

I don`t recall hearing of any campaign for Nights, TC or Z&W in Japan, and only a minimal one for We Love Golf. Source to dispute?

No dispute. If they had marketing, they'd have done better.

Of course, there also wasn't a marketing campaign for Evergrace (135k 7 months), Fantavision (173k 9 months), Eternal Ring (77k 2 months), etc.


I want to bring up another issue--we may well learn in the Famitsu top 500 that these Wii games are creeping up off-charts. That might be the case. If that is the case, that's great. I really hope it is. We've seen it on individual games on other consoles, and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if I see it with some or all Wii software.

 

[Innotech]

ALso keep in mind when Ps2 was out in Japan its first year, there really wasnt anything else to compete with. dreamcast I guess but that was barely a factor. So where else did gamers have to go besides buying Ps2 games? thats basically all they had for a while until competition showed up.

 

[Stumpokapow]

ALso keep in mind when Ps2 was out in Japan its first year, there really wasnt anything else to compete with. dreamcast I guess but that was barely a factor. So where else did gamers have to go besides buying Ps2 games? thats basically all they had for a while until competition showed up.

There's nothing to compete with right now, dude.

Again, I expect the people in last place to spin, not the people in first place.

 

[Innotech]

No dispute. If they had marketing, they'd have done better.

Of course, there also wasn't a marketing campaign for Evergrace (135k 7 months), Fantavision (173k 9 months), Eternal Ring (77k 2 months), etc.


I want to bring up another issue--we may well learn in the Famitsu top 500 that these Wii games are creeping up off-charts. That might be the case. If that is the case, that's great. I really hope it is. We've seen it on individual games on other consoles, and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if I see it with some or all Wii software.

look at Mario and sonic olympics. 15k launch, almost 500k now. Nuff said.

 

[ziran]

No, the shipment numbers clearly show they didn't expect the titles to perform well. The problem is that the titles performed even worse than their meagre expectations.

The market has changed, what about this simple concept don't you people understand?

The games that bombed were clearly fated before they were released, on Wii and PS3. Doing what used to be, or half arsing something new, and expecting a big hit (relatively) just isn't happening in the home arena, consumers want something different, and who can honestly blame them after the way every developer (including Nintendo during the GC) has relied upon ad nauseum sequel after sequel, or yet another JRPG/action game/etc with minor differences from a previous franchise?

The funniest thing about this whole situation is Japanese developers brought the laughable sales of home console games (with a few exceptions on Wii) themselves. They only have themselves to blame for practically pushing consumers to the new stuff Nintendo has been doing.

 

[KINGMOKU]

I want to ask those having this argument in here a question,


Does it even matter that third-party games bomb on the Wii?

 

[Pureauthor]

The market has changed, what about this simple concept don't you people understand?

The games that bombed were clearly fated before they were released, on Wii and PS3. Doing what used to be, or half arsing something new, and expecting a big hit (relatively) just isn't happening in the home arena, consumers want something different, and who can honestly blame them after the way every developer (including Nintendo during the GC) has relied upon ad nauseum sequel after sequel, or yet another JRPG/action game/etc with minor differences from a previous franchise?

The funniest thing about this whole situation is Japanese developers brought the laughable sales of home console games (with a few exceptions on Wii) themselves. They only have themselves to blame for practically pushing consumers to the new stuff Nintendo has been doing.

The addition of people buying new sorts of games doesn't make the older gamers who bought the old sort of games disappeare, does it now?

 

[Stumpokapow]

look at Mario and sonic olympics. 15k launch, almost 500k now. Nuff said.

No, that's not a good example. That's an example of a game that STAYED on the charts. If it was 51st-100th every week since launch, it wouldn't be almost 500k now.

I want to ask those having this argument in here a question, Does it even matter that third-party games bomb on the Wii?

The Gamecube was awesome despite having no third party support. Of course, I think most of us feel that the Wii could be better than the Gamecube. I don't mean in terms of hardware sales, I mean in terms of library quality.

Also, I assume with this post you now no longer care about the eponymous train that was named after you?

 

[schuelma]

I want to ask those having this argument in here a question,


Does it even matter that third-party games bomb on the Wii?

It presumably matters to those Wii owners wanting quality 3rd party efforts, doesn't it?

 

[KINGMOKU]

It presumably matters to those Wii owners wanting quality 3rd party efforts, doesn't it?

Yes, but the third-party games have to hit the Wii sooner or later anyway. Unless of course PS3/360 sales in Japan will suffice.

 

[jarrod]

Wanna check what NiGHTS 1 sold in Japan? Go on, guess.

Using Saturn sales is pretty useless in a modern context... *nothing* that did well on Saturn comes close to what it used to sales wise (VF, Sega Rally, Grandia, Sakura Taisen, Capcom/SNK fighters, etc, etc).

I'd agree that the DS certainly exhibited these symptoms, but the PS2 I'll beg to disagree.

I really do believe that if you go through the first year titles, here's the conclusions you'll find
- Overall sales are similar.
- Wii sales are more concentrated in the top end. Wii top title beats PS2 top title no questions.
- The average 7/10 title was doing better on the PS2 than it is on the Wii.

The third is my whole point.

This whole conversation started when several posters jointly made the claim "If third parties want good sales, they should make good games and do good marketing." The problem is not that good games with good marketing are not getting good sales. They are.

Average games with average marketing are not getting average sales. They're getting poor sales. If Wii Love Golf, Nights, Zack and Wiki, Trauma Center, Soul Calibur Legends... were all 30-50k, I'd have no complaints. Not that that would make them successes, but I think they'd be historically doing alright.

I listed PS2, PSP, Xbox360, etc titles that I felt were hitting at their weight class. On the Wii, I'm not seeing that.

Then you're not looking hard enough, honestly. Again, not all the B/C grade games are tanking (DBZ Sparkling, Naruto GNT EX, One Piece, Powapuro, Taiko Festival, BHUC, Bleach, Elebits, etc). Hell, there's even shovelware that suppossedly outdoing what was expected (like Ghost Squad for example)... I think once things have calmed and we get more comprehensive figures, some of those "bombs" might have even crawled to more respectable figures.

And again, can i get that PS2 list of yours with 1st week figures.

That's the core problem here, there's no pattern.

 

[botticus]

It presumably matters to those Wii owners wanting quality 3rd party efforts, doesn't it?

Depends on how much stock Japanese developers and publishers put in Japanese sales versus worldwide.

And if those third parties are ever actually planning on releasing quality efforts.

 

[kurosawa]

given the market is way more split on wii than it was on the ps2 during the early years - expecting comparable game sales for comparable installed bases is rather optimistic. given that wii has targeted "teh casuals" from the outset, expecting fewer game sales per console sale seems obvious.

also - the whole third party thing is so very different compared to the ps2, where sony was hardly a force in the first year software-wise. you *have* to compete with nintendo. you'd have to compete with them if they were a third party. you've got a bunch of wii-owning gamecube/nintendo fans who are "loyal" to various series, but a bunch of the nintendo games are just flat out quality and people pick them over other games - for most buyers this has nothing to do with the games being from nintendo. the games are being judged. it doesn't help that most of the third party stuff currently available on wii probably started development in the past year or two.

as the installed base grows, the gamecube-fan-effect will diminish, and inevitably the owners will have more diverse tastes, allowing for more devs to be successful. expecting wii to be ps2 for software sales is nutty.

QFT.
And everyone knows a lot of japanese hardcore gamers are waiting for «that» game that will push them to buy a Wii, even if they intend to get a PS3 in the future or have one already. And «that» game isn't a DQ or RE spin-off. Those are just for testing the gamecube/casuals userbase.

 

[Innotech]

Depends on how much stock Japanese developers and publishers put in Japanese sales versus worldwide.

And if those third parties are ever actually planning on releasing quality efforts.

if Japanese devs keep churning out HD titles despite abysmal sales then theyll keep churning out Wii projects alongside. What Wii devs dont make in Japan they have a good chance of making up for worldwide.

 

[Shin Johnpv]

It's not a black/white situation. It's not "All AAA games should sell 1 million+, all other games deserve 0 copies". Yes, shitty games deserve to sell fewer copies than good games. Everyone gets this. What we don't get is why 6/10, 7/10, and 8/10 games are all selling fewer than 50,000 copies lifetime and people are responding to this with "SHOULD HAVE MADE A 9/10 GAME! SHOULD HAVE MADE A 10/10 GAME!"

Shinobi PS2. Released in 2002. Solid 6.5-7.5/10. 200k+ copies sold
Victorious Boxers PS2. Released in 2000. Based on a B-grade licence, 7.5/10 or so game. 300k+ copies sold.
Unlimited Saga PS2. 2002. Piece of shit. 440k copies sold.
Battle Stadium DON GCN. 76k
Doshin the Giant GCN. 118k
SIMPLE SERIES DS VOLUME 1: MAHJONG. 33k Released before the DS exploded, no dev time, no unique qualities at all, poor reviews, and not even that cheap. Still running laps around SCL. When Simple series is outselling you, you know you have a major problem.
QuickSpot DS. 117k.
Oneechanbara vorteX Xbox 360. 18k.
Bullet Width Xbox 360. 16k.
Comic Party Dreamcast. 77k
Derby Time PSP. 70k.
WTF PSP. 50k Basically a tenth rate WarioWare knockoff. No budget, no marketing.

The PS2 has 7 Pachi-Slot games that have broken 200k. These are categorically awful, and there are literally trillions of them on the market.

Yeah, if developers released nothing but AAAA titles with multi-million marketing budgets, they'd do well. They shouldn't have to. Even 6/10 and 7/10 games with no marketing deserve to sell better than 10k.

Furthermore, given that some of these games are only selling through 30% of their admittedly pathetic shipment numbers, we have cases of companies expecting their software to bomb, and having it bomb even harder than they expect. That's truly awful, when a company says "Well, this is going to tank" and it proceeds to tank harder than anyone could ever imagine.


I think what will happen is similar to the DS. It'll be a combination of 3rd parties producing higher quality games and the market starting to buy more games, even the 6/10 and 7/10 ones.

Except from my understanding SCL wasn't even a 6/10 title, it was more like a 3 or 4/10 title. Also any game, even if its AAA needs marketing, you just can't sell a game with out marketing, ok you can but the ones that can are very few. Sometimes though stuff just doesn't sell. Look at Okami on the PS2, there is a 9/10 game that completely and totally bombed on the PS2. Should Capcom have given up all PS2 development? Should we be preaching 3rd Party sales on the PS2 suck? No because at the time we had quite a few other examples of games that did well from 3rd parties. Right now in the Wiis life, we have what maybe 10 - 15 real efforts total to base this on, I just don't think we've seen enough real solid efforts from 3rd parties to sit there and say, 3rd parties can't sell on the Wii. I would also say that if you put SCL on any other system it would have bombed just as badly. I've seen no marketing for it, its gotten terrible reviews, and you have a "real" SC game being hyped like crazy right now. I would imagine a shit load of SC fans are going fuck it I'll just wait for the "real" SC game.

You are right nothing is black and white, but theres also the fact that nothing exists in a vacuum. What we should be doing and what Namco should be doing is looking at SCL and saying "So why did this bomb?" we should not be jumping to the answer of "Well all 3rd parties bomb on Wii, there was nothing we could have done to stop this from happening." Because if we look at it honestly, there are quite a few reasons here why SCL bombed and would have bombed on any system.

 

[Scrubking]

there's even shovelware that suppossedly outdoing what was expected (like Ghost Squad for example)...

No. Ghost Squad is not shovelware.

 

[AdmiralViscen]

butt

 

[Shin Johnpv]

The answer: Who cares? They're not selling, that's the whole problem.

Ok and the reason you should care is because finding a solution to the problem would involve finding out why they aren't selling beyond, "3rd parties don't sell on Wii".

 

[iidesuyo]

Yes, but the third-party games have to hit the Wii sooner or later anyway. Unless of course PS3/360 sales in Japan will suffice.

Why should Third Parties just care for Japan. They can as well make lots of money in the west. Games like Lost Planet were aimed clearly at the western market, and for Capcom this strategy is a huge win.

 

[Pureauthor]

Ok and the reason you should care is because finding a solution to the problem would involve finding out why they aren't selling beyond, "3rd parties don't sell on Wii".

Finding a solution isn't my job or interest. That's Nintendo/3rd party's job, and it's apparently in the diehard Nintendo fan's interest.

*shrug*

 

[ccbfan]

I wonder if some of you guys understand that the second you start bringing in "Worldwide" sales for Wii 3rd party you open the gigantic can of worms known as the "Xbox 360 eat everything for breakfast in third party sales WW".


Seriously I love how people mention WW 3rd party sales for the Wii yet continuing saying Wii is the only choice because of how much the 360 and PS3 suck in Japan.

Either you stay with Japanese sales or you realize the PS2 isn't the only console breathing right now and start bringing 360 WW third party numbers into the fray.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

I want to bring up another issue--we may well learn in the Famitsu top 500 that these Wii games are creeping up off-charts. That might be the case. If that is the case, that's great. I really hope it is. We've seen it on individual games on other consoles, and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if I see it with some or all Wii software.

We know this happened for Mario and Sonic (which I totally called). I was hoping the same thing would happen with We Love Golf to no avail though.

 

[Pureauthor]

We know this happened for Mario and Sonic (which I totally called). I was hoping the same thing would happen with We Love Golf to no avail though.

Stump already stated the difference in Mario and Sonic as he saw it.

 

[Shin Johnpv]

A-Train - 38k
SSX - 35k
Bloody Roar 3 - 50k
Gungriffon Blaze - 50k
Eikan wa Kimi ni: Kasshien e no Michi - 35k

How come these represent good PS2 3rd party sales in its 1st year but...

Red Steel:

Spoiler

forty-five thousand

Which is in the same range doesn't?

 

[Pureauthor]

How come these represent good PS2 3rd party sales in its 1st year but...



Which is in the same range doesn't?

Here's why:

Yeah, it's good considering that the game was culturally insensitive, a genre that Japan didn't like, on a launch system with a small userbase, published by a pub that does poorly in Japan, wasn't really that great, etc, etc, etc

There are two points to be made, though:
1) He held this up as an example of "good" sales, not "good, considering" sales.
2) "Good, considering" is the entire argument I've been making. Yes, you can rationalize EVERY SINGLE BOMB. Zack and Wiki? Niche. We Love Golf? Saturated genre, no marketing. Chocobo? Niche genre, series decline. Games would sell more if they were better. Games would sell more if there was less competition. Games would sell more if they were cheaper.

... but historically people haven't had to do all this.

I went through every first-year PS2 title on Josh's database. There were a few 10k-level bombs, but matching for the quality and profile for the game, the 10k-level bombs were all Simple series-style garbage. The B/C level titles were doing 35-70k. There were a number of 200k+ A-level titles.

I don't want to speak for why this isn't happening on the Wii, but it isn't. On an aggregate basis, Nintendo's success more than makes up for 3rd parties failures in the numbers game. The problem is that this could be very harmful going forward, because 3rd parties care about THEIR numbers, not aggregate numbers.

If you people want to engage in debates, please ensure you keep up to date with which arguments have been covered.

 

[botticus]

I wonder if some of you guys understand that the second you start bringing in "Worldwide" sales for Wii 3rd party you open the gigantic can of worms known as the "Xbox 360 eat everything for breakfast in third party sales WW".


Seriously I love how people mention WW 3rd party sales for the Wii yet continuing saying Wii is the only choice because of how much the 360 and PS3 suck in Japan.

Either you stay with Japanese sales or you realize the PS2 isn't the only console breathing right now and start bringing 360 WW third party numbers into the fray.

Has the 360 been receptive to Japanese games worldwide?

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

Except from my understanding SCL wasn't even a 6/10 title, it was more like a 3 or 4/10 title. Also any game, even if its AAA needs marketing, you just can't sell a game with out marketing, ok you can but the ones that can are very few. Sometimes though stuff just doesn't sell. Look at Okami on the PS2, there is a 9/10 game that completely and totally bombed on the PS2. Should Capcom have given up all PS2 development? Should we be preaching 3rd Party sales on the PS2 suck? No because at the time we had quite a few other examples of games that did well from 3rd parties. Right now in the Wiis life, we have what maybe 10 - 15 real efforts total to base this on, I just don't think we've seen enough real solid efforts from 3rd parties to sit there and say, 3rd parties can't sell on the Wii. I would also say that if you put SCL on any other system it would have bombed just as badly. I've seen no marketing for it, its gotten terrible reviews, and you have a "real" SC game being hyped like crazy right now. I would imagine a shit load of SC fans are going fuck it I'll just wait for the "real" SC game.

You are right nothing is black and white, but theres also the fact that nothing exists in a vacuum. What we should be doing and what Namco should be doing is looking at SCL and saying "So why did this bomb?" we should not be jumping to the answer of "Well all 3rd parties bomb on Wii, there was nothing we could have done to stop this from happening." Because if we look at it honestly, there are quite a few reasons here why SCL bombed and would have bombed on any system.

I pretty much agree with this.

 

[Xisiqomelir]

Frankly, you scare me. You're exactly the sort of person that I can see shooting a U.S. congressman at a Guyanese airport.

This is wild because I was reading about the People's Temple yesterday.